Abstract
The results of living and working extra-terrestrially are not yet known but it is expected that because of the need to survive in the hostile environments of space that the economic and political structures of the settlements will be socialistic/collectivist in nature. A study of Marx’s theory of capital, therefore, should provide an understanding of the economic and political workings of the space settlements as they develop. This chapter outlines Marx’s ideas on production, on the money supply, on profit, on labour and on the origin of economic crises as they are detailed in his major work “Capital: Critique of Political Economy”. It then examines how these ideas relate to and may function in an extra-terrestrial society.
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Cain, J.R. (2015). The Marxist Theory of Capital as Applied to the Economic Development and Governance of Space Colonies. In: Cockell, C. (eds) Human Governance Beyond Earth. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18063-2_7
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