this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024

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

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is everycomrade getting along? It's Friday, so you should be about 72% complete. Is the pace too fast or too slow?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m wondering if it would be better next time to split chapter 1, but then again, if we dwell too long on this abstract value-form stuff, people are gonna get bored. So overall I think the pace is fine, but I’m curious what others think.

What are you thinking for next week? Just chapter 2 for a breather and some time to ponder chapter 1? Or maybe get a head start on chapter 3? I think 3 will need to be split in any case.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I was thinking Chapter 2 but assigning it for Mon-Wed rather than for the week. Then posting the next reading on Thursday.

What do you think? We can't take breathers all the time.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Section 1 exercise suggestion: Draw a diagram of some kind (Venn, mind map, chaos dragon, etc.) that contains at least the information in the last paragraph of the section. For example, the circles of a Venn diagram could be labeled "use value", "has value", and "commodity".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

"Use values cannot confront each other as commodities, unless the useful labour embodied in them is qualitatively different in each of them."

Is there any use in thinking about commodities with overlapping use values, (like gold and silver) as in the same category but with different qualities? Or should I just think about them as different commodities all together? Does it even matter either way?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

hi! If I'm anticipating being strapped for time, is this version still sufficient?

https://www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1939/capital.htm

As much as I love theory, my eyes 100% glaze over when it comes to dead people arguing minutae with other dead people, and examples based on 150 year old economies and statistics. If the Moore and Aveling translation is definitively better than that's the one I'll read but I know I'll fall off at 50 pages a week cuz I have other book clubs too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Why not just read that yourself? Or set up another thread.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I recommend either reading Marx directly or reading a more modern summaries like those from Heinrich or Michael Roberts.

Now is a really good time to read Marx directly because you can discuss it with other hexbears in the same situation!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

When I state that coats or boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incarnation of abstract human labor, the absurdity of the statement is self-evident. Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots compare those articles with linen, or, what is the same thing with gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation between their own private labor and the collective labor of society in the same absurd form.

<.<

Am I right in thinking he's describing what "producers" are doing to society and how they're implicitly framing commodity relationships in liberal society? I know LVT was more popular amongst lib economists back then

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Marx highlights this as "absurd" in order to acknowledge that the reader might think Marx has lost his mind when he claims that society does all these crazy mental gymnastics in order to produce. He's saying, "Yes, it is crazy, but it actually works this way."

it's "absurd" because we go through this ridiculous Rube Goldberg of an economic system just to "intelligently" distribute the total social labor. And to be seen, in order for some people to live off of the work of others.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This a channel I found last year while going through Capital, www.youtube.com/@DissidentTheory/. I think it might be useful for some people.

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