"Park your ahistorical economics and social science at the door before you enter... Read what Marx says. Pay no attention to those that tell you Capital is hard; they are merely saying 'read my book first'. You have limited time; spend it on reading Capital. " from Radhika Desai (elsewhere). Having noted that, this is still an hour well spent.
It took me two years but I finished reading Capital today. I’m someone who had very little knowledge regarding economics when I went into this book. The only advice I could give is take your time and make sure you haven’t gotten lost.
The only advice I'd give is not to worry about reading every single phrase and sub-phrase in the chapter that deals with the extraction of surplus-value, where he seems to repeat himself almost endlessly. He is trying to cover all possible angles of attack he can imagine that might come from critics, but once you've got the basic idea, you can move on to the less treacly bits without missing anything too important...
An excellent discussion about Marx's Capital. What a wonderful guest, who seems as knowledgeable on Marx and Marx's Capital as anyone I've heard. I had not heard of your guest before so it's so nice to be exposed to someone fresh and new to me on such an important topic. I also really enjoyed Vijay Prashad on this topic as well. I have yet to read this text but hope to at some point soon. Thank you for posting these videos! Tom
1:15:45 Neo-classical economy confuses pricing mechanism of price of assets and pricing mechanism of price of commodity. Pricing of a share is not the same as pricing of commodity
35:35 *Cecil Rhodes. Important example!* Imagine that you know there was no free wage labor right everybody had their own access to their own livelihood and they were happy to work on their own little land and make a decent living and so on if there was no free wage labor and imagine that an aunt of yours um you inherited from an old elderly on some huge mansion and you think oh how wonderful i have this huge mansion but without people to employ to clean it to tend its gardens to cook to decorate to etc without people to employ you will soon you know it will be a burden on you you if you you may start out cleaning every room and thinking i'm gonna do this here and that there but eventually you will shrink to one of its rooms which you can clean manage on on your own and the rest will be left to to to decay as it pleases because because you cannot actually enjoy these vast properties without access to other people's labor which you will appropriate at a relatively low price which is their upkeep and their upkeep is low because they are poor etc etc so anyway so mark says what does it take for these conditions to obtain where there is a substantial number of people who have no choice but to work for those people in whose hands property has ended up so capital is a relation because otherwise you can have heaps of money mansions huge fields and gardens and so on but it will be no use to you without those people to work for you that's the key point um and by the way there are also historical examples so the the famous instance of cecil rhodes arriving in what is today zimbabwe and essentially imposing a hut tax in order to compel members of an otherwise self-sufficient community to go out and work in the mines and plantations and so on in the colony and if there was no hut tax then nobody would have felt compelled they had a good life they had a good decent means of livelihood they were not poor et cetera but whereas you see this is very important to emphasize because the other thing is we so take it for granted that there is always a surplus of labor where did that surplus come from and we will come back to it
47:00 *Commodity fetishism is not consumerism. Consumerism did not exist in Marx's time. People have barely enough to eat!* *The question which is not asked by the vulgar economy is WHY the products of labour take form of commodities?*
59:20 *Central banking is not capitalism. It is a service provided to capital. If a central banking were capitalists the capitalism could not function*
I think there is a general lack of clarity about what capitalism means, even among academics. The word capitalism was coined after the Industrial Revolution. We have to understand it in this historical context i.e. the overthrow of feudalism in Europe. The usual understanding of "capital" is as accumulated money or finance. But "capital" is only one of three factors of production (land, labor, capital), and money-capital is only one form of capital. Capital is not money or a system of production, capital is ownership. This is the key concept to understand, ownership, and connected to that, the ability to exchange ownership from one owner to a new owner. In Latin, the word for "head" is "caput" and that's the etymological derivation of the concept of "capitalism." In feudal society, land was inalienable. The first task of bourgeois society was to "alienate" land from its hereditary owners (king, lord, church, free peasant, etc.). By transforming land into a commodity that could be freely sold and purchased, capitalism was born, because now land, along with the people on it, were "factors of production" that could be combined in innovative and productive ways by owner-entrepreneurs. When we refer to "capital" as the third factor of production, we're not referring to money but to ownership. The reason why we think of money as synonymous with capital is because money is the easiest form of ownership to exchange on the market, because of its immediate liquidity. Unlike land or stocks, you can exchange money easily for anything. The "capitalist" should not be thought of as an accumulator of money. The capitalist is an exchanger of ownership, which can include ownership of money, but not only money. In fact, the capitalist gives up his accumulated money in exchange for ownership e.g. of shares in a company and title to future profits. What's being exchanged is ownership of liquid money in exchange for ownership of future returns or profits. Capitalism is a system of private ownership of the factors of production. In feudal society, there were no factors of production because land was inalienable. In capitalist society, land, labor and ownership itself (i.e. capital) are alienated and perfectly mobile i.e. they can be combined in any way for the entrepreneurial and productive activity of the owner. Socialism was a word also coined after the Industrial Revolution, it was about abolishing private ownership because the continuation of private ownership meant that the revolution against feudalism was only a halfway revolution. Feudalism was also based on private ownership, the crucial difference being that feudal ownership was inalienable. By making ownership alienable, capitalism opened up production to anyone capable of combining the factors of production in profitable ways. But capitalism carried with it an essential characteristic of feudalism (private ownership), and this was the central fight between capitalism and socialism, a struggle over who would own the factors of production, which only came into existence with the Industrial Revolution. This is why the early socialists always talked about who owns the means of production, that's the true origin of capitalism and socialism.
