Marx's Kapital

[Vincent P.]

I started reading it yesterday. Who did? Any thoughts?

[Yehuda Stern]

In my group we study it together, each month reading one chapter and then discussing it at a meeting. It's the best way to learn. Even if you're not in any organization, if you could get a couple of people to read it and discuss it with you, it would really help, because really understanding Kapital takes some serious work.

[leggy leftist]

You could also follow along with David Harvey's Kapital course, which goes through the chapters one by one. The link is pinned at the top of the Learning section. Have fun!:)

[Vincent P.]

You could also follow along with David Harvey's Kapital course, which goes through the chapters one by one. The link is pinned at the top of the Learning section. Have fun!:)

I did download the 5 first lessons some time ago, and I watched the first 2 videos, but it wasn't really clever to study the text without the text :/.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Kapital seems really scary and overwhelming to read. D:

It's massive and the text is confusing. I think i'm sticking to marxisteconomics.com

[More Fire for the People]

Painful. My notes thus far:

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”[1] its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.

1.How can wealth, an inanimate object, present itself?
2.Marx begins with the appearance.
3.What does it mean for the capitalist mode-methods of production to prevail? Is it the sole mode or does it subordinate other modes of production to its own ends?

A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.[2] Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

1.A commodity is an exterior thing. What about labor?
2.A commodity's properties are things that satisfy human wants.
3.Marx hints at desire as being natural and on the same level as hunger.
4.Marx, and the reader, does not care how the commodity satisfies wants whether it be something of necessity, pleasure, or production.


Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. To discover the various uses of things is the work of history.[3] So also is the establishment of socially-recognized standards of measure for the quantities of these useful objects. The diversity of these measures has its origin partly in the diverse nature of the objects to be measured, partly in convention.

1.Every useful thing—not commodity...
2.Every useful thing can be viewed from two perspectives—quantity and quality.
3.A useful thing has many attributes, and, hence, these attributes can be used a variety of ways.
4.The discovery of these uses is the product of historical action.

[LOLseph Stalin]

That's a crap site on Marxist economics, seemingly accepting the Neo-classical paradigm of supply and demand without a critical thought in mind. Even that idiot Mandel would be better. You simply can't say that you understand Marxism without having read Marx's most famous work. 'Summaries' of capital, typically drawn up by bourgeoisie economists, are laughably biased and incorrect, and the same goes for social democrat Trotskyists.

Well I never said anything about dismissing Kapital completely. I'm just holding it off for now until I can obtain it in book form. I can't read off a computer screen, especially something complex like that. Also, perhaps you should learn more about Trotskyism before tossing us off as "Social Democrats".

[LOLseph Stalin]

That's fine - if you do get it in book form go for the Penguin edition, which is the best translation of the ones I have read. Regarding Trotskyism, roflmao. The only difference between a Trotskyist and a social democrat, is that a social democrat KNOWS that he is a social democrat. The Trotskyist is just a deluded one.

Social Democrats are reformist, wanting to keep the Capitalist system in place. Trotskyists aren't reformists. And yes, i'll keep that in mind that the penguin edition is the best edition of Kapital. Thanks. :)