‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’

Biswadip Dasgupta & Rob Jackson, members of KCL Reading Capital, introduce a discussion on:

‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’.
Tuesday 8th December
6pm
Room 2.43 F-WB
Waterloo Campus KCL

“The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.”

N.B. We are reading Part II: Chapters 4-6 in preparation for this meeting.

'Money or the Circulation of Commodities'

Following a fascinating session discussing the fetishism of commodites, the Reading Capital group asks...

What is money? Where does it come from? What makes certain commodities suitable as money? Could we live without it?

Joseph Choonara, former deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal (www.isj.org.uk) will introduce a discussion on

'Money or the Circulation of Commodities’.

Monday 23rd November '09 (Note Change of Date)
6pm F-WB Room 2.43
Waterloo Campus
King's College London

"It is not money that renders commodities commensurable. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are realised human labour, and therefore commensurable, that their values can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their values, i.e., into money. Money as a measure of value, is the phenomenal form that must of necessity be assumed by that measure of value which is immanent in commodities: labour-time.”

All welcome - whether you have been reading Capital or just want to drop in for the talk - we aim to be accessible to all.

(Those wishing to read in advance should make their way to Chapter 3!)

Photos of Alex Callinicos & Martin Wolf Debate

Alex Callinicos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CZAQvAMaY

Martin Wolf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXKqqgwAIeI

Questions & Answers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYpHLnlUrFg

'The Fetishism of the Commodity and its secret'

Bis Dasgupta, of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on

'The Fetishism of the Commodity and its secret'

Tuesday 10th November
6pm
F-WB Room 2.43 Waterloo Campus KCL

"Economists have a singular method of procedure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism are artificial institutions, those of capitalism are natural institutions. In this they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every religion which is not theirs is an invention of men, while their own is an emanation from God... Thus there has been history, but there is no longer any."

The Future of Capitalism: Debate

A Public Debate Hosted by KCL Capital Reading Group and KCL Business Society
Supported by the Centre for European Studies, King's College London

THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM:
THE ROOTS OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE

ALEX CALLINICOS, Professor of European Studies, King's College London, and author of The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx
MARTIN WOLF, Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times, and author of Fixing Global Finance

6.30 P.M. MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER
GREAT HALL, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, STRAND, LONDON WC2R 2LS (PLUS OVERFLOW IN EDMOND J. SAFRA LECTURE THEATRE)

for more information contact KCLreadingCapital@gmail.com

'Commodities & Values' - Tuesday 27th October 09

Thanks to all who attended our re-launch meeting with Ben Fine (apologies for those who had to sit on the floor and stand by the door!). There is an mp3 of the meeting for download along with older sessions to the right on the blog.

We hope that everyone found the meeting interesting and will consider reading Capital with us. Details of our first meeting are below:
- - -
'Commodities & Values'

The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collection of commodities'.

Marx begins Capital by looking at the elementary building block of capitalism, the commodity.

Marx identifies in the commodity a dual aspect, use-value and exchange value. One gives the commodity its usefulness for the consumer, the other commensurability with other commodities.
- - -
Chris Harman, editor of International Socialism Journal (www.isj.org.uk), introduces a discussion on 'Commodities & Values'
Tuesday 27th October 2009
6pm
Room 2.42 F-WB
Waterloo Campus
King's College London
- - -
-N.B. We will be reading the first 3 sections of Chapter 1 in preparation.

Prof. Ben Fine on 'Why Read Capital?'

The Reading Capital group is re-launching this year with a talk by Prof. Ben Fine from SOAS (co-author of "Marx's 'Capital'") on:

Why read Capital? Marx in the 21st Century

Tuesday Oct. 13th 2009
6pm

Room 2.42
F-WB Building
Waterloo Campus
King's College London
- - -

KCL Reading Capital is a fortnightly seminar organised by students discussing the main issues & themes in Capital Volume I

Open to anyone with an interest in finding out more about Marx's great work.

Reading Group Returns in the Autumn

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Reading Group this year. We will be returning at the beginning of next term with a special event. We are also hoping to formally become part of KCLSU and start up a lending library as part of the group with various texts of interest, as well as copies of Capital for members to borrow.

