PORTFOLIO SOCIETY

As financial markets expand and continue to refashion the world in their own image, the wealth of capitalist societies no longer presents itself as it did to Karl Marx in the nineteenth century, as a "monstrous collection of commodities." Instead, it appears as an equally monstrous collection of financial securities; in order to remain relevant, the critique of political economy must proceed accordingly. But what would it mean to write Capital in the twenty-first century?

Through a series of creative substitutions, Portfolio Society extends Marx's critical project in bold and unexpected ways. It asks if risk, rather than labor, should now be regarded as the true fount of economic value? If the credit
relation - at least in the global North - has replaced the wage relation as the key site of exploitation and political struggle? If precarity is the name of today's proletarian condition? And finally, what possible future do these developments actually portend, what analysis do they require?

Portfolio Society demystifies crucial dimensions of contemporary finance and considers the predicaments of societies whose futures are now shaped by volatile financial markets. Through this critique, Portfolio Society succeeds in revealing the potential limits of Capital while reveling still in its limitless potential.

Ivan Ascher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.