Author
|
Topic: Das Kapital: come on...you know you read it in like 12th grade!
|
|
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683
|
posted 18 October 2008 01:04 PM
A few of us tried a "group approach" to it one summer on the banks of the Otonabee River(outside of the classroom), but got only halfway through Vol. 1. Loved the opening lines regarding what work should look like. Still think that the labour theory of value is the most pertinent in a world whose minerals, forests and oceans are disappearing at about the rate of asset accumulation by Homo sapiens. But your tendency to blame Keynesians for the loss of the theory is a bit late from the gate...look to the old classics - even the saintly Veblen (and one of his students, Stephen Leacock) for an earlier avoidance of the concept. Labour was really getting restive, back then.
From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323
|
posted 18 October 2008 01:30 PM
quote: Originally posted by enemy_of_capital: I personally have read all three volumes...
"Three" volumes? What's "Theories of Surplus Value"? Chopped liver?
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
enemy_of_capital
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15547
|
posted 18 October 2008 01:48 PM
quote: "Three" volumes?What's "Theories of Surplus Value"? Chopped liver?
I told you it was heavy but if you can hold your nose its well worth it, if not hit the library for a condensed version, a little easier on the old brain bucket. to answer your question though it is a theory that suggests that a worker produces a mathmatical profit for the owner of a company/capitalist in a given shift/work period. This is the basis for exploitation for Marxists as we feel that this encompasses a unpaid/stolen portion of our rightful wage (100%) of the fruits of our labour. Thats it in an extreamly small and brutalized knutshell. I agree the third volume is great but it is a hell of a mindfucker when contrasted with 1 and 2. also I point out that this may be because Engels edited this alone after Marx's all to early departure.
From: Mississauga | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
George Victor
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14683
|
posted 18 October 2008 02:35 PM
quote: seriously though Im pushing it mostly because progressives are so quick to dismiss Marx and Engels these days and they really are a treasure trove for the labour movement.
They are a treasure trove for us all, friend.
From: Cambridge, ON | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
enemy_of_capital
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15547
|
posted 18 October 2008 02:37 PM
honestly if you want indepth analysis I would check these out after reading the material youve all shared. www.marxists.org (literally everything that either is marxist or thinks it is) or www.marxist.com both are obvious but provide the best material unaltered and the second is a more biased Trotskyist site I belong to that practices entryism in the second international parties.
From: Mississauga | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
enemy_of_capital
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15547
|
posted 18 October 2008 02:47 PM
sort of sort of not on topic but some relevat "news" from Germany:Das Kapital - a best seller! By In Defence of Marxism Friday, 17 October 2008 Two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, Karl Marx is back in fashion in Eastern Germany. Thanks to the global crisis of capitalism, Das Kapital, has become a best-seller for the academic publisher, Karl-Dietz-Verlag. This indicates a big change in attitude as a result of the experience of the joys of "market economics". Unemployment in the former Communist East is 14 per cent, double Western levels, and wages are significantly lower. Millions of jobs were lost after reunification. A recent survey found 52 per cent of Estern Germans believe the free market economy is "unsuitable" and 43 per cent said they wanted socialism rather than capitalism. "Everyone thought there would never again be any demand for Das Kapital," the managing director of Karl-Dietz-Verlag, Joern Schue-trumpf said. He has sold 1,500 copies so far this year, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold increase since 1990. "Even bankers and managers are now reading Das Kapital to try to understand what they've been doing to us," he added.
From: Mississauga | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
|
posted 20 October 2008 10:21 AM
Free download: Marxist Economics -- A handbook of basic definitionsThis 42-page handbook, published in 1998, is now available free in .pdf format. From the Table of Contents: 1. Commodities 5 2. Use-value 6 3. Value 6 4. Concrete labour and abstract labour 6 5. Simple labour and complex labour 8 6. Socially necessary labour 8 7. Exchange the form of value general equivalent money the law of value 9 8. General formula of capital 11 9. Surplus value and exchange 12 10. Labour-power and its value 13 11. But what is this newly created value? 13 12. The production of surplus-value 14 13. Capital as a social relation 15 14. Constant capital and variable capital 16 15. Absolute surplus-value relative surplus-value extra surplus-value 17 16. The wage 19 17. Production and reproduction 19 18. Simple capitalist reproduction 20 19. Expanded capitalist reproduction capital accumulation 22 20. The organic composition of capital, the concentration and centralisation of capital 23 21. Industrial reserve army 24 22. Relative pauperisation 25 23. Fundamental contradiction of the capitalist mode of production 25 24. The cycle of capital 26 25. Capital turnover 28 26. Fixed capital and circulating capital 28 27. Annual rate of surplus-value and methods for the acceleration of capital turnover 30 28. Capitalist production costs and profit 32 29. Rate of profit 32 30. Formation of the average rate of profit and transformation of the value of the commodities into a production price 33 31. Tendential decline in the rate of profit 36 32. Commercial capital banking capital 37 33. Periodic crises of overproduction 39
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Jacob Richter
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15660
|
posted 20 October 2008 09:46 PM
Most people can't get past Volume I. Even if I haven't read Das Kapital in its entirety, I have read key parts to deem Volumes II and III to be more interesting than Volume I.A better substitute for Volume I would be The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx by Karl Kautsky. Nevertheless, in Das Kapital CLASS is defined NOT by relation to MOP (contrary to the common perception), but to surplus value. [ 20 October 2008: Message edited by: Jacob Richter ]
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
janfromthebruce
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14090
|
posted 21 October 2008 08:52 PM
quote: Originally posted by Michelle:
We did? What the heck school did YOU go to, anyhow? We read Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, and Shakespeare.
I don't remember the books I read. I'm sure I read some. My mom was an ex-teacher, I'm sure she was disappointed, so for every Christmas she gave me a book. I eventually started to read them. Classics of the time.
From: cow country | Registered: Apr 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jacob Richter
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15660
|
posted 21 October 2008 10:31 PM
quote: Originally posted by Erik Redburn:
Keynes' was probably wrong re economic growth, but his singular success permanently demonstrated that Marx was even further off the mark. Nothing happening now can reverse that.
Keynes wasn't really successful with his economic theory. It was reliant on dominant powers exploiting the underdeveloped world and, in its pure form, was best suited for Nazi Germany. Besides, all this current crisis, inexplicable by the Big Media except when resorting to "banker greed," can ONLY be explained at a structural level from a "Marxian" viewpoint (overaccumulation of capital, falling rates of profit, and especially the transformation of this capitalist crisis into the impending conflict between capitalist states resulting from bank nationalizations). [ 21 October 2008: Message edited by: Jacob Richter ]
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|