So look out for us at the Welcome Fair, and make sure to join and sign up to the email list for further updates.

Enjoy your summer!
KCL Reading Capital

‘Exploitation & the Working Day’

Lorenzo Fusaro, of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on
‘Exploitation & the Working Day’.
Tuesday 2nd June
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.”

“…in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class”

N.B. We will be reading chapters 9 & 10 in preparation for this discussion.

Valorization and the Labour Process

A member of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on

‘Valorization and the Labour Process: Surplus Value, Constant Capital & Variable Capital’.

Tuesday 19th May
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

“That part of capital then, which is represented by the means of production, by the raw material, auxiliary material and the instruments of labour does not, in the process of production, undergo any quantitative alteration of value. I therefore call it the constant part of capital, or, more shortly, constant capital. On the other hand, that part of capital, represented by labour-power, does, in the process of production, undergo an alteration of value. It both reproduces the equivalent of its own value, and also produces an excess, a surplus-value, which may itself vary, may be more or less according to circumstances. This part of capital is continually being transformed from a constant into a variable magnitude. I therefore call it the variable part of capital, or, shortly, variable capital.”

‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’

Take Capital home over the holidays, because when we return Biswadip Dasgupta, a member of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on

‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’.
Tuesday 5th May
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

“The consumption of labour-power is completed, as in the case of every other commodity, outside the limits of the market or of the sphere of circulation. Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” Here we shall see, not only how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last force the secret of profit making.”

N.B. We are reading Part II: Chapters 4-6 in preparation for this meeting.

‘Money or the Circulation of Commodities’

The reading movement continues to grow with 20 people attending our second session. At the next meeting, John Cooper, of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on:

‘Money or the Circulation of Commodities’.
Tuesday 24th March
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

“It is not money that renders commodities commensurable. Just the contrary. It is because all commodities, as values, are realised human labour, and therefore commensurable, that their values can be measured by one and the same special commodity, and the latter be converted into the common measure of their values, i.e., into money. Money as a measure of value, is the phenomenal form that must of necessity be assumed by that measure of value which is immanent in commodities: labour-time.”

N.B. We are reading Chapter 3 in preparation for this meeting.

In case of doubt the original: “Capital” – an overview of its interpretations

For more than a hundred years introductory and accompanying literature to “Capital” has been produced. For as long as the work itself, the need has existed for comprehensible summaries, because the original text is extremely long and at times difficult to approach. In some places the book raises more questions than it answers and secondary literature can be helpful here. But we should be aware that every text accompanying “Capital” also has its own subjective interpretation and views the text from a certain angle.

The text can be read from a logical as well as from a historical point of view. It can be seen in the perspective of gender politics or interpreted with regard to law, etc. In addition there are many political traditions that each interpret Marx’s work in their own way (see below). This is how a lively debate about the “correct” interpretation of “Capital” has developed. As a beginner one can easily lose track of this jungle of debates and the hundreds of contributions made. And one should be careful not to have read more of the secondary literature than of the actual text. This way one can also avoid the danger of being too quickly taken up by any one particular way of reading “Capital”.

In the Reading Capital group we do not want to insist on one specific version. Since we are starting without preconditions the primary text by Marx is at the centre and should also be the point of reference in discussions.

The following table illustrates very basically the different (historical) schools of interpretation of Marx, or of the different “Marxisms”. The schematic subdivision follows a very rough and simplified pattern. The years are merely to give an approximate orientation – the actual transitions were much more fluid and the blocks represented here are by far not that homogenous. Who wants to have a look at the different “schools” of Marxism can find useful indications in Leszek Kolakowski’s three-volume work “Main Currents of Marxism”. Each of these different perspectives has produced texts accompanying “Capital”, each with specific nuances – which is why there can be no “objective” secondary literature.

