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Economy By J. K. Gibson Graham Essay

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Economy by J. K. Gibson-Graham This book is written by two Australian feminist economic geographers Katherine Gibson and late Julie Graham under the pen name J.K. Gibson-Graham. The author uses an array of theories from multiple school of thoughts (economics and non-economics) in social science to inform the readers about the capitalist and non-capitalist parts of the economy and ways it can be changed through discourse.
The goal of this book is to problematize capitalism as an economic and social descriptor and to create a new, diverse language to describe the economy (2). Capitalism has been understood and portrayed as a dominant form of the economy (4). It is seen as a major, if not the most important, force that determines the trajectory of history. This capital-centric understanding of the world is problematic since it often renders non-capitalist practices invisible and even eliminates the possibility of thinking alternative practices that are diverse and non-exploitative.
The first part of the book (Ch 1-4) is used to build up the theoretical foundation of the book. The author starts by critique the foundation of orthodox Marxism which is essentialist and deterministic (24). In other words, orthodox Marxism posits economics (or class) as the foci of social analysis. This marriage between economics and Marxism was a political movement that sought to rally people in the labor class (52). Yet, a divorce of the two is necessary for a more dynamic social analysis. To do

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