Abstract

This article aims to show the importance of the vampire metaphor to Marx's work. In so doing, it challenges previous attempts to explain Marx's use of the metaphor with reference to literary style, nineteenth-century gothic or Enlightenment rationalism. Instead, the article accepts the widespread view linking the vampire to capital, but argues that Marx's specific use of this link can be properly understood only in the context of his critique of political economy and, in particular, the political economy of the dead