What? / When? / Where? / Main focus

Traditional Marxism 1st Generation / from 1878 on / SPD, 2nd International, Engels, Kautsky, Bebel, Bernstein and others / development of history along laws of nature

Traditional Marxism, 2nd Generation / 1914 until early 1920’s / Early 3rd International, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Bucharin / Revolutionary perspective, against Reformism of 2nd International

Trad. Communist Interpretation, Marxism-Leninism / after 1928 / Communist Parties after Stalinisation / Party as the centre of praxis and theory, Marxism as state- Doctrine (USSR)

Western Marxism, Reference to working class / from 1923 on / Korsch, Lukács, Gramsci / Subjectivity of revolutionary praxis

Western Marxism, Frankfurt School / from 1930 on / Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer / Mechanisms of integration of late Capitalism

Neue Marx-Lektüre / from 1968 on / Backhaus, Heinrich, Hirsch / Critique of forms of capitalist socialisation

The different schools of Marxism stimulate the vivid debates around the interpretation of “Capital”. But the reason for this struggle of interpretation is the work itself. In the following comments we want to exemplify the controversies amongst Marxists by highlighting some points which are the objects of those controversies.

The status of the dialectical method:

In “Capital” Marx does not explicitly state whether and to what extent his analysis uses Hegelian dialectics. How do we therefore have to interpret formulations which seem to follow Hegelian categories (such as form and content or appearance and being)? [FORM, INHALT, SCHEIN, SEIN] And if the dialectic is always implicitly present, how can we understand the work without philosophical knowledge at all?

Historical or logical account in chapter 1 of volume I:

Does the depiction of the development from simple exchange of commodities to the capitalist wage labour (respectively the development of money) follow an imagined, real historical course or does Marx use abstractions in order to identify the specifically capitalist basic forms [GRUNDFORMEN] of value, labour and capital?

There are also differences as to where and when value is developed. An approach which is sometimes referred to as “the substantiveness of value theory” [“werttheoretischer Substantialismus”] situates the creation of value already in production. Others hold the view that value is only created when commodities face each other as commodities, i.e. in the exchange-process.

Another important field of debate is gender relations. To what extent does the analysis of “Capital” consider the oppression of women? What is the relation between wage labour and reproductive labour (Reproduktionsarbeit) in the determination of the value of labour-power?
This is only a small selection of questions and controversies which have emerged from “Capital”. The most important questions, however, often develop in the reading groups themselves and they can be completely different from the ones outlined here. These illustrations do not aim at working along a pre-modelled catalogue of questions, they merely show that reading “Capital” can open up many exciting debates in reading groups.

Following an interesting discussion at our first session with 18 people attending, Rob Jackson, of the KCL Reading Capital Movement, will introduce a discussion on

‘The Secret of the Fetishism of Commodities’.
Tuesday 10th March
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

“A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour."

N.B. We are reading section 4 of Chapter 1 in preparation for this meeting.

All good things come in threes - Michael Heinrich

When Frederick Engels once again urged Marx to publish at least the first volume of “Capital”, Marx replied on August 31st 1865 that he could not bring himself to send off anything until it was finished. For him, whatever shortcomings they may have had, the advantage of his writings was that they were an artistic whole and could only be published at once.

Two years later, in 1867, the first volume of “Capital” was published although the project as a whole remained unfinished. Marx believed however that he would be able to complete the two remaining volumes within the following two years. As we know by now this was a miscalculation: Marx died in 1883, without having been able to complete “Capital”. The revision of Volume I for the second edition, his exhausting activity in the International Workingmen’s Association, publications on current political events such as the Paris Commune and finally his worsening physical condition made it impossible for Marx to complete Volume II and III. It was not until 1885 and 1894 respectively that Engels published Volume II and Volume III from Marx’s literary estate. The unfinished character of the manuscripts and their less sophisticated style of writing are visible despite Engels’ efforts. It is no surprise that the first volume of “Capital” dominates its reception even today. When someone says that they have read “Capital”, they usually refer to Volume I, and indeed, this first volume appears to be quite cohesive.

Volume 1

In Volume I Marx starts out by examining commodities and money and then proceeds to the “general formula for capital” M-C-M. He asks himself how the valorization of capital (Kapitalverwertung) is possible when ideal equivalents (i.e. the same values) are being exchanged. Marx explains that it is possible because labour-power (i.e. the ability to work) is sold as a commodity. The value of the commodity labour-power is less than the value that its application can produce. Therefore it is the exploitation of labour-power which delivers surplus value. Volume I is dedicated to the analysis of the capitalist process of production, and its largest part deals with the different possibilities of increasing the production of surplus value as well as with the social fights which take place under these conditions.

