Very proud of us all who have kept it going. We've gotten into a nice groove now. We looked at the labour theory of value, and how all commodities are commensurable by measuring the labour time. We saw that money is a commodity (gold) used to measure value. We learned that surplus value isn't generated by trade, because that would cancel out over the economy. We saw that surplus value comes from the variation between the value of the food etc. required to MAKE a day's labour, and the value of the work done in that day. We have learned the general formula of capital, and how capital differs from money. Not only am I proud of you, Stalin would be proud of you.
Let's use this shared activity as an excuse to also build camaraderie by thinking out loud in the comments.
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 8½ or 9 hours to catch up to where the group is.
Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4
Week 5, Jan 29-Feb 4, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 9, and from Chapter 10 we are reading section 1 'The Limits of the Working Day', PLUS section 2 'The Greed for Surplus-Labour', PLUS section 3 'Branches of English Industry without Legal Limits to Exploitation'
In other words, aim to get to the heading '4. Day Work and Night Work. The Shift System' by Sunday
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/
In chapter 7 or 8(?) around where Marx talks about how the value of means of production are transferred to the product of labor. So this implies that the final value of the product doesn't depend on whether the product was made in a single multi-step production process, or whether each phase of production was punctuated with sales on the market.
For example, two firms making socks:
The effect of this is that firm #2 might out compete firm #1 because they can produce socks with less socially necessary labor, if they can find another firm which can produce ready-made yarn en masse for cheaper.
My question: What conditions would lead to a reversal of the situation, where a single firm integrates multiple verticals into a single production process? Is Walmart an example of this, with how Walmart makes contracts directly with farmers etc?
Maybe the level of integration or division of labor is related to the level of automation. For example, if advanced machine technology can produce an incredible amount of yarn very quickly, then there is a mismatch of how much yarn as use-value is necessary as inputs as socks. So the firm is left with a huge excess of yarn. This could still be a vertically integrated firm, but then they would have a side business of selling ready-made yarn.
Another tendency towards increased division of labor - the effect of imperialism and social division of labor across country boundaries. If yarn can be purchased for cheaper from a country with low cost of labor power, then firm #2 can import this cheaper yarn to produce socks with less labor than production occurring entirely in the same country.
A shortage in raw materials, or a supply chain issue with yarn would end up hurting the “nimbler” firm, right?
Wouldn't a shortage in raw materials hurt both firms? Good point on the yarn shortage, I could see a firm just going "I'll do it myself" if they can't find yarn on the market
This is the general idea of The Wealth of Nations: some countries can do things more efficiently than others, so instead of trying to preserve your national industries (Mercantilism), you should allow other countries to do what they're good at, buy from them, focus on what your country is good at and export that/ So it's an inter-national division instead of the social division of labour we're looking at in the text.
I'm aware I didn't answer your question lol, I don't know the answer.
Makes sense, I haven't read any of the classical economists directly. (Someday I will, maybe..) So Smith takes a positive look on the international division of labor. This also tracks with the Communist Manifesto when M&E talk about the world market.
I suppose there can be efficiencies in terms of shipping, less time of capital sitting on the market, etc which could make it worth it to bring different phases of production in-house.