"Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introduction" is a collection of essays seeking to establish, or perhaps re-establish, the Marxist paradigm as the only one which can explain and analyze the broad range of important economic, social, environmental etc. phenomena we see today. With each essay being written by someone of the very highest quality of Marxist scholarship, this collection succeeds completely in its purpose, and provides an invaluable guide for analysis for every Marxist thinker.

The book is divided into three parts: the first establishes the Marxist critique of political economy and explains why Marxism, and only Marxism, can adequately explain all the phenomena of capitalism as well as its past. The Marxist theory of value is explained and defended, the meaning of money, unions, labor markets, technological change and so forth are all discussed. Lapavitsas' essay on the role of money is particularly enlightening considering the somewhat difficult subject matter, and Lev Levidow's article on technological change in agriculture is very useful, dispelling a lot of mythology about the "Green Revolution" as well as technology in general.

The second part of the collection is about "global capitalism" or 'globalization'. This goes into the history and origins of capitalism, its impetus to spread across the globe and to 'capitalize' all prior relations, as well as the position of the developing world vis-á-vis capital. Particularly interesting here for people familiar with the general arguments on development economics is Elizabeth Dore's article on social relations in the Third World: she makes a good argument that a lot of socialist movements in and about the Third World in the past have tended to overstate the 'proletarianization' of those countries, and this leads to strategic errors when trying to make socialist policies (she uses the Sandinistas as example). There's also an article by Simon Clarke on the Soviet system, but it's rather vague and poorly argued, probably the weakest essay in the book.

The overcoming of capitalism and the possibility and nature of socialism is the subject of the third part. Lebowitz here summarizes the argument made in his excellent book "Beyond Capital" in a short essay, and Fred Moseley has a very interesting article on the falling rate of profit and its meaning for the US economy. Chattopadhyay and Holloway finish the work with strong essays showing the use of class struggle and the possibility of socialism.

What makes this collection all the more interesting is that all the essays are not only by world-class Marxist thinkers, but they are also all short and well-written, making reading it a breeze. This is probably why the book is called an introduction, even though not all essays are at introductory level. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in the state and possibilities of Marxism today.