| Sumario: | Hegel's Marxian critics have traditionally rejected his characterization of the modern economy as a "system of needs", fuelled by the self‐interested interactions of particular market agents. This characterization is flawed, so the argument goes, for it fails to identify the true motivation behind the production and exchange of value under capitalism. Challenging this line of criticism, I argue that Hegel does not see the capitalist economic system as a mere addition to a pre‐existing substrate of individual needs and desires. On the contrary, he argues that the capitalist drive towards infinite growth tends to subvert the traditional relationship between human needs and the means employed to satisfy them, so that the former become mere vehicles for the self‐reproduction of the latter. And this subversion anticipates the drive for self‐valorization that lies at the core of the Marxian notion of capital.
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