Wow this is going great. The hard part is over, and now we have hit a stride. We have learned Karl Marx’s theory of money, and of trade. We have learned what capital is and how it differs from money.
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve done the hardest part. Several people noticed it is getting easy and fun now. All the same, don’t let up til we reach our destination.
Please be chatty in the comments. Let us know you’re here.
The overall plan is to read 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. 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.
Just joining us? It’ll take you about seven hours to catch up to where the group is.
Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3
Week 4, Jan 22-28, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and Chapter 8
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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Harvey’s guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf
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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
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Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/
I’m kind of curious but like how many of this stuff that’s been covered, can be applied to like the united states fucked up healthcare system? I was kind of thinking about my experiences here without insurance. but like hospitals do somehow make money here, or at least some do. and like how does any of this works for things like health insurance? the more I think about the more confusing it gets. since like hospitals aren’t exactly making commodities, and kind of seem like unproductive labor yet somehow they are increasing their money. and like, aren’t hospitals buying a doctor’s labor power when they employ a doctor? so how does that increase wealth? or is like, the doctor’s labor power, somehow productive labor and making a commodity or product of sorts and then the hospital takes some of that surplus value, from the entire labor process?
This is a very good question.
Hospitals produce service(s), which is a type of commodity. They indeed buy doctors’, nurses’, janitors’, etcs’, labour powers, which are excercised productively in producing healing or cleanliness, which are considered socially useful and hence use-values.
thanks! I wasn’t entirely sure and that kind of cleared some things up. It just a little confusing in a way to think of services kind of being a commodity, but it makes sense. it just more like a different form of a commodity? since when I read das kapital, I think of like other forms of commodities like yard like in this chapter, or like just very material and solid objects.
I think Hospitals also end up owning a lot of debt, and eventually real estate when a patient dies.
they definitely do, like when my mom died. my mom owed like a ton of money for like her last stay in the hospital and previous visits. and the only way they could get some of that money back was when my mom stuff was sold off.