Good work so far, crew. We are about a quarter of the way through Volume 1 and about 10% of the way through the whole thing. Having said that, we're also about 10% of the way through 2024, so don't get too comfortable, keep pedalling.
Having set up the idea of surplus-labour as the source of profit, Marx looked at how this plays out in practice, how it affects people's lives.
I think we have a minimum of 8 people reading; it could even be 12 or 13.
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 10½ hours to catch up to where the group is.
Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5
Week 6, Feb 5-11, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 10 Sections 4, 5, 6, and 7.
In other words, read from the heading '4. Day Work and Night Work. The Shift System' to the end of the chapter
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.
Audiobook of Ben Fowkes translation, American accent, male, links are to alternative invidious instances: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9
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/
skipping ahead a bit, but i'm currently on the chapter 'machinery and large-scale industry,' and i'm just amazed by how little the discourse and rethoric surrounding automation has changed since marx's time
What would be your counter-response in an argument to that, if I can ask? (In good faith, of course)
Personally, my counter would be "who would operate, repair et replace the machines again?"...
The question betrays an unspoken fact about capitalism: technological development is only invested in when it lowers the cost of wages (eliminates workers.) Capitalists don't invest in tech advancement for the sake of advancement. If a technology already existed that could be invested in to replace workers, it would already be known about in the trades and chances are the capitalist would already have invested to stay competitive. If not, the cost of r&d to develop a solution, especially when capitalists make exorbitant sums off of the surplus labor of workers, is going to cost more than what it would to pay the workers a little more.
Large businesses with existing investments in capital, this is probably more true in a modern setting, since new technical advancements capable of replacing a vast swath of workers would require replacing that capital with new, bespoke, experimental machinery. This just isn't that common for existing large production operations. This is where smaller "interruptor" start ups enter the market, which brings me back to my first point. There's always the possibility of it happening but if it does it was going to happen anyway. Capitalists aren't paying workers out of the goodness of their heart, and striking will make them decide to invest in new tech. It's market competition that forces investment in new tech. I would say that most of the time those are just empty threats.
Thanks for your response!