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Das Kapital reading group, Week 3, Jan 15-21. From Vol. 1 we are reading Chapter 3 part 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 (hexbear.net)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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.

Congratulations to those who've made it this far. We are almost finished the first three chapters, which are said to be the hardest. So far we have just been feeling it out, now is when we start to find our stride. Remember to be methodical and remember that endurance is key.

Just joining us? It'll take you about 4-5 hours to catch up to where the group is.

Archives: Week 1 – Week 2

Week 3, Jan 5-21, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 3 Section 3 'Money', PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 4 'The General Formula for Capital', PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 5 'Contradictions in the General Formula'

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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

FOWKES: There is a contradiction immanent in the function of money as the means of payment. When the payments balance each other, money functions only nominally, as money of account, as a measure of value. But when actual payments have to be made, money does not come onto the scene as a circulating medium, in its merely transient form of an intermediary in the social metabolism, but as the individual incarnation of social labour, the independent presence of exchange-value, the universal commodity

AVELING: The function of money as the means of payment implies a contradiction without a terminus medius. In so far as the payments balance one another, money functions only ideally as money of account, as a measure of value. In so far as actual payments have to be made, money does not serve as a circulating medium, as a mere transient agent in the interchange of products, but as the individual incarnation of social labour, as the independent form of existence of exchange-value, as the universal commodity

This is a hard paragraph. What is Grandpa saying here?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

if producer A buys a piece of bread from producer B with 5 gold, and producer B buys a shirt from producer A with 5 gold, then the net result is the same as if producer A and producer B directly traded the products of their labor. But in societies where commodity production is highly developed with a powerful money commodity, the latter rarely occurs and commodities are always sold for money first (translation into the universal exchange-value which money possesses) and then used to buy another commodity. Even though money is always the transient form in the circulation of commodities, there is no other commodity more essential to the process than the money commodity.

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

Thanks! I understand that!