Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 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.
Congratulations to those who've made it this far! Over the harder stuff, now we are on track to take it easier and digest Capital. The reward for our efforts is significant.
Week 4, Jan 22-28, we are reading Volume 1, Chapters 6, 7 & 8
Discuss the week's reading in the comments.
Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=AA342398FDEC44DFA0E732357783FD48
(Unsure about the quality of the Reitter translation, I'd love to see some input on it as it's the newest one)
AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!
Resources
(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)
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Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf
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A University of Warwick guide to reading it: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/worldlitworldsystems/hotr.marxs_capital.untilp72.pdf
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Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/
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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 ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.
"Now we are cooking with fire" is my vibe from my reading today.
This weeks chapters were very satisfying to read, very comprehendable. Might come back to this with a second comment later in the week after I've let my mind work on it a bit.
But what came to my mind this time is the way Marx writes with such admiration and dare I say love for the working class, I can feel it. He elevates us in his words.
And the picture he paints about progress and human labor, it's beautiful to me. Reminds me of my own personal autistic joy I often get when existing amongst all the wonders or human labor, stuff that now feels so mundane and then I realize: None of this was here, we did this. As a collective we now travel in the lanscape in metal tubes like it's nothing, but it was all made, by us. It's amazing, because it is so mundane.
I am really getting into it now. And appreciate Marx the storyteller more and more each week. I am enlightened and entertained.
Reminds me of Marx’s preface to the French translation of volume 1:
This Lachâtre was one of the French communists who was exiled after the Paris Commune (not sure how directly involved). Marx obviously held a deal of respect for the man who was directly involved in the working class struggle, despite not being an academic on the same level as Marx.
It’s also touching that Marx prioritized, over technical or academic accuracy, the clarity of his ideas to the working class. It shows his commitment to the belief that philosophy cannot be contemplative only — it’s proved in practice like any real science.
Oh this is amazing.