Welcome to baby Marxist rehabilitation camp.
We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included in this particular reading club, but comrades are encouraged to do other solo and collaborative reading.) This bookclub will repeat yearly until communism is achieved.
The three volumes in a year works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46⅔ pages a week.
I’ll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.
We currently have 58 members!!! I expect a certain drop-off rate, but I’ll be thrilled if a dozen or couple dozen read it.
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already read ¹⁄₁₈ of Volume I. The first three weeks are the hardest, after that it’ll be quite easy, and only requires 20 minutes a day (endurance is key).
Just joining us? It’ll take you about 2-3 hours to catch up to where the group is. You can do that on one long bus ride.
Archives: Week 1
Week 2, Jan 8-14, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 2 ‘The Process of Exchange’, PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 3, Section 1 ‘The Measure of Values’ PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 3, Section 2 ‘The Means of Circulation’
In other words, aim to get up to the heading ‘3. Money’ by Jan 14
Discuss the week’s reading in the comments.
Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=9C4A100BD61BB2DB9BE26773E4DBC5D
AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn’t have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added, or if you’re a bit paranoid (can’t blame ya) and don’t mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself.
Resources
(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)
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Harvey’s guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf
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A University of Warwick guide to reading it: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/worldlitworldsystems/hotr.marxs_capital.untilp72.pdf
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Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/
The first chapter was really difficult to get through, especially the last section, I’m not sure if I was misunderstanding, but it felt like he was just repeating himself in different ways, I’m not sure he needed to use three separate paragraphs to explain the idea that the discovery of the theory of labour value didn’t invent it, or change it’s nature, just revealed it. Unless I’m just not comprehending it fully and I missed a major part of his arguments.
I have “read” Capital in the past, but upon re-reading it seems more like I skimmed it and skipped over parts that felt redundant, I’m trying to avoid that as much as possible now and it is really sticking out to me. Hoping chapter 2 helps clears things up a bit, I think I mostly get what he’s saying, but I just don’t understand his method of delivery very well. Could just be my modern sensibilities and own preferences as a writer.
We all felt that
It was very grueling, especially restating the forms of value (which made me go cross-eyed). I think the main issue is that this is a foundational work, and so it has to be comprehensive, and also take baby steps to reach every point.
He started off with the most basic ideas and built up to a place that we all understand subconsciously. It all feels the same because it is such a basic understanding that people don’t ever consciously think about it.
Its like if you explain your morning routine in excruciating detail it ends up taking longer than it would to do it all.
I think the first couple chapters made way more sense to me when I finished chapter 3 and then go over 1 and 2 again right away. Maybe not that they made more sense but the reasoning behind why he started there made more sense and that made what he was saying more interesting and processable.