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.
We currently have 58 members!!! I expect a certain drop-off rate, but I'll be thrilled if a dozen or couple dozen read it.
If you've made it this far, you've already read ¹⁄₁₈ of Volume I. The first three weeks are the hardest, after that it'll be quite easy, and only requires 20 minutes a day (endurance is key).
Just joining us? It'll take you about 2-3 hours to catch up to where the group is. You can do that on one long bus ride.
Archives: Week 1
Week 2, Jan 8-14, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 2 'The Process of Exchange', PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 3, Section 1 'The Measure of Values' PLUS Volume 1, Chapter 3, Section 2 'The Means of Circulation'
In other words, aim to get up to the heading '3. Money' by Jan 14
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/
So Graeber would say that all of Marx’s assumptions about gold are horseshit, right?
Heavily depending on the theory of commodity money – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money – is a bit sus in this day and age alright, seems obsolete.
Very hard to respond to this without more information about what you mean.
If you're referring to Marx's "assumption" of why gold can be money, i.e. the main theoretical point here, afaik anthropology (who I am assuming you are using Graeber as shorthand for) hasn't produced anything invalidating that.
If you're referring to Marx's "assumption" of the historical process of gold becoming money, anthropology, archaeology and history have complicated the matter slightly on a global scale by introducing alternative money-commodities (e.g. seashells in parts of West Africa and Japan). However in the specific areas Marx is concerned with (and had the ability to study) this holds true afaik, especially since Marx tends to qualify his broad statements (e.g. footnote 7: " In any case, [the process of copper -> silver -> gold]'s historical validity is not entirely universal.").
If by assumptions about gold you mean assumptions about the invention and development of the money-commodity through trade, anthropology has complicated the matter a bit more, particularly as regards long distance trading through gift economies (e.g. in precolonial North America). In terms of Marx's ability to study: he did not have the ability to study the gift economy except e.g. through Henry Lewis-Morgan after the final major edits to Capital had been made (i.e. post-1875). However imo this doesn't do more than change Marx's point from 'nomads always invent money bc they trade' to 'nomads associated with stratified city-dwellers develop money-forms bc they trade in alienated goods' (such nomads are basically the only ones Marx would be aware of at the time; when Marx writes 'nomads' he is thinking of e.g. steppe nomads and pastorialists in the near east)
Mainly Graeber’s contention that markets developed independently of coinage, and that coinage was mainly of use among societal outliers like thieves, mercenaries, and sex workers.
I will assume by coinage you mean money. (Making this assumption because Marx explicitly doesnt care if the money is coins or yards of linen). Marx himself argues markets develop independently from money, and money develops from markets. This feels like either a misrepresentation of Graeber, or Graeber misrepresenting Marx.
Like, for instance, nomadic peoples in the interstices between settled society? Note that historically mercenary work is a very common field of work for nomads.
Which assumptions are you referring to?