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

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I think I'm getting caught up in the valuing over commodities as being a function of their labor. If my labor produces 20 linens, then my labor is worth 20 linens - the cost of the goods (inc depreciation of capital and transportation) to make the 20 linens. I can wait until the wages discussion to reopen that box though.

So without getting too far ahead, if it takes 1 hour of abstractly difficult work to get X ore, and 1 hour of abstractly easy work to get Y corn, we can safely assume that X ore is worth > Y corn, all else equal? Or would we require more information on other equivalent exchange rates?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So without getting too far ahead, if it takes 1 hour of abstractly difficult work to get X ore, and 1 hour of abstractly easy work to get Y corn, we can safely assume that X ore is worth > Y corn, all else equal?

I believe Marx would say that when they are compared as commodities, the point at which they are equal in value is a statement of the amount of social labor congealed into each thing. So, no, what you would have to do is compare them (X ore = Y corn) and in that comparison you would be declaring the social labor of the ore to be the exchangeable with the use value of the corn. Essentially society is unconsciously declaring unlike things to be exchangeable because they have a common property, human labor. If I understand correctly, that is.

Remember, he's trying to explain commodities, not intrinsic value or use value. Commodities are produced to be exchanged, and manifest a different kind of value to other sorts of products.