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.

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 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39 – Week 40 – Week 41 – Week 42 – Week 43 – Week 44 – Week 45 – Week 46 – Week 47

Week 48, Nov 25-Dec 1 – Chapter 42, Chapter 43, and Chapter 44 of Volume III

Chapter 42 is called 'Differential Rent II — Second Case: Falling Price of Production'

Chapter 43 is called 'Differential Rent II — Third Case: Rising Price of Production'

Chapter 44 is called 'Differential Rent Also on the Worst Cultivated Soil'

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

Discuss the week's reading in the comments

  • SteamedHamberder [he/him]
    ·
    6 days ago

    Engels seems pretty pissed in chapter 43:

    (Since the above third case was not elaborated in the manuscript - there is only the title- it remained the task of the editor to complete this as best he could. Besides this, he also has to draw the resulting general conclusions from the overall investigation of differential rent II in its three major and nine subordinate cases. For this purpose, however, the examples given in the manuscript are of little help.

    • Doubledee [comrade/them]
      ·
      6 days ago

      Yeah I've grown to appreciate him more through this reading, he really did a lot to try and make this readable.

        • Doubledee [comrade/them]
          ·
          4 days ago

          I mean the cheat-way to read it is to skip them and then read Engels explaining what they illustrate, referring back to them to confirm what he's saying. Mostly he is illustrating pretty mundane observations about how rents respond to different conditions.

          NGL I think the book might end on a bit of a lull, I'm not sure how compelling I should find the rent stuff either.