Marx shows at the same time how capitalist relations (kapitalistische Verhältnisse) veil themselves. The chapter on commodity fetishism is concerned with the representation (Darstellung) of social relations as objectified (sachliche) qualities of things: the world appears to be governed by material constraints we all have to submit to.

In the part dedicated to the form of the wage (Lohnform), Marx shows that although it is labour-power which is being paid for (so that it can reproduce itself and continue to be available for exploitation), the form (Gestalt) of the wage conveys the impression that it is in fact the work which has been done that is being paid for. It therefore seems as if a just and appropriate wage could abolish exploitation.

The chapter on accumulation then deals with the continuing repetition of the capitalist process of production on a growing scale, which is what economic science calls ‘economic growth’. Contrary to mainstream economics, however, Marx reveals the inevitable consequences of this process: periodically growing unemployment and increasing social polarization between those who appropriate the advantages of the development of society and those who have to bear the weight of this development. Volume I then concludes with an examination of the historical formation of modern capitalism and with a short perspective on the surmounting of that system.
Looking at Volume I as a whole, we are confronted with a rather difficult introduction, several very intriguing main parts and finally a happy end on the horizon. One is inclined to ask, what else (that is of major importance to the system) can there still be to come? Howard Zinn, a left-wing historian from the US who is politically committed in many ways, wrote in the epilogue of his theatre play “Marx in Soho” that although “Capital” is the most important one of Marx’s works, it is unnecessary to read Volume II and III unless one is serving a long prison sentence. But the second and third volumes can be very useful and interesting even outside of prison walls.

Volume 2

The second volume is concerned with the process of circulation of capital. Production and circulation (i.e. the entirety of the exchange-process) do not take place independently of one another. The examination of the process of circulation provides Marx with new definitions, for individual units of capital and for the economic reproduction of the whole of society.

It is only on the basis of his description of the unity of production and circulation in Volume II that Marx is then able to develop “the process of capitalist production as a whole” in Volume III. This confronts us with categories which play an important role in everyday life under capitalism, but which were absent from the first volume, as for instance “profit”, “prices of production”, “profit of enterprise” and “interest”. These categories are often confused with something which they are not: the value of commodities is by no means the centre of fluctuating market prices (Schwankungszentrum der Marktpreise), and surplus value is by no means simply the same as profit or profit of enterprise.

Volume 3

Volume III answers many questions one might have while reading Volume I. It is only in the third volume that Marx deals with the conversion of the different rates of profit into one average rate of profit. It is only in the third volume that he examines interest-bearing capital and following from that the functioning of banks and finance markets. Indeed, it is only in the third volume that we read about the mechanisms which again and again produce economic crises. And in the last section of Volume III Marx finally deals with the “Trinity Formula”, the summary of all fetishisms and mystifications, the analysis of which he had only begun in Volume I with the depiction of commodity fetishism and the form of the wage (Lohnform). These mystifications which naturally spring from capitalist society are the background of the development of a spontaneous everyday consciousness. Marx therefore also called them the “religion of everyday life”. We have to face this phenomenon everyday, whenever we attempt to criticize capitalism.
It is only now that we have obtained a general picture of the capitalist mode of production. Without volumes II and III the first volume does not only remain incomplete, but taken in itself it cannot be totally understood. The three volumes of “Capital” indeed form an ‘artistic whole’, which needs to be perceived as a whole. This is exhausting, it requires time and energy and persistence. But in return we gain an understanding which is fundamental for every form of political practice and we experience an exciting intellectual adventure.

"Commodities & Values" Tuesday 24th February

Following a successful launch meeting with over 50 students, the Kings College Reading Capital Movement presents...


Joseph Choonara, deputy editor of International Socialism Journal introducing a discussion on:

"Commodities & Values"
Tuesday 24th February
6pm
Ground Floor Strand Building Room 1

The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collection of commodities'.

Marx begins Capital by looking at the elementary building block of capitalism, the commodity.

Marx identifies in the commodity a dual aspect, use-value and exchange value. One gives the commodity its usefulness for the consumer, the other commensurability with other commodities.

