Reading Marx’s Capital

[Udo Erasmus]

My only problem with Wheen is that he's a Eustonite.

I remember him giving a gushing review of Paul Foot's last book "The Vote - How it was won and how it was undermined" and then ending with something along the lines of "which makes it strange that Foot is a member of the head-chopping off, Ba'ath supporting Socialist Workers Party" or some such.

Erich Fromm's collection of Marx' 1844 manuscripts, "Marx's Concept of Man" has some touching autobiographical sketches of Marx the man, and a very fine introductory essay.

On the subject of Capital, Marx suggested that the beginner didn't read it from front to back, but had a special order of chapters to start with.

Karl Korsch had a similar idea, but different order of chapters.

I will dig out their advice.

 

[butchersapron]

I remember him giving a gushing review of Paul Foot's last book "The Vote - How it was won and how it was undermined" and then ending with something along the lines of "which makes it strange that Foot is a member of the head-chopping off, Ba'ath supporting Socialist Workers Party" or some such.

Erich Fromm's collection of Marx' 1844 manuscripts, "Marx's Concept of Man" has some touching autobiographical sketches of Marx the man, and a very fine introductory essay.

On the subject of Capital, Marx suggested that the beginner didn't read it from front to back, but had a special order of chapters to start with.

Karl Korsch had a similar idea, but different order of chapters.

I will dig out their advice.

I though Marx explicty argued that readers must start from chapter one, that the whole work was contained in the commodity section, that this was the mosy important part - difficluty be damned, and argued with Englels over this.

Korsch suggested starting with ch. 7 going onto 8, then back to the start.

 

[butchersapron]

Next lecture (on chapter 1 and 2) now availible to download:
http://davidharvey.org/media/Capital_Class_02.mov

Next streaming lecture going up tommorow.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I though Marx explicty argued that readers must start from chapter one, that the whole work was contained in the commodity section, that this was the mosy important part - difficluty be damned, and argued with Englels over this.

Korsch suggested starting with ch. 7 going onto 8, then back to the start.

Korsch's essay:
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/korschcapitala.html

I think that Marx had an order that he suggested for "the ladies" where he highlighted descriptive passages that would be quite easy to get to grips to.

Capital contains, for the kind of audience Marx had in mind ('I assume of course they will be readers who want to learn something new, who will be prepared to think while they are reading'), fewer difficulties than any of the more-or-less widely read manuals on economics. The reader who is at all capable of thinking for himself if hardly likely to meet serious difficulties, even with terminology. Some sections, such as chapters 10 and 13-15, on (The Working Day', 'co-operation', 'Division of Labour', and 'Machinery and Modern Industry', and Part 8 on 'Primitive Accumulation', all of which Marx assured Kugelmann would be 'immediately comprehensible' to his wife, are indeed so predominantly descriptive and narrative - and the description is so vivid, the narration so gripping - that they can be immediately understood by anyone; and these chapters together constitute more than two-fifths of the whole book.

 

[nino_savatte]

I remember him giving a gushing review of Paul Foot's last book "The Vote - How it was won and how it was undermined" and then ending with something along the lines of "which makes it strange that Foot is a member of the head-chopping off, Ba'ath supporting Socialist Workers Party" or some such.

Par for the course.

 

[butchersapron]

Korsch's essay:
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/korschcapitala.html

Yep, i put that article up:

It is best, I think, to begin with a thorough perusal of Chapter 7 on 'The Labour Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-value'...[snip why]It seems advisable therefore to read Parts 7 and 8 in the order in which they stand, and then, having achieved a provisional grasp of the general shape of the whole work, to proceed with a closer study of its detail.

 

[phildwyer]

I though Marx explicty argued that readers must start from chapter one, that the whole work was contained in the commodity section, that this was the mosy important part - difficluty be damned, and argued with Englels over this.

He did, and he was right. The opening section on the commodity is the key--actually you get a pretty good grasp of postmodern capital from that section alone.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Well and I intend to put it on her new video links page of ResistanceMP3 www.resistancemp3.org.uk , when I get it finished. Could you really get a better commendation that?

