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Das Kapital reading group – Week 35, Aug 26-Sept 1 – The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall – Chapters 13 and 14 of Volume III (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Getting into some good stuff here. This week's reading is a few pages shorter than normal.

Explain the bookclub: We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year and discussing it in weekly threads. (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. The three volumes in a year works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46⅔ pages a week. However, we're a bit ahead of the curve right now, and can slow down to about 41 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.

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 [email protected] ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

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, Aug 26-Sept 1 – From Part III of Volume III we are reading Chapter 13 (The Law as Such) and Chapter 14 (Counteracting Influences). This is the part about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is the part about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

sicko-yes

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

honestly this is the best part with the most ammo provided for dunking on libs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Quick explanation for environmental destruction, obsolescence and enshittification. Also explains why things like consumer goods aren’t a good metric for “prosperity.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

marx-goth

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

So going in to this chapter, there are a couple reasons Marx has hinted at already:

The tendency of capital to valorize, and be reinvested into more Constant Capital. (As opposed to variable capital.)
Depreciation of the means of production eats up some of the surplus value.
Technological advances tend to concentrate more of the organic composition of capital as fixed, rather than variable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

daamn you all made it to vol 3. congrats.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Marx talking about the differing rates of profit in different countries were interesting, along with the rate of profit falling the more developed a country is.

this part of a paragraph was also interesting, with Marx bringing up monopolies again

[...]As concerns capitals invested in colonies, etc., on the other hand, they may yield higher rates of profit for the simple reason that the rate of profit is higher there due to backward development, and likewise the exploitation of labour, because of the use of slaves, coolies, etc. Why should not these higher rates of profit, realised by capitals invested in certain lines and sent home by them, enter into the equalisation of the general rate of profit and thus tend, pro tanto, to raise it, unless it is the monopolies that stand in the way. [1] There is so much less reason for it, since these spheres of investment of capital are subject to the laws of free competition.[...]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is this Marx saying the same thing as the parenti quote “Developing Countries aren’t underdeveloped, they are over exploited”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Nah, he's just saying that, in the capitalist POV -

Aka the capitalist back-up plan, when the domestic is oversaturated, let loose in the foreign market (sell and operate there)

At least that was in his time...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

~~Is this a typo from Marx?~~

But it is not this relative magnitude alone which falls. The magnitude of the surplus-value or profit absorbed by the total capital of 100 also falls absolutely. At a rate of surplus-value of 100%, a capital of 60c + 40v produces a mass of surplus-value, and hence of profit, amounting to 40; a capital of 70c + 230v a mass of profit of 30; and for a capital of 80c + 20v the profit falls to 20.

Because Marx really confused me with that sudden 230v, and the only thing I can think of is it's meant to be 30v and not 230v. And it really made me lost while trying to follow along with what Marx was saying.

Never mind, seems to be a typo on like publisher. Since on Marxists org and ProleWiki, that copy of vol 3 shows up as 230v. and in my book, it shows up as 80c + 30v instead of the 230. But the penguin edition seems to have it correct. since it shows up as 70c + 30v.