This is a review of Commodity: The Global Commodity System in the 21st Century, by Photis Lysandrou, Routledge, 2019.
In 2014 Thomas Piketty‘s Capital in the Twenty-First Century became an unexpected best seller. Amongst other things it served to draw attention to the huge increase in economic inequality and suggested a ‘global wealth tax’ to address this. At 507 pages of main text this was a magnus opus of sustained (quasi-)Marxist analysis of contemporary capitalism.
Photis Lysandrou has produced a much slimmer volume – at only 79 pages of text (with two additional unnumbered appendices) which to some extent represents a riposte to Piketty. But his analysis deals more centrally with inequalities and again suggests a ‘global wealth tax’ in response. In reviewing Lysandrou’s book, the intention is not to compare the two. Rather I chart the analytical journey of the book – which has its own quasi-Marxist credentials – very much in its own terms.
