Capitalism’s survival has always depended on its genius for disguising corporate profit imperatives as opportunities for human advancement. But it was Karl Marx who discovered that behind the illusion of the “free” marketplace lies the workplace, where people are forced to work far beyond the time it takes to pay their wages. In this new collection, Samir Amin advances Marx’s theories- along with the work of radical economists such as Michal Kalecki, Josef Steindl, Paul Baran, and Paul Sweezy – and applies them to modern economic conditions.

Amin introduces the concept of “imperial rent,” derived from the radically unequal wages paid for the same labor done by people in the Global North and South. To understand this system of oligopolistic capitalism, in which finance capital dominates worldwide production and distribution, Amin develops Marx’s “law of value” in the form of a new “law of globalized value” that sustains the super-exploitation of workers in the Global South.

Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx’s Law of Value offers readers, in one volume, Amin’s complete works on Marxian value theory, including text from two recent books, Three Essays on Marx’s Value Theory and The Law of Worldwide Value, which have provoked considerable controversy. Here, Amin answers his critics with a series of letters, clarifying and developing his ideas. This work will become an indispensable resource for students of contemporary Marxian political economy.