Pounding Marx Into My Brain

ratpocalypse:

thepeacockangel:

ratpocalypse:

thepeacockangel:

I’m repeating the first chapter of Capital until I actually get it.

Surprisingly, this repetition (reading three different translations and listening to an audio book) is making it clearer.

omg I thought we were on the publications previous to chapter 1 eeeeee

Should I skip those?

Nah, they’re relatively quick and actually quite comprehensible, we’re on chapter 1 (I think)

omg panicking now. Chapter one is going to take a lot of work. >.<

I’ll try to fit in the other books and catch up. Normally I read on my tablet, but I need to do this on the computer to take notes. I started up a google doc for my notes, at any rate.

I managed to read it yesterday, but it took me about two tries, but once you get it to make sense is suddenly makes so much sense.  The very first bit is primarily: if 2 yards silk = 10 yards cotton rope and

10 yards cotton rope  = 5 lbs tea, then 2 yards silk = 5 lbs tea.

Then if these commodities are all interchangeable, their value in the exchange must not be the value created by their utility because you don’t use rope and tea for the same things, and it can’t be their physical properties because they don’t all have anything in common, so it must be the labor hours.