So I was on Twitter doing my normal agitation posting, trying to catch the attention of people. When I saw Madeline Pendleton post a response to some rich jackass talking about how Marx didn't consider how good suede jackets feels. It's probably important to mention the jacket is also a designer jacket that costs over $7,000

Madeline, of course, responded that Marx did, in fact, consider this problem, and it is a problem of commodity fetishization.

After having a small discussion with Twitter communists, they're convinced she's wrong because she's utilizing "commodity fetish" in the wrong way. They think she's using it as this dude is worshipping the commodity, but I think she's arguing the dude is attempting to associate mythical value to this object in order to justify the extreme cost of a jacket.

When I asked for more clarification, I also got linked a 169 page book instead of a section from that book which is just so helpful when you're trying to understand a very critical hyper-specific concept that probably doesn't need a full 169 pages to explain it to you.

One, I feel like communists on Twitter are splitting hairs to attack Madeline over something that feels like it's probably just a miscommunication between concepts, two I kinda feel like Madeline has a pretty good argument to hear that this is, in fact, commodity fetishism the way that Marx describes it in Capital.

When I asked for clarification, since I got linked to a Wallace, Sean quote and a 169 page book on why the economy doesn't exist, I figured that @Cowbee@hexbear.net might have some actual good information to help a budding Marxist understand what's going on here.

Mostly stupid and dramatic. I am curious to know who is right and where I can find more information on commodity fetishization.

As the title says! I have uploaded a new study guide targeting ~20 hours of reading time. I understand that it cannot be comprehensive with such a limit, but at the same time I wish to include a diverse range of voices, convey the core fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism clearly, and to avoid common pitfalls.

Any feedback is appreciated, as long as it doesn’t add bloat.

(Felt apropos to post this given recent events. Rest in power king.)

[From "Nature, Society, and Thought" Vol. 12, No. 2 (1999)]

In the April 1999 Monthly Review (50, no. 11:40–47), Robert McChesney gives what amounts to an encomium to Noam Chomsky. McChesney credits the MIT professor with (a) leading the battle for democracy against neoliberalism, (b) demonstrating “the absurdity of equating capitalism with democracy” (44), and (c) being the first to expose the media’s complicity with the ruling class. I would suggest that in these several areas credit for leading the way goes to the generations of Marxist writers and other progressive thinkers who fought the good fight well before Chomsky made his substantial and much appreciated contributions.

More important is the question of Chomsky’s politics. McChesney says that Chomsky can be “characterized as an anarchist or, perhaps more accurately, a libertarian socialist” (43). “Libertarian socialist” is a sweeping designation, safely covering both sides of the street. Of course, the ambiguity is not McChesney’s but Chomsky’s. As far as I know, Chomsky has never offered a clear explication of his anarcho-libertarian- socialist ideology. That is to say, he has never explained to us how it would manifest itself in organized political struggle or actual social construction.

McChesney says that Noam Chomsky has been a persistent “opponent and critic of Communist and Leninist political states and parties” (43). I would add that, as a “critic,” Chomsky has yet to offer a systematic critique of existing Communist parties and states. (Not that many others have.) Here is a sampling of Chomsky’s views on Communism and Leninism:

In an interview in Perception (March/April 1996), Chomsky tells us: “The rise of corporations was in fact a manifestation of the same phenomena that led to Fascism and Bolshevism, which sprang out of the same totalitarian soil.” Like Orwell and most bourgeois opinion makers and academics, Chomsky treats Communism and fascism as totalitarian twins, offering no class analysis of either, except to assert that they are both rooted in some unspecified way to today’s corporate domination.

In Z Magazine (October 1995), four years after the Soviet Union had been overthrown, Chomsky warns us of “left intellectuals” who try to “rise to power on the backs of mass popular movements” and “then beat the people into submission....You start off as basically a Leninist who is going to be part of the Red bureaucracy. You see later that power doesn’t lie that way, and you very quickly become an ideologist of the Right.... We’re seeing it right now in the Soviet Union [sic]. The same guys who were communist thugs two years back, are now running banks and [are] enthusiastic free marketeers and praising America.”

