Capital as power criticism begins with the theory's most provocative move: Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler argue that both neoclassical economics and Marxism rest on units that cannot be observed or measured—utility and abstract labor—and therefore cannot explain what capital actually is. Their 2009 book Capital as Power proposes instead that capital is a symbolic quantification of power, measured through capitalization. The critique that follows is not a rejection of the book's ambition but a set of specific objections: that it misreads Marx, that it collapses the state into capital, that its central concepts remain undefined, and that its replacement for the Labor Theory of Value creates as many problems as it solves.
Understanding these objections requires taking the theory seriously on its own terms. Nitzan and Bichler do not offer a minor correction to political economy; they claim to perform a "ctrl-alt-del" on the discipline . Their target is the very idea that capital can be counted in universal units, whether utils or hours of socially necessary labor time. What they propose in its place—a power theory of value grounded in the capitalization of future earnings—has attracted a small but committed following and a steady stream of critical engagement. The criticisms below represent the most substantive challenges leveled against the framework by scholars who have engaged with it closely.
The Marxist Misreading Charge
Dialectics Dismissed
The most fundamental criticism of Capital as Power from the Marxist side is that its rejection of Marx rests on a misreading of dialectical method. Bue Rübner Hansen argues that Nitzan and Bichler's critique of Marxism pivots on an incomprehension of dialectical thinking, and that this absence in their reading of Marx is directly correlated with the limits of their own theory-building . The charge is not merely that they disagree with Marx but that they have not adequately grappled with what Marx was doing. When Nitzan and Bichler dismiss abstract labor as unobservable and therefore fictitious, Hansen contends, they are treating a dialectical category as if it were an empirical measurement problem.
This criticism cuts deeper than a dispute over interpretation. If the dialectical relationship between value and price, or between labor and capital, is precisely what makes Marxist analysis powerful, then dismissing abstract labor as a fiction misses the point of the theory entirely. Hansen's assessment is that Capital as Power simply inverts the vulgar economism it finds in Marxist theories, presenting a theory in which capital is financial rather than productive, symbolic rather than material . The result, on this view, is not a transcendence of one-sidedness but a mirror image of it. The Labor Theory of Value is discarded, but what replaces it reproduces the same failure to think contradiction and totality together.
Value Theory Vacuum
A related objection concerns what exactly fills the space left by the Labor Theory of Value. Nitzan and Bichler propose a power theory of value, but critics have questioned whether "power" functions as an explanation or merely a label. John H. Bradford, in a detailed review, argues that the authors do not adequately define their main concepts, including capital, capitalization, capitalism, and power . If power is the answer to the question of what capital is, then the analytical work must be done by a precise account of what power means and how it operates. Bradford's criticism suggests that this account is missing, leaving the theory vulnerable to the charge that it explains accumulation by naming it.
The concept of Capitalization is central to the alternative framework: capital is the present value of expected future earnings, discounted at a risk-adjusted rate. Nitzan and Bichler treat this as the observable manifestation of power, since the ability to generate and protect earnings reflects the organized power of dominant capital groups. But Bradford's point is that without a clearer specification of power itself, the capitalization formula becomes a tautology: whatever capitalists successfully capitalize is power, and power is whatever capitalists successfully capitalize. The theory's empirical richness—its extensive use of historical data on differential accumulation—does not resolve this conceptual circularity.
The Differential Accumulation Ambiguity
Differential Accumulation is the theory's key mechanism: capitalists do not seek absolute accumulation but to beat the average, to accumulate faster than their rivals. This is a genuinely insightful reframing, and it allows Nitzan and Bichler to analyze patterns of merger, stagflation, and globalization in ways that absolute measures cannot. Yet critics have noted that the concept remains under-theorized in its relationship to power. If differential accumulation is the goal, what determines which firms succeed in achieving it? The answer cannot simply be "power," since power is what differential accumulation is supposed to measure.
Jordan Brennan's review in the Canadian Journal of Political Science notes that Nitzan and Bichler's approach yields precise categories for understanding accumulation, but the theoretical status of those categories remains contested . The empirical work mapping differential accumulation in the United States over the previous century is impressive, yet the interpretive framework that accompanies it—the claim that these patterns demonstrate the power theory of value—requires assumptions that the data alone cannot vindicate. This is not a fatal objection, but it does mean that Capital as Power functions more as a research program than as a settled theory.
The Vanishing State Problem
Collapsing Politics into Capital
One of the most substantive criticisms concerns the theory's treatment of the state. Sean Starrs argues that in the capital as power framework, the state all but disappears into vague "corporate-government coalitions" and is replaced by a radically new concept of the "state" as a mode of power . Nitzan and Bichler explicitly repudiate the need for a theory of the state as distinct from capital, suggesting that conventional understandings of the state must be overcome. Starrs agrees with much of their critique of state theory but contends that this total repudiation is a critical mistake.
The issue is not merely taxonomic. If the state is simply a mode of power indistinguishable from capital, then the theory loses the ability to analyze conflicts between states and firms, or between different state apparatuses. The historical record is full of instances where state action— antitrust enforcement, labor legislation, financial regulation—has constrained or reshaped capitalist power in ways that cannot be reduced to the interests of dominant capital. Starrs suggests that a reconceptualization of state theory, rather than its abandonment, would make a significant contribution to the power theory of value . As it stands, the theory's strength—its insistence on the unity of political and economic power—becomes a weakness when that unity is assumed rather than demonstrated.