 

[Brainaddict]

Started watching the ch 1 and 2 piece but I don't think he's really that good as a lecturer. He seems to be just repeating/summarising what's in Capital rather than actually explaining it in more easily graspable terms.

 

[butchersapron]

Yep, wouldn't bother waiting for the other 25, the start of one lecture will do. Maybe he explains it in more easily graspable terms a little bit later on? Is that even what he's supposed to be doing anyway - it is postgraduate course for students at CUNY and John Hopkins University, not A Level intro stuff.

 

[Kenny Vermouth]

Teaching Marx for 40 YEARS !!!! fuck me if that isn't a definition of a wasted life I don't know what is.

Hahaha!

 

[Das Uberdog]

Well done Keyboard, you got a laugh from Kenny.

 

[gorski]

Marx actually argued that one should start reading "Das Kapital" by reading Hegel...

 

[butchersapron]

Next lecture now up and ready to download or stream:

http://davidharvey.org/2008/06/marxs-capital-class-03/

http://davidharvey.org/media/Capital_Class_03.mov

 

[butchersapron]

Marx actually argued that one should start reading "Das Kapital" by reading Hegel...

Did he now?

 

[phildwyer]

Marx actually argued that one should start reading "Das Kapital" by reading Hegel...

And the fact that 99% ignore this advice has resulted in the single most tragic misreading of a philosopher in history: the idea that Marx was a materialist.

 

[audiotech]

Chapter 3: Money, or the Circulation of Commodities.

This is very relevant for today and gives an understanding of the present 'credit crunch'.

The lecturer, David Harvey, is very good.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

M.

 

[TremulousTetra]

And the fact that 99% ignore this advice has resulted in the single most tragic misreading of a philosopher in history: the idea that Marx was a materialist.

that's interesting, care to expand on why you think Marx isn't a materialist? I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, just interested in your logic.

 

[geoff64]

lecture 2 is offline

i wanted to watch that one 2nite as well.

i really like his lecturing style, like Marx he repeats stuff in different ways so you get what he's arguing hammered into you. very useful if you're a bit slow...

re Marx as a materialist, Popper had something to say about that that i read the other day - he ultimately suggests that Marx's historicism, that by 'scientifically' understanding the temporal process of modes of production we can somehow predict the future course of history (ie that capitalism is inevitably doomed because of the falling rate of profit, the widening gulf between the capitalist and proletarian classes, etc), is not ultimately science but mystification.

Incidentally i just started to read John Gray's Black Mass (in tandem with Norman Cohn's book) and it's interesting that he basically sees in 'utopian' movements like communism a secular expression of Xian mythology. Popper too - and he has a lot of admiration for Marx as a moralist - sees in Marx's critique of capitalism (especially the earlier stuff about alienation) a Xian ethics at work. In that deeper sense Marx is not really a materialist at all - he just has the appearance of one.

Not sure how i feel about any of that, but anyway, it's interesting ...

 

[geoff64]

Marx actually argued that one should start reading "Das Kapital" by reading Hegel...

Harvey says the same thing in his first lecture, but only cos if you read Hegel first then afterwards reading Capital will seem like a walk in the park

 

[butchersapron]

lecture 2 is offline

i wanted to watch that one 2nite as well.

i really like his lecturing style, like Marx he repeats stuff in different ways so you get what he's arguing hammered into you. very useful if you're a bit slow...

re Marx as a materialist, Popper had something to say about that that i read the other day - he ultimately suggests that Marx's historicism, that by 'scientifically' understanding the temporal process of modes of production we can somehow predict the future course of history (ie that capitalism is inevitably doomed because of the falling rate of profit, the widening gulf between the capitalist and proletarian classes, etc), is not ultimately science but mystification.

Incidentally i just started to read John Gray's Black Mass (in tandem with Norman Cohn's book) and it's interesting that he basically sees in 'utopian' movements like communism a secular expression of Xian mythology. Popper too - and he has a lot of admiration for Marx as a moralist - sees in Marx's critique of capitalism (especially the earlier stuff about alienation) a Xian ethics at work. In that deeper sense Marx is not really a materialist at all - he just has the appearance of one.