31:52 bear in mind what is different in the account of capitalism that is given in the best of classical political economy and in marx as opposed to neoclassical economics well i would say that um in capital or in classical political economy and in marx and marx is clearest about this but there are elements of this in classical political economy capitalism is historically distinct in the sense that it's not that oh markets have always existed so capitalism has always existed and all that something called the economy has always existed no capitalism arises at a distinct point in history it was not always here uh it only arises when certain conditions are created and we'll go back to that in a second and it is fated to expire so to speak because it is it has its own contradictions or it's certainly a very contradictory system so um and midmark says capitalism is historically distinct most people think of it as um as involving stages you know there was feudalism there was primitive communism then you have feudalism then you have capitalism then you have socialism as though as karl pulani said as the history was like a railway timetable you know that this train will come then that train will come etc um of course marx was not doing that in fact when i teach about what marx wrote about what hobbs bomb called pre-capitalist economic formations my major is my own understanding is that this um writing that marx did which is quite interesting was precisely anti-stages because classical political economy had already created stages so in the minds of various writers scottish enlightenment and so on you had stages you had a a hunter gatherers pastoralists agriculture and now we have this commercial system as they called it marx actually broke that down but he had a very interesting question that he asked that he says *What has to happen before the conditions of capitalism are met because the conditions of capitalism are terribly brutal?* they involve as as you will see in part eight when you come to the question of the so-called primitive accumulation adam smith thinks primitive uh so you know let me rephrase that according to adam smith says you know if capital constantly invests value invest money in order to get more money and therefore to accumulate and to constantly accumulate where did the original accumulation come from so here clearly he has in mind some kind of heap of money that you know where did the original heap of money come from and mark says this is nonsense the real issue so this is the wrong question because you are asking you know then of course the answer is some people were thrifty they saved money they were virtuous blah blah you know crap etc mark says you're asking the wrong question *What creates the conditions for capitalism is not a heap of money an object it is a new relation a new relation between those who have been deprived oftheir access to the means of livelihood* *They have been separated from the land which was originally the means of livelihood for most people and those who have appropriated said means of livelihood capital is a relation and one of the simplest ways of understanding this and people don't get it* it's it's like this imagine that uh you know there was no free wage labor right everybody had their own access to their own livelihood and they were happy to work on their own little land and make a decent living and so on if there was no free wage labor and imagine that an
Keynes was and is a complete dead end for the working class....she promotes him as a "socialist" in reality...he wasnt of course , he was a capitalist who wanted to SAVE capitalism...she contradicts herself endlessly. One minute saying that Marx and Engles saw that Capitalism had to be ended by revolution...and " had to be stopped in its tracks"....next she is saying that Keynes was good coin and revolutionary. She strikes me as being only a little better than the pathetic Richard Wolfe.
6:30 "Keynes is a member of the establishment. Keynes identifies as a bourgeois." can you point in the video where she promotes his as a socialist? if you can't then tell me what were you smoking when you watched this video.
Excellent conversation. Brilliant Professor.
The Ernest Mandel introductions are incredible! My Version of Volume 1 has it at the beginning of the book.
"Park your ahistorical economics and social science at the door before you enter... Read what Marx says. Pay no attention to those that tell you Capital is hard; they are merely saying 'read my book first'. You have limited time; spend it on reading Capital. " from Radhika Desai (elsewhere).
Having noted that, this is still an hour well spent.
It took me two years but I finished reading Capital today. I’m someone who had very little knowledge regarding economics when I went into this book. The only advice I could give is take your time and make sure you haven’t gotten lost.