Untestable Integration
Bradford's review raises a related methodological problem: the elimination of the distinction between economics and politics renders any empirical test of the theory's ostensible integration impossible . If power is everywhere and everything is power, how would one falsify the claim that a particular outcome reflects the power of dominant capital? The theory's very breadth becomes an obstacle to empirical accountability. Nitzan and Bichler's extensive data work on differential accumulation patterns is not in question; what is in question is whether those patterns confirm the theory or are merely consistent with it.
This is a familiar problem for power-centric theories, and it is not unique to Capital as Power. But the theory's ambition—to replace both neoclassical and Marxist value theory with a single alternative—raises the stakes. A theory that claims to explain what capital is must be able to specify what would count as evidence against it. If every corporate merger, every inflation episode, every shift in the distribution of income can be read as an expression of differential accumulation and the power of dominant capital, then the theory risks becoming unfalsifiable. The criticism does not dismiss the insights the framework has generated; it asks whether those insights can be separated from the totalizing claim that accompanies them.
Sabotage and the Limits of Power
The Productivity Blind Spot
Nitzan and Bichler's concept of sabotage—the idea that capitalist firms restrict production and innovation to protect their earnings—is one of their most striking claims. It follows from their power theory: if capital is not productive capacity but organized power, then firms have no inherent interest in maximizing output. Bradford notes that the authors argue, contrary to neoclassical theory, that capital has nothing to do with productivity but instead represents power . The implication is that what appears as economic growth is often the result of strategic restriction rather than genuine expansion of productive capacity.
The sabotage thesis has intuitive appeal in cases like planned obsolescence or patent hoarding, but as a general theory of capitalist behavior it faces obvious counterexamples. The dramatic increases in computing power, medical technology, and agricultural yields over the past century are difficult to reconcile with a theory that treats productivity as epiphenomenal to power. Nitzan and Bichler might respond that these gains were themselves shaped by the pursuit of differential accumulation, but the response threatens to absorb every possible observation into the framework. The criticism is not that sabotage never happens but that treating it as the essence of capitalist behavior overcorrects for the productivity-focused blinders of mainstream economics.
Capitalization's Regress
The theory's alternative to the Labor Theory of Value is a capitalization theory: capital is the discounted present value of expected future earnings. This is a real advance over utility-based or labor-based accounts in one respect—it is directly observable in financial markets. But it raises its own regress problem. If capital is the capitalization of expected earnings, what determines those expectations? Nitzan and Bichler's answer is power, but the determination of expectations in financial markets is notoriously reflexive and unstable. The capitalization of a firm can change dramatically without any change in its underlying productive capacity or its power over competitors, simply because investor sentiment shifts.
This reflexivity is not a minor complication; it goes to the heart of the theory's claim to have identified a stable measure of capital. If capitalization is the measure, and capitalization is driven by expectations that are themselves shaped by power, then the theory requires a separate account of how power shapes expectations. Without that account, the theory risks circularity: power is what is capitalized, and what is capitalized is whatever markets expect to be powerful. The criticism does not invalidate the capitalization approach; it identifies a gap that the theory has not yet filled.
What the Criticism Reveals
A Necessary Provocation
The criticisms of Capital as Power do not add up to a dismissal. Even its sharpest critics acknowledge the importance of the questions it raises. Brennan notes that the release of this highly ambitious book is aptly timed, for as global political-economic crisis unfolds and existing theories come into question, a space is created in which new theoretical alternatives might be welcomed . The book's insistence that mainstream economics and Marxism share a common failure—the belief that capital can be measured in universal units—is a provocation that political economy needed. Whether or not one accepts the power theory of value, the question of what capital is cannot be answered by returning to business as usual.
The theory has also demonstrated its productivity as a research program. Tim Di Muzio and Matt Dow describe the capital as power approach as an insightful and important perspective that can be used to investigate a variety of political-economic problems, including wealth inequality and the power of finance . The empirical work on differential accumulation has generated findings that stand independently of the theoretical framework's more contested claims. A critic can reject the power theory of value while still learning from the historical patterns Nitzan and Bichler have documented.
Unresolved Tensions
What the criticism ultimately reveals is a theory with unresolved internal tensions. The rejection of the Labor Theory of Value is argued with force, but the replacement is under-specified. The insistence on the unity of politics and economics is illuminating, but it leaves no room for a theory of the state as a semi-autonomous actor. The concept of sabotage captures something real about capitalist behavior, but it cannot bear the weight of a general theory of accumulation. These are not minor defects to be corrected in a later edition; they are structural features of the framework as it currently exists.
None of this means that Capital as Power should be ignored. It means that the book is best read as what it is: a bold, imperfect, generative intervention in a field that had grown complacent about its foundational concepts. The criticisms assembled here—Hansen's charge of dialectical misreading, Bradford's methodological objections, Starrs's state theory critique—are not refutations. They are the terms on which the debate must proceed. A theory that claims to have answered the question of what capital is must be willing to have its answer tested, and the most useful criticism is the kind that takes the claim seriously enough to ask what it cannot explain.
The lasting contribution of Capital as Power may be less its specific conclusions than its demonstration that the question of capital remains open. After centuries of debate, political economy still cannot agree on what it is studying when it studies capital. Nitzan and Bichler force that disagreement into the open. Their critics, in turn, force them to specify what their alternative actually entails. The result is a debate that has not been resolved, but that has been clarified—and that is more than most works in political economy can claim.