Reading Marx's Capital (with David Harvey)

[Anonymous No.4158028]

Something is rotten in the state of denmark. There’s no doubt about it. Since at least 2008 there’s consensus that we (consumers/citizens) are in deep trouble. However, no one seems to know what to think about our current sitiuation, not to mention what to do about it, how to cope with it. It appears that the only reasonable action to be undertaken is ‘the return to basics’. To quote Mark Fisher: Against the postmodernist suspicion of grand narratives, we need to reassert that, far from being isolated, contingent problems, these are all the effects of a single systemic cause: Capital. We need to begin, as if for the first time, to develop strategies against a Capital which presents itself as ontologically, as well as geographically, ubiquitous.
So, what I propose to you is a online seminar on Marx’s chef-d'œuvre - Das Kapital.
We could meet every two weeks and discuss one (or more) chapter from it. We could supplement our reading and discusions with David Harvey’s online lectures, his introductory book „A Companion to Marx's Capital” and possibly conclude our seminar with „The Limits to Capital”.
We would proceed by implementing Rancierian (Jacotonian) method: Knowing is half the battle...the other half is Ignorance.
PS
I can provide you with all the books.

[Anonymous No.4158185]

>>4158028
I'd be interested, but where would this happen? I don't think that 4chan threads would be the best place to host a reading group.

[Anonymous No.4158503]

I agree with you.
I guess, The best thing to do would be to establish IRC channel and then create some sort of forum where we could paste our weekly debates and discuss them further.

[Anonymous No.4158557]

I'd be absolutely on-board, but I agree with >>4158503 that an IRC channel is the way to go.

[Anonymous No.4158797]

So far, so good: three people on board.

I uploaded some books:
Essential
1. Capital vol. 1 [Penguin ed.]
2. A Companion to Marx’s Capital
Optional
3. The Limits to Capital

You can grab them here:
http://f4uum9.1fichier.com/en/

[Anonymous No.4158892]

I'd be up for this too; I think a Skype group would be a plausible option too, along with irc.

[Anonymous No.4158914]

>>4158892
Oh, that could be good! I'd be down for it, personally.

[SwagBoi3000 No.4158944]

>>4158028
I'd be down niggas, I wouldnt talk much just lurk.

[Anonymous No.4159057]

>>4158028
I'm actually reading this right now, so count me in.

[Anonymous No.4159783]

>marxism
>ever

[Anonymous No.4159790]

There's plenty of people who have issues with Harvey's reading of Capital, be sure to keep that in mind as you go through it

[Anonymous No.4159801]

>>4159783
The academics have to talk about something to justify their continued existence. Might as well be something dead and irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.4159813]

>>4159783
>Capitalism
>Ever
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartered_companies

[Anonymous No.4159819]

>>4159783
I sincerely doubt those figures are genuine, and I guess we should also look at the death tolls of everyone who has ever starved in a capitalist society, or died of inadequate health care, or been killed by the police, or been killed by the military, or died in prison.

[Anonymous No.4159831]

>>4159819
What about the people under slavery? Slavery was a purely capitalist venture, especially in South America.

[Anonymous No.4159910]

>>4159783
Capitalists see that as a reason to avoid socialism. Socialists see those lands as examples of what to do different next time.

[Anonymous No.4159931]

>>4159783
>ideology
>ever

these poor souls

[Anonymous No.4160296]

Here's me (OP) again.
First of all I'd like to remind you that our seminar will be devoted to the book entitled Capital by Karl Marx. We wont be wasting our time on endless (and pointless) discussions about socialism, communism, marxism (sic!) or any of the other 'isms' that seem to be of so much interest to some people.
"Capitalism is first and foremost a historical social system" I. Wallerstein
The point of reading Marx's Capital is to understand mechanics (or rather: dynamics) of this social system. That's our goal.
I think - though I might be wrong - that David Harvey's approach suits our purposes. For one thing, he has been teaching this book for over 40 years, so he knows it by heart. What's more, he claims that he reads Marx the way Marx would have wanted to be read. That's why in the introduction he says:
"I first have to ask you to try, as best you can, to set aside all those things you think you know about Marx so that you can engage with what he actually has to say."

I am not quite sure whether using skype is a good idea. I am from Europe and I presume you guys are mostly from America. The time difference will surely get in our way. Personally I'd go for the IRC channel and forum. On IRC we could have 'real time discussions' which could then be posted on forum and continued at a somewhat different pace.

[Anonymous No.4160375]

I'm in. I've been reading it off and on, this might give me some more motivation.

[Anonymous No.4160423]

I might try to be a part of this.

[Anonymous No.4160429]

>>4159783
I-warned-you-about-states-bro.jpg

There are unsuccessful capitalist states too. Albania, ironically, has one of the lowest taxes at the moment and is considered the biggest shithole in Europe.

[Anonymous No.4160437]

>2013
>not reformist revisionist master race

[Anonymous No.4160438]

Every Sunday, a chapter a week?

[Anonymous No.4160440]

Denmark's a country, you dolt.

[Anonymous No.4160475]

>>4159783
>Using the body count argumentation instead of trying to prove inherent insufficiencies in a theory

[OP No.4160495]

>>4160440
I'm aware of that. I also know that, by accident, I did not use upper case in word "Denmark'. For that I want apologize.
>>4160438
Every sunday, chapter a week.

