Explain the bookclub: We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year and discussing it in weekly threads. (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? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12

Week 13, March 25-31, from Volume 1 we are reading Chapter 22, Chapter 23, and Parts 1,2,and 3 of Chapter 24

In other words, aim to get up to the ridiculously long section-heading by Sunday. (The Circumstances which, Independently of the Proportional Division of Surplus-Value into Capital and Revenue, Determine the Extent of Accumulation, namely, the Degree of Exploitation of Labour-Power, the Productivity of Labour, the Growing Difference in Amount between Capital Employed and Capital Consumed, and the Magnitude of the Capital Advanced)

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)

  • 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/

  • quarrk [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Marx talking about capitalist and abstinence reminded me of one idiom, to make money you got to make money. Except it leaves out like the whole, exploitation of buying another person labor power and then taking their unpaid portion and etc. But that idiom in a way feels like a modern day version of like that "abstinence" from the capitalist? Don't spend money for yourself or anything, use to reproduce and accumulate more money.

    It's objectively true that you need money (capital) to become wealthy in capitalist society. Capital grows exponentially, through exploitation of an increasing amount of others' labor, instead of linearly through one's personal labor. So I don't find anything wrong with the idiom as such, since it is true within certain bounds.

    On the other hand, the notion that abstinence is the reason money grows is completely false. This false justification is due to the fetish character of commodities and the various forms which result from fetishism. For example in chapter 19, the wage form is shown to produce an inverted consciousness of the wage relation, such that it appears that the capitalist and the laborer transact living labor, not labor-power.

    • Kolibri [she/her]
      ·
      3 months ago

      Oh yea, I'm not like saying the idiom wrong. The reason why that idiom came up or like, why I was reminded of it due to abstinence. Is just mainly like. That distortion, that disguising or concealing of stuff? Like the hiding of relations in a way? Except like maybe not the best? Since that abstinence theory is wrong while that one idiom is right in some ways.