-N.B. We will be reading the first 3 sections of Chapter 1 in preparation.

Article by Elmar Altvater

Why read “Capital”, and how?

An introduction by Elmar Altvater

Consider a US-soldier in Iraq, or an employee of a private security company, or a messenger in Hamburg or a skinny model from Rio de Janeiro. None of these people need Karl Marx’s “Capital” in order to do their jobs. Quite the opposite, in many ways it would actually be more of a hindrance and therefore it’s certainly not included as part of the army’s survival kit. But it can happen that the GI develops doubts about the justification of the aggression against the Iraqi people. Perhaps the messenger demands a minimum wage and finds himself in conflict not only with his employer, but also with “expert opinion”. The skinny model decides to eat whatever she likes. None of them will start reading Capital simply because of these small doubts and these big deviances from the respective roles that they are expected to play. But it could happen that they accidently meet; the person who doubts the justification of the war, the person who fights for social justice and the person who criticises the dominance of consumption and commercialised ideas of beauty. They discover connections, and together with many others they decide to collectively draw political conclusions from their doubts. They begin to discuss their social conditions in order to be able to formulate coherent strategies. They realise the limits of their knowledge about social interrelations, their contradictions and the dynamics of conflicts. Then, however, the unexpected can happen, that they start studying “Capital” in order to understand these social contradictions, political conflicts and historical tendencies and in order to be able to formulate the strategies required by the times in which they live.

Some start reading “Capital” out of individual interest: out of curiosity, out of philological interest, to be able to join in discussions, or out of frustration about the mainstream explanations offered in the social science departments of our universities. A collective ‘Reading Capital’ movement on the other hand can only come into being when people share similar experiences in different social and geographical places, when similar questions occur and when it then becomes necessary to identify what one has in common by formulating it. Immediately, there is a problem: How does one do this? Where does one start? Which steps follow others? How is it possible at all to transform the individual act of reading into a collective movement of reading individuals who, on top of that, claim to practically and politically change the world? And, how can we understand the society we want to change at all? What is capitalism and how does capital work? Thankfully there is help we can find when we try to answer those questions.

Capital

“Das Kapital”, the “Critique of Political Economy” (the subheading of Marx’s work) is the most systematic of all literary works available. Reading “Capital” therefore is an obvious choice, although it is difficult. The sketch of an explanation of “Capital” as outlined in the “Grundrisse” gives some insight into Marx’s overall plan, but the steps Marx makes in the first volume of “Capital” can be hard to follow. When discussing the form of value (whilst everything appears to be simply an exchange of equivalents) one might stumble in the process of reading and of discussing. We can understand why Marx begins with an analysis of the commodity, because, as Marx states at the beginning of “Capital”, the “wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an immense collection of commodities”. The individual commodity is the elementary form of that wealth. The form therefore is the decisive difference as to the appearance of wealth. Only in capitalism does it take the form of commodities. It therefore makes sense to begin with an analysis of the commodity form in the first chapter of “Capital”.

Then, step by step, social forms, their appearances and their corresponding forms of consciousness are developed. We usually accept social forms as self-evident, inherent necessities without understanding that we ourselves have created them. Therefore we are all ‘fetishists’, not because nature has condemned us to it but because we are all acting within social forms which require a lot of effort to understand. The fetishism embodied in the commodity is, as Marx says, “mysterious”. The individual effort to disclose the secret is made easier if reading happens collectively. For the first chapter on the commodity it is important to take some time and proceed carefully with some questioning.

Money

How does money come into the world, when things are produced by labour? The question is by no means trivial. Neoliberals think that money at every stage is brought into circulation by the central bank, as if dropped off by a helicopter. They are not interested in the notion of money, only in its quantity in relation to the quantity of commodities, which, in their view, determines the rate of inflation. Marx goes deeper than this. He asks questions about the form of money, before examining its function and quantity. The form of money is already given in one single act of exchange of commodities. It originates in the equivalent form of value. If the commodity A (let’s say, bread) is expressed in its equivalent, the commodity B (let’s say, chewing-gum), the equivalent (chewing-gum exchanged for bread) can be replaced by money.

