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The Headshop reads Capital

02:49 / 07.08.02

well, that was fun, wasn't it?

yeah yeah, i know i'm late but i got here in the end. and what to say? it's funny, it's hard to say much at this point because he introduces the concept of the commodity in such a restricted way that it seems pretty lame - i'm sure it's going to pick up once he introduces ideas like surplus value, labour power as commodity, etc. on the other hand, the writing is not nearly as bland as i expected and has some absolutely classic lines (the one i remember is 'money can be dirt, but dirt cannot be money', or possibly the other way round). other opinions?

i will be back later with my notes and more clear commentary.

08:18 / 07.08.02

Huzzah! Crunchy returns!

Likewise not a great deal to add as it's early days yet and to be honest he didn't say much in 150 odd pages. Now maybe I'm missing something as I don't know a thing about economics, but it seems to me that he is treading verrrry slowly. Talk about baby steps. He introduces an extremely simple definition, then gives examples, then repeats himself, then puts it in equation form, then goes over the example again, then says something like "as we can see from that analysis", then restates the original definition.

So I can't comment on these simple definitions on their own as I don't have the economics background, and I'm just waiting until he starts to do things with them before I can really have an opinion.

I guess it's good that it's so repetitive and simple as it makes it easy to read and not at all the scary experience I expected. Perhaps if he cut out all the repetition the book would be a third as long and not as daunting to the naked eye. But definitely a surprise stylistically, as the pirate notes. Who would have expected all the Shakespeare quotes? Maybe during all that time he spent at the British Library naughty Karl had fiction books hidden underneath his philosophy ...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

13:53 / 07.08.02

Are there any Marxists out there who are willing to answer some critical questions? Because, um, I've got some. I've got problems with Historical Materialism of pretty much any kind, with Class-based analysis as a stand alone or as pretty much anything other than one of a multitude of perceptions, with the notion of an informed proletariat as a revolutionary class, with the notion of armed atruggle as inherent to revolutionary change, or even useful to it, and with the timescale and appropriateness of this outside a Western European 18th/19th/early 20th century setting.

Which is kind of a lot. But I don't know how much any of these things remain core to hard left theories any more. Or how much Marx is, come to that.

18:17 / 08.08.02

The repetition was probably intended to present and represent what was, and in many ways still is, an alternative and unfamiliar economic perspective. And he's just wordy; more interesting than Adam Smith though.

Nick, start a new thread and ask specific questions. I'll see what I can get to amid unpacking before vacation. Otherwise: it doesn't stand alone, and nobody but a few kids and slow readers thinks so; an informed proletariat is pretty much part and parcel of any movement for change, whether one chooses to call it that or not; it's not, but it might be, depending on the type of change, the timetable, and those involved; and, although I'm not sure what you meant to ask with in the muddle of the last item, capital, surplus labor, appropriation, and distribution, are going on around you right now, so the core of the analysis is pretty appropriate. Don't mistake the Bolsheviks for marxian economists.

00:42 / 09.08.02

My favourite part was definitely finding out the Latin for oral sex translates literally as 'base services performed with the mouth'.

And not to be picky, Nick, but I don't really see what your questions have to do with the reading. Did I skip the part where he mentioned the notion of an informed proletariat as a revolutionary class? Or the part where he insisted class explains everything? Right at the start, it seems to me, he specifies exactly what he's talking about: the economic dynamics of societies where capitalist modes of production prevail. I don't think it's all that reductive to suggest such dynamics are based on labour, do you?

21:50 / 13.08.02

Are we going to use this single thread for the whole book, and, if not, can we standardize the thread titles with section numbers?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

06:42 / 14.08.02

Sorry, Crunchy, got carried away by my general perplexity. I'll take it elsewhere.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:54 / 15.08.02

Hurry up then! I want to ask you why you've never been a fan of the redistribution of wealth as well, when it seems to me to be a pretty fundamentally necessary step to get from where we are now to a fair and equal society.

(Sorry, carry on Capital...)

11:24 / 16.08.02

Ok, I thought we should try and get this thing moving a little, so have been looking for a couple of quotes that might be worth an opinion. I'm not too sure what I think yet, but I'm hoping that folks out there with some economics-fu might have something to say.

Use-values must therefore never be treated as the immediate aim of the capitalist; nor must the profit on any single transaction. His aim is rather the unceasing movement of profit-making. This boundless drive for enrichment, this passionate chase after value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The ceaseless augmentation of value, which the miser seeks to attain by saving his money from circulation, is achieved by the more acute capitalist by means of throwing his money again and again into circulation. (pp. 254-55)

If we go on to consider money, its existence implies that a definite stage in the development of commodity exchange has been reached. The various forms of money (money as the mere equivalent of commodities, money as means of circulation, money as means of payment, money as hoard, money as world currency) indicate very different levels of the process of social production, according to the extent and relative preponderance of one function or the other. Yet we know by experience that a relatively feeble development of comoodity circulation suffices for the creation of these forms. It is otherwise with capital. The historical conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It arises only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence finds the free worker available, on the market, as the seller of his own labour-power. And this one historical pre-condition comprises a world's history. Capital, therefore, announces from the outset a new epoch in the process of social production. (pp. 273-74)

So, do these excerpts sound anything like what you would expect for a definition of capital and capitalism? Do other economists say anything like this, or is Marx putting forth something radical here?

16:28 / 16.08.02

"It arises only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence finds the free worker available, on the market, as the seller of his own labour-power."

I like this as a definition of capitalism, there are possibly aspects it doesn't cover but it is fairly easy to grasp which makes it a good place to start, which is what I tend to see Capital as in relation to Marx (not entirely topic, but I tought I'd throw it in