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/lit/ - Literature

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4890045 No.4890045[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What is the best way to read Das Kapital? I'm a total pleb, so a tome that is so scientific and difficult (so much so that the Tzarist censorship bureau let it pass just for being so hard to read) would probably leave me in the dust for the most part.

>> No.4890054
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4890054

Read Engels instead.
Just look at that beard. You know you want him.

>> No.4890060

>>4890054
But Engels wrote Volume 3...

>> No.4890069

You can watch the video lectures, then you get the explanations

http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

>> No.4890072

I heard if you read Das Kapital backwards it sounds like Atlas Shrugged...or is it the other way around. I forgot.

>> No.4890080

>>4890069
I noticed only parts of Volume 3 are explored. Is Volume 3 not as important?

>> No.4890088

>>4890080

No one reads it; kind of German Ideology in that regard.

>> No.4890095

>>4890088
The German Ideology is actually one of my favorites by Marx...

>> No.4890096

>>4890088

forgot the *like*

>> No.4890113

>>4890045
>so scientific
much dialectic
many relations
wow

>> No.4890153

go on /r communism or socialism or critical theory for help. Most of /lit are conservatives or fascists.

>> No.4890213

>>4890045
>What is the best way to read Das Kapital?
Wages Price and Profit

>> No.4890218

>>4890045

You must be a proper cunt! Pick the book up and turn the title page: Chapter One: The Commodity.

>> No.4890222

>>4890218
Reading capital without the context of Feuerbach, Gotha, Wages Price and Profit and Socialism Utopian and Scientific is a bit of a waste

>> No.4890225

>>4890222

No it's not. You actually don't need any of that.

>> No.4890226

>>4890222
>look at muh knowledge

>> No.4890232

>>4890225
OP has obvious no context to read within.

>>4890226
Argument by NEEERRRRRRRRRRRRDS? This fallacy on /lit/? Really?

>> No.4890234

You need a background in both Hegel and the political economy of the time. If you read Kapital on its own then apart from some colourful polemic you won't get anything out of it. It is a response to the state of Economics at the time from a scholar of Hegel.

>> No.4890415

Is Robert C. Tucker's Marx-Engels Reader a good way to get acquainted with the topic?

>> No.4892150

>>4890415
Before the days of marxists.org sure. Now you've got the complete works on the internet, and Tucker's guide to his selections is probably less useful then saying what you've read to /lit/ and what area of reading you're interested in next.

>> No.4892694

>>4890080
It's not less important just less highly regarded as it was cobbled together from pieces of Marx's notes after he died.

Worth reading though. It's the volume that addresses rent seeking and the bankers

>> No.4892717

>>4890045

Only plebs think communism can work.

>> No.4892751

>>4892717
Not true at all. There are good arguments for communism and capitalism, but you cannot say either is superior. We know capitalism the most because it is the one that has been applied most correctly, however we know the flaws thanks to Adam Smith and Karl Marx. NOW that we know the flaws perhaps some Communist ideologies could help us?

>> No.4892763

>>4892751
It isn't a matter of choice. Capitalism produces the preconditions of socialism through producing vastly productive material goods in concentrated capital and by producing the alienated working class, that class reproducing itself as society instead of as labour.

There's no choice about it.

>> No.4892848

>>4890060

Marx wrote Volume 3. And 2. And 1. And _Theories of Surplus Value_, which is Volume IV. Engels compiled 2 & 3 from Marx's notebooks after his (Marx's) death and published them. Kautsky was the first to publish Volume IV, as he became Marx's literary executor after Engels' death.

If Engels had written Volume 3 himself, we wouldn't have to deal with all those satanic run-ons . . .

>>4890045

I'm always surprised when people are intimidated by Capital. You really can just pick it up and read it; it isn't nearly so difficult as it's sometimes made out to be. Marx does a good job of building your understanding of his analysis step by step, so none of it should take you off guard or leave you feeling as if you don't know what's going on. At worst, it will bore you.

If you're looking for prep-lit, some of the stuff already recommended is worth a look, viz. _Value, Price and Profit_ and _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_. Those two should be viewed as an introduction to the Marx & Engels collaboration generally as much as an introduction to _Das Kapital_.

Links:

http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm
http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/index.htm

Also, this: >>4890069