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Week 1, Jan 1-7, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 1 'The Commodity' (hexbear.net)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year. This will repeat yearly 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.

Week 1, Jan 1-7, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 1 'The Commodity'

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)

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/

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I mean I don't think he is awful. When I started out I listened to ALL of his lectures, I read his book Marx's Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason. There are a lot of Harvey lovers, a lot of Harvey haters. After having read Capital with my own eyeballs, I tend toward disliking his interpretation in certain ways, but I don't hate him personally, nor do I find him disingenuous.

Harvey tends to caution against revolution and promotes democratic-socialist ideas. He makes some fundamental mistakes about volumes 1 which leads to him over-emphasizing volume 2. He doesn't even really accept volume 3.

To summarize a lot of frankly overblown debates: Harvey has a shaky understanding of certain Marxist foundations, and this shakiness is the cause of a degree of reformist opinions that he has. One might even say liberal views that he hasn't sorted out yet. I don't care enough about the debate to know all the details, but what I can say is Capital became much clearer to me when I read it for myself and forgot some of what Harvey taught me (and Michael Heinrich, but that's another story).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

good answer thanks

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

One more note, this article gives an in-depth critique of Harvey's book, coincidentally on precisely Harvey's (mis)understanding of chapter 1. It's a lot to read but I'll just leave it here as a reference.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

That was a good read. Thanks for sharing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

This was great, thank you.