In its choice of words and ahistorical crudity, this statement is rather breathtaking. The Leninist “communist thugs” did not “very quickly” switch to the right after rising to power. For more than seventy years, they struggled in the face of momentous Western capitalist and Nazi onslaughts to keep the Soviet system alive. To be sure, in the USSR’s waning days, many like Boris Yeltsin crossed over to capitalism’s ranks, but other Reds continued to resist free-market incursions at great cost to themselves, many meeting their deaths during Yeltsin’s violent repression of the Russian parliament in 1993.

In the same Perception interview cited above, Chomsky offers another embarrassingly ill-informed comment about Leninism: “Western and also Third World intellectuals were attracted to the Bolshevik counterrevolution [sic] because Leninism is, after all, a doctrine that says that the radical intelligentsia have a right to take state power and to run their countries by force, and that is an idea which is rather appealing to intellectuals.” Here Chomsky fashions a cartoon image of ruthless intellectuals to go along with his cartoon image of ruthless Leninists. They do not want the power to end hunger, they merely hunger for power.

In his book Powers and Prospects (1996, 83), Chomsky begins to sound like Ronald Reagan when he announces that Communism “was a monstrosity,” and “the collapse of tyranny” in Eastern Europe and Russia is “an occasion for rejoicing for anyone who values freedom and human dignity.” Tell that to the hungry pensioners and child prostitutes in Gorky Park. I treasure freedom and human dignity as much as anyone, yet I find no occasion for rejoicing. The post-Communist societies do not represent a net gain for such values. If anything, what we are witnessing is a colossal victory for gangster capitalism in the former Soviet Union, the strengthening of the most retrograde forms of global capitalism and economic inequality around the world, a heartless and unrestrained increase in imperialistic aggression, and a serious setback for revolutionary liberation struggles everywhere.

We should keep in mind that Chomsky’s political underdevelopment is shared by many on the left whose critical views of “corporate America” represent their full ideological grasp of the political world. Be he an anarcho-libertarian or libertarian- socialist or anarcho-syndicalist-socialist or just an anarchist, Chomsky appeals to many of the young and not so young. For he can evade all the hard questions about organized struggle, the search for a revolutionary path, the need to develop and sustain a mass resistance, the necessity of developing armed socialist state power that can defend itself against the capitalist counterrevolutionary onslaught, and all the attendant problems, abuses, mistakes, victories, defeats, and crimes of Communist revolutionary countries and their allies.

What we used to say about the Trotskyites can apply to the Chomskyites: they support every revolution except those that succeed. (Cuba might be the exception. Chomsky usually leaves that country unmentioned in his sideswipes at existing or once- existing Communist countries.) Most often, organized working- class struggles and vanguard parties are written off by many on the left (including Chomsky) as “Stalinist,” a favorite, obsessional pejorative made all the more useful by remaining forever undefined; or “Leninist,” which is Chomsky’s code word for Communist governments and movements that have actually gained state power and fought against the west to stay in power. Through all this label-slinging, no recognition is given to the horrendous battering such countries and movements endure from the Western imperialists. No thought is given to the enormously distorting impact of capitalist counterrevolutionary power upon the development of existing and once-existing Communist governments, nor the evils of international capitalism that the Communists and their allies were able to hold back, evils that are becoming more and more apparent to us today.

Bereft of a dialectical grasp of class power and class struggle, Chomsky and others have no critical defense against the ideological anti-Communism that inundates the Western world, especially the United States. This is why, when talking about the corporations, Chomsky can sound as good as Ralph Nader, and when talking about existing Communist movements and society, he can sound as bad as any right-wing pundit. In sum, I cannot join McChesney in heaping unqualified praise upon Noam Chomsky’s views. When Chomsky departs from his well-paved road of anticorporate exposé and holds forth on Communism and Leninism, he shoots from the hip with disappointingly facile and sometimes incomprehensible pronunciamentos. We should expect something better from our “leading icon of the Left.”

