Results 1 to 17 of 17
[STUDY GROUP] Marx Study Group
From my friend Loren Goldner:
Hi-
I am considering various topics for study groups for the coming year, based on what people are most interested in. The groups will start in mid-October and run to the end of June 2011. They will meet every other week in Manhattan, most probably on Thursday evenings (the time that seems most convenient for most people), and involve about 100 pages of reading per session. Participants should be committed to doing the reading and attending regularly.
The Capital group of fall 2009-June 2010 and the summer Grundrisse group have been (IMHO) quite successful, with high levels of participation and discussion by all involved. Participants in the 2010-2011 groups will be asked to make presentations on parts of the reading or (with option No. 3) reporting back to the group on independent reading. I have found this to be a very workable way to encourage maximum participation.
The main topics I'm considering are:
Marx's Capital, 3 volumes.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value, plus readings from Smith, Ricardo and Hegel.
The history of revolutions from the English Revolution to the present (English, French, 1848, Paris Commune, Russian Revolutions (1905 and 1917), German, Spanish) and various working-class upsurges and insurrections since 1945. Given the near-infinite character of the topic and of the possible readings, the focus will depend in part on the interests of the group.
I will choose two of the above, based on the response.
For those of you not familiar with where I'm coming from, check out my web site
http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner
and the new on-line journal of which I am a co-editor
http://insurgentnotes.com
If any of the proposed topics grab you, and you have the time and energy to participate, contact me asap at
[email protected]
When is the next issue of Insurgent Notes coming out? Also, look forward to the next additions to LG's and S.Artesian's websites/blogs.
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget
Arundhati Roy
Lenina Rosenweg is a glorious beacon of light
Middle of September, I think. My article is complete, on fixed capital, as is the editorial, both of which will be overtaken by events before we get it into the ether-- but those other guys... they take forever.
Anyway, next couple of things I want to work on are 1)Marx's notion of rent and what does that have to do with the price of oil and 2) transformation of Brazilian agriculture.
Stuck in Paris, yeah I know poor pitiful me... but away from a lot of my books and with a very slow broadband connections so I can't really plow through the information I need like in NYC.
But... thank god for the French-- for their wine, and bread, and cheese [all 236 varieties. DeGaulle once said, "How can anyone govern a country that has 236 different cheeses?"], and their nectarines, and melons, and chickens, and ducks... thank god especially for their duck. In the US we have lacto-ovo vegetarians, here they have lacto-ovo-gigot vegetarians, who avoid animal products except for dairy, eggs, and.... leg of lamb.
What beats the hell out of me is why half this city isn't in the cardiac intensive care unit. They smoke like fiends. Fat, salt, and alcohol seem to be the 3 basic food groups, with 5 servings of dessert a day just to get proper balance. And while it looks like they might consider exercising, it looks also that after due consideration, everyone has rejected that option in favor of another glass of wine and a cigaret. So how do they do it?
Who cares. Just thank god for them.
Sounds like some heavy shit.
There does seem to be a bunch of marxist study groups springing up in cities. I think there are about four marxist within walking distance of my house right now.
Jesus I wish I was in Europe. But yeah, I'd love to be involved online with such a group. I've just started to go back to read Capital again, this time slowly and seriously. Will you and the other members be posting notes here?
I was thinking of getting back into Capital (vol. 1) again soon. Although, since it's such a wide topic, what should the focus be on? I mean, I can certainly try and read it from a simply economic perspective, or you can try and squeeze out Marx's dialectic from it, or you can relate to crisis theory, or focus on his exposition of the LTV, relate it back to Malthus, Stuart Mill, Ricardo, Smith et al and so on and forth. So maybe if we were to study it as a group, we should pinpoint something specific, each time we post our notes to discuss? Do you know what I mean? But I'll post notes here anyway, for sure.
Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew
I'd like to discuss a few points as we go through the text:
-The fundamentals of the theories
-How it relates to certain topics (for instance, how the LTV relates to the subjective theory of value, whether or not gold has intrinsic value and criticisms of his theories)
-How it applies to economic models today, specifically derivatives and other more recent economic/financial phenomena
The last one I tend to struggle with - it is hard in general to assess the meaning of economic functions today, as a result of the relative lack of scientific inquiry into the field, as well as the various mysticisms that reporting on the market is engaged in.
Also, I've written out notes on the first two chapters already, which include some of my interpretations of his theories, and my own ideas. I haven't posted them yet since I wanted to do so in the context of this group, and its largely S. Artesian's thing, he hasn't responded to my email yet.
I don't understand why the owner's of capital would want their gold instead of capital?
