Wage Labour and Capital #1
Hello everyone, welcome to Theory Thursday! This is a community led project, the point of these posts is to read about 30 minutes of theory every Thursday. Then we discuss with fellow comrades the contents of the reading. This week’s topic we are covering Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital, starting at the introduction and the preliminary.
Last Discussion: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1058881
The Reading: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
The Study Guide: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/guide.htm
Study Guide question: On what basis is Marx referring to social reforms being a “Utopia”?
Feel free to discus below your thoughts or insight into this reading.
Next week we will read chapter 1, what are wages, through chapter 5, the nature and growth of capital. Shout out to comrade GrainEater’s Matrix study group, and comrade CriticalResist8’s ProleWiki study guide, go check them out if you would like more resources and discussion on theory. Have a good week comrades, until next time!
I think that was a great takeaway from the reading. It is fascinating to see how capitalism effects different classes under the same system. The writing you quoted at the end of the chapter was great! I agree with their assessment that capitalism is a self defeating ideology, and that the same forces that create/drive it, will inevitably lead to it's own demise. It MUST be gotten rid of, it CAN be gotten rid of!
I may be speaking out of my ass here since I've never done a book club, but I don't think that going through short pamphlets such as this one piecemeal is very conducive to interesting discussion. In the particular case of this one, it is only a short preface right now that there isn't much to discuss, but on a broader scope it can get into an awkward spot where most discussion will rely on either the further chapters or other sources. I understand that plenty of users are new to Marxism, but I think this format might fit better for larger books, since I'm pretty sure one can read the whole Wage Labour in 1-2 hours at most, which is quite a bit, but not enough to split it over what looks like will be 5 weeks.
Maybe we could have the "Thursday" thing be only for the name but make it a weeklong thing? I don't even know what to say about the first two parts other than "They go in further depth later on." I guess I could make a point that I don't remember them making there, that inflation without increase in wages is often just the reallocation and expansion of the surplus value to better benefit the bourgeoisie.
Edit: I summarized my points and put them in a FAQ section for my future posts. This question has come up many times before so I'll address it that way going forward.
