“Marx is widely considered an outmoded nineteenth-century thinker whose predictions have been falsified [...] Paul Mattick’s superb study, Theory as Critique: Essays on Capital, establishes that these endlessly recycled objections either are not substantiated in a close reading of Marx’s works or do not touch the heart of Marx’s position. Correcting previous interpretations, however, is not Mattick’s ultimate goal: ‘the main interest of this book is the attempt to bridge the gap between Marx’s ideas and their application to present-day circumstances’. Far from being an account of nineteenth-century capitalism made obsolete by more recent developments, Marx’s theory is ‘still explanatorily relevant to a social system that continues to have the basic features Marx identified’.”
—Tony Smith, H-Net Reviews

“As with his earlier works, Theory as Critique scrutinises the shortcomings of the economics profession. What sets Mattick’s more recent book apart, however, is not simply its textual probing of Marx’s critique of political economy, but the way it takes aim at a peculiar tendency within contemporary economics: what Mattick calls ‘Marxist economics’.”
—Jason E. Smith, Radical Philosophy

“What separates Mattick’s book from many others is that Mattick really is trying to guide the reader charitably through Marx’s work, developing Marx’s own theories, without ever feeling compelled to develop his own form of Mattick-ism [...] anyone interested even loosely in the topics here will not be wasting their time with this book.”
—Chris Byron, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books