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. However, we're a bit ahead of the curve right now, and can slow down to about 41 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 – Week 32

Week 33, Aug 12-18 – From Part Two of Volume III (Part Two is called Conversion of Profit into Average Profit) we are reading Chapters 8 (Different Compositions of Capitals in Different Branches of Production and Resulting Differences in Rates of Profit) and Chapter 9 (Formation of a General Rate of Profit (Average Rate of Profit) and Transformation of the Values of Commodities into Prices of Production)

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

This week's reading is a bit shorter than most weeks. Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

  • SteamedHamberder [he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    I am lost on the second table of chapter 9. Where do the values “Used up c” (50, 51, 51, 40, 10) come from?

    • Kolibri [she/her]
      ·
      1 month ago

      I'd read it as Marx picking random values for that to help with his example based on this part from the paragraph above that table

      [..]We must, therefore, remember in comparing the values produced by each 100 of the different capitals, that they will differ in accordance with the different composition of c as to its fixed and circulating parts, and that, in turn, the fixed portions of each of the different capitals depreciate slowly or rapidly as the case may be, thus transferring unequal quantities of their value to the product in equal periods of time. But this is immaterial to the rate of profit. No matter whether the 80c give up a value of 80, or 50, or 5, to the annual product,[..]

      and from that he just picked 50, or 51 or 40 or 10 that worked well with his example?