The only advice I'd give is not to worry about reading every single phrase and sub-phrase in the chapter that deals with the extraction of surplus-value, where he seems to repeat himself almost endlessly. He is trying to cover all possible angles of attack he can imagine that might come from critics, but once you've got the basic idea, you can move on to the less treacly bits without missing anything too important...
Oh, and congratulations. Onward to Volume 2!
congratulations! a wonderful achievment
An excellent discussion about Marx's Capital. What a wonderful guest, who seems as knowledgeable on Marx and Marx's Capital as anyone I've heard. I had not heard of your guest before so it's so nice to be exposed to someone fresh and new to me on such an important topic. I also really enjoyed Vijay Prashad on this topic as well. I have yet to read this text but hope to at some point soon. Thank you for posting these videos!
Tom
great lecture/interview... a lot of interesting thoughts
I've watched the whole thing and actually, it's pretty amazing
1:15:45
Neo-classical economy confuses pricing mechanism of price of assets and pricing mechanism of price of commodity. Pricing of a share is not the same as pricing of commodity
Excellent! Got to know a lot of things. Can you please make a video on Marx's theory of value any time in the future?
1:16:50
Land, labour and money are not commodities although neoclasscical economy wants to commodifies them.
35:35 *Cecil Rhodes. Important example!*
Imagine that you know there was no free wage labor
right everybody had their own access to
their own livelihood and they were happy
to work on their own little land and
make a decent living and so on if there was
no free wage labor and imagine that an
aunt of yours um you inherited from an
old elderly on some huge mansion
and you think oh how wonderful i have
this huge mansion
but without people to employ
to clean it to tend its gardens to cook
to decorate to etc without people to
employ you will soon
you know it will be a burden on you you
if you you may start out cleaning every
room and thinking i'm gonna do this here
and that there but eventually you will
shrink to one of its rooms which you can clean
manage on on your own and the rest will
be left to to to decay as it pleases
because because you cannot
actually enjoy these vast properties
without access to other people's labor
which you will appropriate at a
relatively low price which is their
upkeep and their upkeep is low because
they are
poor etc etc so anyway so
mark says what does it take for these
conditions to obtain where there is a
substantial number of people who have no
choice but to work
for those people in whose hands property
has ended
up so capital is a relation because
otherwise you can have heaps of money
mansions huge fields and gardens and so on
but it will be no use to you without
those people to work for you
that's the key point um and by the way
there are also
historical examples so the the famous
instance of cecil rhodes
arriving in what is today zimbabwe and
essentially imposing a hut tax
in order to compel members of an
otherwise self-sufficient community to
go out and work
in the mines and plantations and so on
in the colony and if there was no hut tax
then nobody would have felt compelled
they had a good life they had a good
decent means of livelihood they were not poor
et cetera but whereas you see this is
very important to emphasize because the
other thing is we so take it for granted that there is
always a surplus of labor
where did that surplus come from and we
will come back to it
47:00
*Commodity fetishism is not consumerism. Consumerism did not exist in Marx's time. People have barely enough to eat!*
*The question which is not asked by the vulgar economy is WHY the products of labour take form of commodities?*
59:20
*Central banking is not capitalism. It is a service provided to capital. If a central banking were capitalists the capitalism could not function*
I think there is a general lack of clarity about what capitalism means, even among academics.
The word capitalism was coined after the Industrial Revolution. We have to understand it in this historical context i.e. the overthrow of feudalism in Europe.
The usual understanding of "capital" is as accumulated money or finance. But "capital" is only one of three factors of production (land, labor, capital), and money-capital is only one form of capital.
Capital is not money or a system of production, capital is ownership. This is the key concept to understand, ownership, and connected to that, the ability to exchange ownership from one owner to a new owner. In Latin, the word for "head" is "caput" and that's the etymological derivation of the concept of "capitalism."
In feudal society, land was inalienable. The first task of bourgeois society was to "alienate" land from its hereditary owners (king, lord, church, free peasant, etc.). By transforming land into a commodity that could be freely sold and purchased, capitalism was born, because now land, along with the people on it, were "factors of production" that could be combined in innovative and productive ways by owner-entrepreneurs.
When we refer to "capital" as the third factor of production, we're not referring to money but to ownership. The reason why we think of money as synonymous with capital is because money is the easiest form of ownership to exchange on the market, because of its immediate liquidity. Unlike land or stocks, you can exchange money easily for anything.