Not sure how i feel about any of that, but anyway, it's interesting ...

Marx argued that ideas become material forces when they grip the masses, which opened up a huge gap between him and the 'bourgeois materialism' taken up by the majoriy of marxists, a positivist, mirror-reflection of nature type of approach. The Theses On Feuerbach are largely concerned with this insight, that there is no mechanical seperation between idea and material forces with the former being a mere reflection olf the latter but of them both being component parts of the 'sensuousness as practical activity', as social activity.

 

[The Black Hand]

Marx argued that ideas become material forces when they grip the masses, which opened up a huge gap between him and the 'bourgeois materialism' taken up by the majoriy of marxists, a positivist, mirror-reflection of nature type of approach. The Theses On Feuerbach are largely concerned with this insight, that there is no mechanical seperation between idea and material forces with the former being a mere reflection olf the latter but of them both being component parts of the 'sensuousness as practical activity', as social activity.

You clearly HAVE been reading Mayday magazine issue number 2

 

[The Black Hand]

And the fact that 99% ignore this advice has resulted in the single most tragic misreading of a philosopher in history: the idea that Marx was a materialist.

We agree

 

[butchersapron]

You clearly HAVE been reading Mayday magazine issue number 2

That's a point that i've been making for years on here.

 

[The Black Hand]

That's a point that i've been making for years on here.

Really, so you are an Hegelian Marxist then?

 

[TremulousTetra]

That's a point that i've been making for years on here.

SNAP! WTF, we agree?

 

[phildwyer]

that's interesting, care to expand on why you think Marx isn't a materialist? I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, just interested in your logic.

Marx was a dialectician, and therefore believed that all binary oppositions (such as ideas/matter) were mutally determining: it is impossible to conceive of matter without also conceiveing of ideas and so forth. So he protested against both idealism and materialism (which Lukacs famously and accurately called "inverted Platonism").

Unfortunately, Lenin *was* a materialist, and believed that Marx had been one too. The political dominance of the Soviet Union in international Communism thus meant that the misconception that Marx was a materialist gained widespread currency, and it is probably still held by most soi-disant Marxists today.

But as the connection between capitalism and materialism becomes increasingly obvious, the Hegelian Marx is making a comeback, and I predict that within two decades the notion that Marxism is compatible with materialism will be universally regarded as an historical aberration.

 

[audiotech]

Marx was a dialectician, and therefore believed that all binary oppositions (such as ideas/matter) were mutally determining: it is impossible to conceive of matter without also conceiveing of ideas and so forth. So he protested against both idealism and materialism (which Lukacs famously and accurately called "inverted Platonism").

Unfortunately, Lenin *was* a materialist, and believed that Marx had been one too. The political dominance of the Soviet Union in international Communism thus meant that the misconception that Marx was a materialist gained widespread currency, and it is probably still held by most soi-disant Marxists today.

But as the connection between capitalism and materialism becomes increasingly obvious, the Hegelian Marx is making a comeback, and I predict that within two decades the notion that Marxism is compatible with materialism will be universally regarded as an historical aberration.

As I understand it Hegel's thought was the contemplative of the naval type, but no action. The action bit is what distinguishes Marx from Hegel, i.e 'philosophers have only interpreted the world the point is to change it'.

 

[TremulousTetra]

lecture 2 is offline

i wanted to watch that one 2nite as well.

i really like his lecturing style, like Marx he repeats stuff in different ways so you get what he's arguing hammered into you. very useful if you're a bit slow...

capital is probably the masterpiece at the style, but two others spring to mind. "Staying Power, I History of Black People in Britain" for get who it is by, and though I have read many good books on racism, I would say this is the definitive Marxist explanation. The second one would probably be "A People's History of the World" by Chris Harman. Whilst it isn't as obviously repeating, when you step back and take a look at the book as a whole after you have read it, the constant rhythmic repeating of the dialectic in evolution, social evolution, gets the simple core message across.

If I was going to call Marx anything other than a Marxist, it would probably be a Darwinian. I think I am right in saying carl Marx wanted to dedicate capital to Darwin, but Darwin's family refused. I generally don't feel the left pay enough respect to Darwin.