Those who control the world's commanding economic heights, buttressed by the theories ofmainstream economists, presume that capitalism is a self-contained and self-generating system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the accumulation of capital has always required the taking of land, raw materials, and bodies from noncapitalist modes of production. They begin with a thorough debunking of mainstream economics. Then, looking at the history of capitalism, from the beginnings of colonialism half a millennium ago totoday's neoliberal regimes, they discover that, over the long haul, capitalism, in order to exist, must metastasize itself in the practice of imperialism and the immiseration of countless people.

Specialized.