Inflation is a great opportunity for capitalists. In many cases micro-inflation causes them to pay their employees the same wage with less value.
They know this. They know minimum wage would either take too long to improve or might not even happen...
They don't want the gold-standard.
Hey,I don't understand why the owner's of capital would want their gold instead of capital?
Inflation is a great opportunity for capitalists. In many cases micro-inflation causes them to pay their employees the same wage with less value.
They know this. They know minimum wage would either take too long to improve or might not even happen...
They don't want the gold-standard.
In Capital, Marx discusses the particular value of gold as a currency. FRB (and hence the broad usage of non-gold currency) wasn't around until later iirc. But a precursor had existed - namely, the state dictating the norms of currency values and subsequently not relating to the 'real' market / scarcity value of gold (say 1 oz gold is 1 bushel of wheat).
Sorry to have ignored the thread-- the study group finished its readings and Loren is in Latin America, due back soon [hopefully not changing planes in Ecuador].
As for Capital... we're dealing with a work that was never completed. The first volume was clearly an introductory volume, and Marx never moves beyond simple reproduction. In addition, I think the analysis Marx provides in the collection of Economic Manuscripts 1857-1864 is in many ways more complete, more thorough, more dynamic than that presented in volume 1. So I truly recommend everyone reading volumes 33,34, 30, 31, and 28 of the collected works.
Not that there's anything wrong with volume 1, but in the manuscripts you really get to see Marx undoing the knots of capital, grappling with the concepts of cost-price, general rate of profit, price of production, the manifestation of value as price, the reconversion of surplus value into capital.... and all this is linked back to the aggrandizement of alienated labor.
I don't know if Loren plans another study group, but I will certainly suggest he consider doing one on line. Me? I'm not so good in study groups. Right now I'm wrestling with Marx's analysis of rent [which I consider to be the most ambiguous part of Marx's work-- at one and the same time he is criticizing Ricardos's notions correctly while he seems to be taking over some of Ricardo's most superficial observations.
First time I've ever heard my own voice saying.... "well Marx is wrong about this, and Marx isn't quite clear enough on that."
But if anyone wants to start a thread on what he or she has developed out of reading volume 1, I think that would be a great idea and I would participate... although I would try to "deepen" the interpretation by relating the issues to what Marx works out in his manuscripts.
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm taking notes now and I've read to the third chapter. I'm just now going back to transcribe them - almost done with Ch 1.
I think Junius' notes are not itemized enough and miss a few of the crucial points in Capital so I'm writing my own as a platform for debate, discussion and reference.
I'll start this weekend. I've read the opening chapters (on money, fetishism, value etc.) several times before because they are hard, but I never made any coherent notes, so I'll start this weekend and get a few chapters (w/ notes) done.
Also, on the unfinished nature of vol. 1 of Capital, I think it's helpful to consult someone like Luxemburg's interpretation (Accumulation of Capital) because she was quite critical of some aspects of Marx's reproduction model, but whilst acknowledging the rough nature of especially volumes 2 and 3. So, after Capital, although getting through it in detail may take some time, it might help to read afterwards, or even in conjunction with, later interpretations, or with the Grundrisse etc.
Oh and lastly, I especially like the idea of linking Marx into more recent economic phenomena (and perhaps explain him using modern examples, in simpler language perhaps), because I often hear Capital described, albeit by mainly liberal commentators, as being exclusively applicable to Victorian industrial Britain. Of course, Marx is not so rigid or 2D.
Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew
I'm not speaking against the idea, I'm just saying the apparatus of the bourgeois will not be able allow it.
I posted this^ comment on the wrong thread...I was responding to the guy who wanted us to hold a gold standard.
But I'm going to read the chapter where he brings it up. Luckily the Capital is all over the internet
Capital at marxists.org is abridged I think. Reading some of the sections in comparison, it looked like paragraphs were missing. According to the translation I have, some of the older translations (Engel's, I think) left some of the original text from Marx out.I'm not speaking against the idea, I'm just saying the apparatus of the bourgeois will not be able allow it.
I posted this^ comment on the wrong thread...I was responding to the guy who wanted us to hold a gold standard.
But I'm going to read the chapter where he brings it up. Luckily the Capital is all over the internet
The one I have at home is the Penguin Classics version. I didn't see anything too significant that was left out, but I did notice some explanation Marx gives at one point in my copy that I found confusing in the electronic version.
Hmmm...I might get the book next then.
Some or all might find Hans Ehrbar's annotations of Marx's various works helpful. They can be downloaded here:
http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar/akmc.htm