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 51, February 4 - February 10 – Volume 3 Chapter 49-50

We keep going.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

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2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50

alt text : The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.

-- Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State

abolish the "family"

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 50, January 28 - February 3, Volume 3 Chapter 47-48

We keep going.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Congratulations to those who've made it this far! Over the harder stuff, now we are on track to take it easier and digest Capital. The reward for our efforts is significant.

Week 4, Jan 22-28, we are reading Volume 1, Chapters 6, 7 & 8

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: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=AA342398FDEC44DFA0E732357783FD48

(Unsure about the quality of the Reitter translation, I'd love to see some input on it as it's the newest one)

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 - Week 47 - Week 48

2026 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here

The book we are currently reading through is Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin. There are two main editions, to my knowledge: the original one with a yellow cover from 2006, and an updated version from 2021 with an orange cover. I am reading the latter version.

Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group, or if you no longer wish to be pinged.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 14.

Next week, we will be reading Chapter 15.

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 9, January 21 - January 27, Volume 3 Chapter 45-46

We keep going.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48

Link to last week's reading group post.

Comrades who can't afford to buy the book should definitely not go to annas-archive (dot) org and find a digital copy there, since that would be wrong and we are all law-abiding, copyright-respecting citizens.

I really will try my best to post these weekly from now on.

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Congratulations to those who've made it this far! We are almost finished the first three chapters, which are said to be the hardest. If you made it through with us now, it's extremely likely that you'll stick the rest out. Let's keep it up! Proud of y'all!

Week 3, Jan 18-25, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 3 Section 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5.

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: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=AA342398FDEC44DFA0E732357783FD48

(Unsure about the quality of the Reitter translation, I'd love to see some input on it as it's the newest one)

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 - Week 47 - Week 48

2026 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 - Week 2

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here

The book we are currently reading through is Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin. There are two main editions, to my knowledge: the original one with a yellow cover from 2006, and an updated version from 2021 with an orange cover. I am reading the latter version.

Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group, or if you no longer wish to be pinged.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 13.

Next week, we will be reading Chapter 14.

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 48, January 14 - January 20, Volume 3 Chapter 42-44

We keep going.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here

The book we are currently reading through is Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin. There are two main editions, to my knowledge: the original one with a yellow cover from 2006, and an updated version from 2021 with an orange cover. I am reading the latter version.

Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group, or if you no longer wish to be pinged.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 12.

Next week, we will be reading Chapter 13.

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 2, Jan 8-14, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 2 & Chapter 3 Sections 1 & 2.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46

2026 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7308179

Hey, I'm currently trying to educate myself more on imperialism. Around here I’ve mostly been confronted to Lenin’s definition as it appears in his famous book "Imperialism, the Newest Stage of Capitalism". In other circles IRL, I’ve heard people refer to Luxemburg definition which appears in "The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism".

I’ve read both books and I’m still a bit lost. I can see points for both definitions. I can also see some divergences. For example using Lenin’s definition I cannot see how Russia could be seen as an imperialist country right now. However, with Luxemburg’s one I feel they could be included as an imperialist country. Of course in much lesser proportions as the hegemonic imperialism that that are the US.

I’m looking for modern resources that either actualize and synthetize both definitions or resources that debate this very subject (ie various marxist definitions of imperialism) so that I can get a better grip/understanding on it.

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.

Week 47, January 7 - January 13, Volume 3 Chapter 39-41

We keep going.

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.

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. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!

Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)

• Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf

• Harvey's lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWvnUfModHP9Ci8M1g39l4AZgK6YLCXd0

• 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

• Engels' Synopsis of Capital or PDF

• Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/

2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives:

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47 – Week 48 – Week 49 – Week 50 – Week 51 – Week 52

2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46