Antivalue, planning, and the critique of economic reason

a materialist critique of David Harvey’s understanding

Abstract

The review examines David Harvey’s “The Madness of Economic Reason: Marx and Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, highlighting the concept of antivalue as a key to understanding the contradictions of financialized capitalism. The author demonstrates that capital, in pursuing abstract valorization, destroys material wealth and subordinates production to the imperatives of financial accumulation, transforming urban space into a speculative asset. The analysis revisits examples such as the 2008 crisis and the Spanish real estate bubble, in which financialization generated unemployment, deindustrialization, and cities oriented toward investment rather than social life. The review argues, however, that applying the concept of antivalue to China is inadequate, since state planning, control over credit and land, and the centralization of investments inhibit the fictitious capital autonomy. The work is recognized for reaffirming the contemporary relevance of Marxian categories and explaining capitalist crises through their material determinations.