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 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30

Week 31, July 29-Aug 4. We started Volume III last week. From Part One (called The Conversion of Surplus-Value into Profit and of the Rate of Surplus-Value into the Rate of Profit), we are reading Chapter 4 (The Effect of the Turnover on the Rate of Profit), and Chapter 5 (Economy in the Employment of Constant Capital).

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/index.htm

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

  • Beaver [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    In the same report, Horner relates how in many factories the machines are switched on without the workers being given advance warning. Since there is always something to be done on the machines when they are standing still, some hands and fingers are always busy with this, and accidents constantly arise simply from failing to give a signal.

    ohnoes

    Not even the zero effort of just shouting out "hey, we're going to turn the machine back on". It's worth remembering that your boss would casually sacrifice your limbs for profit too if not for those pesky laws.

    I did a stint designing guarding for material handling equipment (stuff that pushes boxes and product around conveyor belts). Pretty much every single customer was like "put as little guarding on it as possible, we don't want that shit getting in the way of stuff". They would get insanely pissy with us when we followed osha guidelines to the letter, and would send us emails with all sorts of creative interpretations of regs. Capitalists love machines that munch their worker's fingers.