Elmar Altvater ( Kamen,

Province of Westphalia The Province of Westphalia () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. In turn, Prussia was the largest component state of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, of the Weimar Republic and from 191 ...

, 24 August 1938 – 1 May 2018) was Professor of

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

at the

Otto-Suhr-Institut The Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft (''Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science'', also ''OSI'') is a prestigious research institute of the Free University of Berlin. It is the leading political science institution in Germany and on ...

of the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

, before retiring on 30 September 2004. He continued to work at the institute, and published articles and books. As a student, Altvater studied economics and sociology in Munich, and attained a doctorate with a dissertation on "Environmental Problems in the Soviet Union". At the Otto-Suhr-Institut, he was active in socialist research groups, working with among others Klaus Busch, Wolfgang Schoeller and Frank Seelow, and he gained fame as one of Germany's most important Marxist philosophers, who strongly influenced the political and economic theory of the 1968 generation of radicals. His analysis, centered on the logic of capital accumulation crisis in state interventions is key to the Marxist theory of state-derivationism. Altvater argues that the state performs four general maintenance functions particular capitalists cannot undertake: providing an initial legal system with property and contract law, regulating the class struggle between workers and owners of capital, enforcing terms of international trade and market expansion through military presence, and providing infrastructure. In 1970, he co-founded the German journal '' PROKLA - Journal for Critical Social Science''http://www.prokla.de/, the Publication, in German of which he remained an editor. In 1971 he became university professor in political economy at the Otto-Suhr-Institut. Apart from questions of development theory, the debt crisis, and the regulation of markets, he remains preoccupied with the effects of capitalist economies on the environment. Altvater was a noted critic of the

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

and author of numerous writings on

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

and critiques of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

. A standard work is his book ''The Limits of Globalization'' (1996), written with his companion Birgit Mahnkopf.http://d-nb.info/gnd/115428844, listings in the German National Library,

Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...

Altvater supported the

German Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 ...

for some time, but after the 1999 military intervention in Kosovo (which as a member of the governing coalition the party had to support) increasingly maintained a critical distance. He was a member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Comm ...

Commission of Inquiry ''The World Economy - Challenges and Answers (1999–2002)''. Altvater was a supporter of

ATTAC The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (''Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action'', ATTAC) is an activist organisation originally created to promote the e ...

(he was a member of its Scientific Advisory Board) and the World Social Forum. Altvater has coined the term "Capitalocene", which is used by environmentalists as an alternative to the Anthropocene.

Primary literature

* 1969: * 1969: * 1979: (with Jürgen Hoffmann and Willi Semmler) * 1983: (with Kurt Hübner and Michael Stanger) * 1987: * 1991: . (translated into English as ''The Future of the Market: An Essay on the Regulation of Money and Nature after the Collapse of 'Actually Existing Socialism (Verso). English * 1991: ''The Poverty of Nations: A Guide to the Debt Crisis-From Argentina to Zaire'', by Kurt Hubner (Author), Jochen Lorentzen (Author), Elmar Altvater (Author, Editor), Raul Rojas (Editor), (St. Martin's Press) * 1992: . Münster * 1994: * 1996: (with Birgit Mahnkopf) . * 1999: "Restructuring the space of democracy: the effects of capitalist globalization and the ecological crisis on the form and substance of democracy" in ''Global Ethics and Environment'', Editor Nicholas Low * 2002: (with Birgit Mahnkopf): . * 2005: . Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. * 2007 Elmar Altvater & Birgit Mahnkopf, . * 2008 Elmar Altvater & Achim Brunnengräber (eds.), . * 2010 Elmar Altvater, .

References

External links

Website dedicated to Elmar Altvater
* Altvater old homepage at the Free University Berli

* New homepage at the F

* Elmar Altvater (1972)
"Notes on Some Problems of State Interventionism"
* Overview of his life and work (in Germa

Birgit Mahnkopf: In memory of the life and work of Elmar Altvater
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altvater, Elmar 1938 births 2018 deaths People from Kamen People from the Province of Westphalia Alliance 90/The Greens politicians Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative politicians The Left (Germany) politicians 21st-century German politicians Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund members Free University of Berlin faculty Marxist theorists German Marxists Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts