Lecture series by Professor C. P. Chandrasekhar on ‘Karl Marx’s Capital & the Present’

The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) organised a series of four lectures by the eminent economist Prof. C.P. Chandrasekhar to commemorate 150 years of the publication of Volume I of Karl Marx’s seminal work, Capital at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

First Lecture (on 9 September 2017)

The first lecture, titled ‘Capital and the critique of bourgeois political economy’, was delivered on 9^th September 2017 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. In this lecture, Professor Chandrasekhar talks about Marx’s analysis of capitalism as an inevitably transient mode of production in a constant opposition to political economists of that period. He also discusses how his analysis did not fully examine the role of the state and the periphery as sites for primitive accumulation thus overestimating the transformative potential of capitalism.

Second Lecture (on 16 September 2017)

The second lecture, titled ‘Order and Anarchy in Capitalist Systems’, was delivered on 16^th September, 2017 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. In this, the professor talks about the various anarchic tendencies of capitalism, which culminate in a crisis due to overproduction at one pole and underconsumption at the other.

Third Lecture (on 23 September 2017)

The third lecture, titled ‘Revisiting Capital in the Age of Finance’, was delivered on 23^rd September, 2017 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. In this lecture, he talks about the phases that capitalism went through since its inception.

Fourth Lecture (on 30 September 2017)

The fourth lecture, titled ‘Karl Marx’s Capital & the Present’, was delivered on 30^th September, 2017 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. In this, the professor talks about contemporary insights that can be drawn from Das Kapital after 150 years of its publication.