Books in the Palgrave Insights into Apocalypse Economics series

As we tour the 400 year history of capitalism through its various phases of development, financial system instability is always there lurking in the shadows.

This Palgrave Pivot uses Marxian economic categories and analysis to explore the deeper causes of the 2008 global economic crisis, what the crisis represents for capitalism, and why fiscal and monetary policies pursued in its wake have failed to rejuvenate economies.With an innovative interpretation of the crisis and a focus on 'toxic capital' - a sub-division of Karl Marx's concept of fictitious capital - Tombazos examines the specificities of economic reproduction under neoliberalism and financialisation.

While changes at a local level are important and more feasible in our current world, ultimately changes at a global level may have greater long-term importance, and we need to greatly expand theorizations and mobilizations in this direction now.

This book analyzes the recent development paths pursued by progressivegovernments in Argentina and Brazil, namely deindustrialization andreprimarization, and the social and environmental consequences thereof. A keypart of understanding the trajectories in both Argentina and Brazil has been therole played by international institutions, especially the IMF and WTO, and also,the ever-growing hegemony of transnational corporations in the global economyand as a result, significantly limiting the possibilities of genuine development forlocal populations. Two major issues which extend beyond Latin America are: the expansion ofgenetically modified crops and agrotoxics and the concern for global food securityand sovereignty; second, how reprimarization, associated with mining, cattle, soyand petroleum, has been key in leading to the risk of desertification in theArgentine pampas and also causing deforestation in the Amazon Rain forest,described as the lungs of the planet, and thus has major implications for climatechange for the planet as a whole. In addition, this book engages with a number of theoretical issues: developmentand dependency in the periphery: neoliberal globalization, accumulation bydispossession, ecological and environmental debates and the role of extractivismand rent. This book is aimed for both academics, activists and those politicallymotivated to analyze, understand and push for social change from a criticalperspective, and also, those interested in a radical analysis of paths ofdevelopment, dependency and socioenvironmental issues in Latin America today.

This book supplies that deficiency, providing an ethical critique of performative representation as it is manifested in semiotics, linguistics, philosophy, poetics, theology and economics. and second, by locating efficacious representation in its historical context, thus connecting it to idolatry, magic, usury and similar performative signs.

The author explains that the neo-liberal concept of freedom has been a very useful tool in promoting the superiority of free-market capitalism over centrally planned economies aimed at achieving the common good.