CartMarx’s Capital in the 21st Century Instructor: Ben BurgisProgram: Sociopolitical Thought, Critical PhilosophyCredit(s): 1Date: August 14, 21, 28, September 4 Time: 14:00-16:30 ET
DESCRIPTION: Capital, Vol. 1 is both a totally unique literary masterpiece and the most insightful book ever written about the economic order that continues to shape all of our lives. It’s full of both technical economic points illustrated with mathematical precision and a dense web of references to Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Dante, Greek and Roman history, and more. Add the complications of reading it in translation, and it’s easy to get lost very deep in the weeds.
In this Seminar, we zoom out to cover the core themes of the book, taking on two of the eight sections per session. Instead of getting lost in what can, at worst, become a sort of secular socialist equivalent of scriptural exegesis, we think hard, with care and analytical rigor, about Marx’s core arguments in each of the eight sections. What was the most important case he was trying to make in each case, and how does it all fit together on a high level?
Session 1: Commodities and Money; The Transformation of Money into Capital / Marx on commodities, value, and money, transition to analysis of capitalist class structures, simple commodity circulation versus the circuit of capital, source of profit in labor-power
Session 2: The Production of Absolute Surplus Value; The Production of Relative Surplus Value / The beating heart of Marx’s analysis of capitalist exploitation, necessary labor and surplus labor, capitalism’s historical uniqueness, mute compulsion and vertical market relations, horizontal competition between capitalists
Session 3: The Production of Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value; Wages / Recap from a different perspective, disconnect between exploitation and legal forms of compensation, time-wages versus piece wages, capitalism as a global system
Session 4: The Process of the Accumulation of Capital; So-Called Primitive Accumulation / Simple reproduction versus runaway accumulation, wealth at one pole and social misery at the other, organized labor and the welfare state, the true horrors of capitalism’s origins
IMAGE: Ludwig Engelhardt, Marx and Engels Monument, Berlin,1986
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