The "capitalist" should not be thought of as an accumulator of money. The capitalist is an exchanger of ownership, which can include ownership of money, but not only money. In fact, the capitalist gives up his accumulated money in exchange for ownership e.g. of shares in a company and title to future profits. What's being exchanged is ownership of liquid money in exchange for ownership of future returns or profits.
Capitalism is a system of private ownership of the factors of production. In feudal society, there were no factors of production because land was inalienable. In capitalist society, land, labor and ownership itself (i.e. capital) are alienated and perfectly mobile i.e. they can be combined in any way for the entrepreneurial and productive activity of the owner.
Socialism was a word also coined after the Industrial Revolution, it was about abolishing private ownership because the continuation of private ownership meant that the revolution against feudalism was only a halfway revolution. Feudalism was also based on private ownership, the crucial difference being that feudal ownership was inalienable. By making ownership alienable, capitalism opened up production to anyone capable of combining the factors of production in profitable ways.
But capitalism carried with it an essential characteristic of feudalism (private ownership), and this was the central fight between capitalism and socialism, a struggle over who would own the factors of production, which only came into existence with the Industrial Revolution. This is why the early socialists always talked about who owns the means of production, that's the true origin of capitalism and socialism.
1:13:58
"Transformation problem" - Andrew Kliman, Alan Freeman
Excellent!
31:52
bear in mind what is different in the
account of capitalism that is given
in the best of classical political
economy and in marx as opposed to
neoclassical economics well
i would say that um
in capital or in classical political
economy and in marx
and marx is clearest about this but
there are elements of this in classical
political economy
capitalism is historically distinct
in the sense that it's not that oh
markets have always existed so
capitalism has always existed
and all that something called the
economy has always existed no
capitalism arises at a distinct point in
history
it was not always here uh it only arises
when certain conditions are created and
we'll go back to that in a second
and it is fated to expire so to speak
because it is it has its own
contradictions or it's certainly a very
contradictory system
so um and midmark says capitalism is
historically distinct
most people think of it as um
as involving stages you know there was
feudalism
there was primitive communism then you
have feudalism then you have capitalism
then you have socialism as though
as karl pulani said as the history was
like a railway timetable you know that
this train will come then that train
will come etc
um of course marx was not doing that in
fact
when i teach about what marx wrote about
what hobbs bomb called pre-capitalist
economic formations
my major is my own understanding is that
this
um writing that marx did which is
quite interesting was precisely
anti-stages
because classical political economy had
already created stages so in the minds
of various writers
scottish enlightenment and so on you had
stages you had
a a hunter gatherers pastoralists
agriculture and now we have this
commercial system as they called it
marx actually broke that down but he had
a very interesting
question that he asked that he says
*What has to happen before the conditions of capitalism are met because the conditions of capitalism are terribly brutal?*
they involve as as you will see in part
eight when you come to the question of
the so-called primitive accumulation
adam smith thinks primitive
uh so you know let me rephrase that
according to adam smith says you know if
capital constantly invests
value invest money in order to get more
money and therefore to accumulate and to
constantly accumulate where did the
original accumulation come from
so here clearly he has in mind some kind
of heap of money that you know where did
the original heap of money come from and
mark says
this is nonsense the real issue
so this is the wrong question because
you are asking you know then of course
the answer is some people were thrifty
they saved money they were virtuous blah
blah
you know crap etc mark says you're
asking the wrong question
*What creates the conditions for capitalism is not a heap of money an object it is a new relation a new relation between those who have been deprived oftheir access to the means of livelihood*
*They have been separated from the land which was originally the means of livelihood for most people and those who have appropriated said means of livelihood
capital is a relation and one of the simplest ways of understanding this and people don't get it*
it's it's like this imagine that uh
you know there was no free wage labor
right everybody had their own access to
their own livelihood and they were happy
to work on their own little land and
make
a decent living and so on if there was
no free wage labor and imagine that an
"Very Interesting . . . " :-)
Keynes was and is a complete dead end for the working class....she promotes him as a "socialist" in reality...he wasnt of course , he was a capitalist who wanted to SAVE capitalism...she contradicts herself endlessly. One minute saying that Marx and Engles saw that Capitalism had to be ended by revolution...and " had to be stopped in its tracks"....next she is saying that Keynes was good coin and revolutionary. She strikes me as being only a little better than the pathetic Richard Wolfe.
6:30 "Keynes is a member of the establishment. Keynes identifies as a bourgeois." can you point in the video where she promotes his as a socialist? if you can't then tell me what were you smoking when you watched this video.
What about the Uyghur genocide?
what about it?
PROPAGANDA 🚨