[Anonymous No.4160508]

I made a channel, #capital on rizon.

The channel key is 'bougie'

In other words, join with /join #capital bougie

[OP No.4160692]

>>4160495
Actually I made a mistake. If we want to stick with Harvey sometimes we will have to read few chapters per one week.
Here's how I see it:
October
13 - Chapters 1-2
20 - Chapter 3
27 - Chapters 4-6
November
3 - Chapters 7-9
10 - Chapters 10-11
17 - Chapters 12-14
24 - Chapter 15
December
1 - Chapter 15 (continued)
8 - Chapters 16-24
15 - Chapter 25
22 - Chapters 26-33
29 - Conlusion

Along the line everyone can consult Harvey's book (A Companion to Marx’s Capital).

I created a forum, but to be honest with you, I'm shit at creating these things and administrating them. Here it is: http://thecapital.freeforums.net/
I'd be glad if anyone could help me... Here's my email: [e-mail]
And yes, I'm from Poland. :-)

[OP No.4160696]

Actually I made a mistake. If we want to stick with Harvey sometimes we will have to read few chapters per one week.
Here's how I see it:
October
13 - Chapters 1-2
20 - Chapter 3
27 - Chapters 4-6
November
3 - Chapters 7-9
10 - Chapters 10-11
17 - Chapters 12-14
24 - Chapter 15
December
1 - Chapter 15 (continued)
8 - Chapters 16-24
15 - Chapter 25
22 - Chapters 26-33
29 - Conlusion

Along the line everyone can consult Harvey's book (A Companion to Marx’s Capital).

I created a forum, but to be honest with you, I'm shit at creating these things and administrating them. Here it is: http://thecapital.freeforums.net/
I'd be glad if anyone could help me... Here's my email: [e-mail]
And yes, I'm from Poland. :-)

[Anonymous No.4160774]

>>4160440
It's a slight quote from Hamlet:

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
- Hamlet (1.4.90), Marcellus to Horatio

[Anonymous No.4160812]

>>4160696
Not sure I see the point of an extra forum, since we can just keep a thread going here. Maybe if we had a google group or a reddit, that added something beyond just usernames and extra threads. We have the ghost board here after all, and keeping a thread from dying on /lit/ isn't hard.

Don't worry about administering irc, I already made a channel with sane modes, see my post above. Whenever you join the channel I can give you op if I'm not idling by then.

[Anonymous No.4160851]

>>4160774
>wow
>wow

[Anonymous No.4161760]

>>4159790
What are some of the issues with his reading?

[Anonymous No.4161802]

I tried reading capital a few years back, but found it too difficult and seemingly meaningless in the context of contemporary economic thought. But I frequently encounter marx's description of the self expanding nature of capital so I like this idea but I think that having the discussion on here would make everything a lot easier

[Anonymous No.4161813]

I once drunkenly saw the title and thought it was a ghetto bastardisation of "That's Capital". Or, low poor uneducated black people would say "That's money".

In any case,I can never look at it the same again.

[Anonymous No.4161823]

>>4160440
Not sure if massive pleb or 10/10 troll

[Anonymous No.4161826]

>>4161802
This
I think you need to read a contribution to the critique of political economy first to have an understanding of Marx's theory of value set up analytically, which then makes the dialectical framework much more accessible. The first 3 chapters are the most difficult.

[Anonymous No.4161835]

I'd be down but I'm pretty sure I'd be confused the entire book.
Have you guys started?

[Anonymous No.4161890]

>>4160475
>Implying that isn't the whole argument against National Socialism.

[Anonymous No.4161965]

Historicism is pseudo-scientific. Stop discussing Marx. Utter shit. Pure astrology.

[Anonymous No.4161972]

>>4161965
>Historicism is pseudo-scientific

[Anonymous No.4162462]

>>4158028
shit you're too late, started with capital 1,5 month ago, so im in volume 2 at the moment.
I'd still like to join your group if thats possible

[Anonymous No.4162498]

>>4160429
and had one of the most successful "socialist" states, with about 6% growth its entire existence

[Anonymous No.4163329]

>>4160696
OP will be back in a few days. From what we discussed on irc, the plan is to follow this schedule and start discussion on the 13th of October, both in this thread and on IRC.

[Anonymous No.4163925]

This is relevant to my interests.

[Anonymous No.4165599]

Might as well

[Anonymous No.4165686]

Distributism > marxism

I'm sorry but I'm not gonna get killed because some fucking vanguard party are disagreeing amongst themselves about the correct interpretation of Marx.

Read Rawls, read Habermas. Move beyond Marxism.

[Anonymous No.4167356]

>>4165686
Rawls is pretty awesome, but I haven't read Habermas.

But the main problem I have with the idea of Marxist orthodoxy is that Marx himself wouldn't have even liked people wasting their time interpreting him rather than thinking critically about his ideas and developing further in whichever directions they need to go. Don't interpret Marxism when the point is to change it.

[Anonymous No.4167358]

>>4165686

Weren't Habermas and the rest of the Frankfurt School neo-Marxist though?

[Anonymous No.4167386]

>>4161965
>let's stop talking about things guys

Don't shitpost in a thread, make your own thread supporting your own non-pseudoscientific ideology or whatever shit you believe in.