Originally, money was as physical as the products exchanged, in Europe mainly gold and other precious metals. Other cultures, for example, used cattle as money. Today this task is fulfilled by (Central-) banknotes, i.e. paper money and electronic money, because nowadays Central Banks assure the value of money, gold and other substances being more and more “de-monetised”. It becomes clear that the form of money and the tasks it performs can be fulfilled by very different kinds of material, even by electronic bits and bites. Nevertheless, money is always tied to real values and to the real economy. During certain phases money and the highly developed sphere of finance can become more and more independent. We can understand the reasons for this when we read the chapter on fetishism, about the vile products of our own action which then become circumstances of constraint to our action. In his historical analysis of the transition to the market economy in the 18^th and 19^th century Karl Polanyi describes this as a tendency of the markets to disembed themselves from society, and as we have to add today, from nature.

The reading movement stops?

Many committed Marxists and followers of Marx’s theory, for instance around the Frankfurt School, have stopped here, with the Marxist theory of alienation, of the critique of ideology, of false appearances and distorted consciousness. But it is necessary to continue reading, for it is only now that we are confronted with the conditions under which modern industry functions. Only when reading the later chapters of the first volume of “Capital” and volume 2 and 3, does it become clear how the process of accumulation of capital functions and which contradictions within it lead to substantial crises. Reading capital therefore requires persistency, which not everyone might have. Not because they are weak or impatient but because they cannot always combine the time-consuming reading of “Capital” with their studies. This has always been the case, also in the Reading Capital movement in the aftermath of 1968. Reading “Capital” as a political project cannot avoid the possibility of a group of “Capital”-experts either.

Brecht said that it is expensive to be a good Marxist. Does this suggest Marxist human resources? Marx strictly opposed that idea, just as one would not think of describing the eye as the resources of seeing. This does not mean that it is not necessary to gain much knowledge in order to meet Brecht’s claim (which Marx shared) that in order to change the world we need to understand it. A ‘reading Capital’ movement always has to consider that knowledge can only be gained in collective effort and that this, together with the analysis of the social situation, determines the space for social praxis. The GI, the messenger and the model already got to the third chapter of “Capital” on “Money, or the Circulation of Commodities”. While reading they had many light-bulb moments and gained insight. They also believe that they dispose of the categories of analysis of forms with which they can understand their social situation, its contradictions and conflicts which initiated their reading in the beginning: The greed for oil and the interests behind the invasion of Iraq, the strategies to reduce wages (and not just in the privatised postal services) and the beauty fetishism as an expression of fetishised commodity aesthetics.

But the mentor of their reading group warns them. Reading “Capital” is a necessary precondition in order to understand the process of accumulation of capital but it is not sufficient. We also have to tackle an analysis of the “surface phenomena” of contemporary real capitalism, in order to be able to formulate strategies of action. For this reading “Capital” is indispensable, but we need to read it with the same method Marx used to analyse it: Firstly, “Capital” is the product of the vast research Marx made in the British library and secondly it is a serious critical examination of the thinking of his time. This is true for a “Critique of Political Economy” today. Reading groups cannot limit themselves to reading, they have to critically analyse contemporary ways of thinking and acting in order to fulfill the claim of being a political project.

Reading Capital Movement Launched at King's College

Politicisation & the crisis are driving students to search for a fundamental understanding of the system. This week around 50-60 students attended a launch meeting for a Capital reading movement at King's College London. It was organised by a group of students in association with the International Socialism Journal (http://www.isj.org.uk/). Alex Callinicos (Professor, European Studies) introduced a discussion on 'Why read Capital? - Marx in the 21st Century'.

Students from many different departments (War Studies, Law, European Studies, etc.) raised serious issues ranging from the nature of intellectual labour, Marx & ecology, Utopian vs. Scientific Marxism, to questions about exploitation and the origin of surplus-value.

The group has translated introductory essays used by students from the group SDS.Die Linke, who have launched a Capital reading movement in Germany in over 30 universities. Many students have also been watching David Harvey's (CUNY New York) reading group lectures online at http://www.davidharvey.org/.

Joseph Choonara, deputy editor of ISJ, will speak at the next session on 'Commodities & Values' (Feb 24th 6pm Ground Floor Room 1, Stand Campus), after which the group will begin introducing topics itself.