"True to his title, the veteran geographer and anthropologist Harvey offers an analysis of 17 'contradictions' he believes to be inherent in modern capitalism. [...] Harvey uses the term 'contradiction' to denote a pair of forces or phenomena whose coexistence, while not logically impossible, is sustained in practice only through tension or conflict. When they become sufficiently acute, such contradictions are what provide an impetus for the forces of progress to overcome capitalism and its inequities. His examples are interesting but unoriginal. The chapter on 'endless growth' – supposedly necessary for the survival of capitalism and incompatible with that of the planet – echoes the 'limits to growth' debate that raged in the 1970s. Harvey’s contradiction between the prices of goods and the social value of the labour going into producing them is older still, harking back to Marx’s (erroneous) labour theory of value. Conventionally trained neoclassical economists deal not in contradictions to be overcome but in trade-offs to be calibrated. Unlike Marxists, they assume that a social outcome can be found that perfectly balances any 'contradictory' considerations [...] The difference matters. Even if we can all agree that something has gone badly wrong with financial capitalism, we might reach very different political conclusions depending on whether the source of the problem is a fundamental contradiction in the Marxian sense or just a bungled trade-off. [...] Seventeen Contradictions also proves that, when it comes to convolution, Marxists are the equals of the neoclassical economists they castigate. If Harvey means to convert waverers to his cause, this book – too doctrinaire to enlighten and too opaque to arouse – is not the way to do it."

"David Harvey has three aims in Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (SCEC). First and mainly he wants to schematically analyze the contradictions of capital, the ‘economic engine’ driving the particular social formation capitalism. Second, he seeks to draw-out that analysis’s implications for anti-capitalist politics dedicated to creating a world substantially more democratic, egalitarian, and emancipatory than that which capital affords. Third, he aims to address what might cause the end of capitalism and, specifically, whether capital’s internal contradictions progressively undermine its conditions of existence. Although it doesn’t break substantial new theoretical ground, and nor is it without a few weaknesses of its own, Harvey largely accomplishes his main goal: to contribute to the ongoing debate on the nature of capital, the direction in which it is taking us, and what should be done about it. [...] On the whole, SCEC makes two important and broad contributions. Firstly and mainly it provides a strong and important schematic introduction to Marxist political economy by focusing on the contradictions of capital. Harvey wrote the book for a wide audience extending beyond the university and, as such, its clear prose and illustrative examples make it accessible to the non-expert. Equally important for any introduction is the quality of the guide. Although SCEC is not always up to date on the field’s current debates, it nevertheless strongly benefits from Harvey’s distinguished command of the scholarship. For those more familiar with Marxism and Harvey’s writings, the focused identification and elaboration of capital’s seventeen contradictions is still likely to provide insights by offering a conceptual map of capital’s contradictions and, perhaps, a different angle on familiar phenomenon [...] SCEC’s second main contribution is that it sketches some of the implications of its analysis for anti-capitalist movements. While undoubtedly brief, for which it has received some criticism, the lessons Harvey draws for left political praxis are valuable in developing a longer-term and broader-scale orientation. [...] Despite these strengths, criticisms can be made, and two stand out. First, the book’s main argument explicating capital’s contradictions would have benefited from, in places, clearer identification of the specific forces in a given contradiction and greater elaboration of why these force are necessarily in mutual conflict. [...] The second criticism pertains to Harvey’s treatment of the end of capitalism. While he is clear on his position – that capital’s contradictions do not guarantee capitalism’s end – his discussion doesn’t adequately address the existing literature on the subject."