'The Fetishism of Commodities' & 'Turnover Time & Fixed and Circulating Capital'

1) Vol. I - Next Session: 'The Fetishism of Commodities'

The Volume I group continues this week (note later start time) with a discussion on 'The Fetishism of Commodities', introduced by Socialist Review Books Editor, Jack Farmer:

Wednesday 1st December
*** 7.30pm ***
Room S-1.08
Strand Building
King's College London
"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..."

"...This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities."

N.B. We will be reading Vol.I, Chapter 1, Section 4 for this meeting.

Facebook event at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112044228861591
(The first meeting on 'Commodities and Values' can be downloaded here:http://rapidshare.com/files/430908198/KCLReadingCapital_RobJacksonVolI_November_10_2010.mp3)

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2) Vol.II - Next Session: 'Turnover Time & Fixed and Circulating Capital'

The discussion from our last meeting on 'Times & Costs of Circulation' is available here: http://rapidshare.com/files/432540457/KCLReadingCapital_22_Nov_2010.mp3

Our next session will be discussing chapters 7-8 on 'Turnover Time & Fixed and Circulating Capital':

Monday 6th December
6pm
Room S-3.18
Strand Building
King's College London

"From the point of view of the capitalist, the time of turnover of his capital is the time for which he must advance his capital in order to create surplus-value with it and receive it back in its original shape."
"[The] portion of the capital-value fixed in the instrument of labour circulates as well as any other. We have seen in general that all capital-value is constantly in circulation, and that in this sense all capital is circulating capital. But the circulation of the portion of capital which we are now studying is peculiar. In the first place it does not circulate in its use-form, but it is merely its value that circulates, and this takes place gradually, piecemeal, in proportion as it passes from it to the product, which circulates as a commodity. During the entire period of its functioning, a part of its value always remain fixed in it, independently of the commodities which it helps to produce. It is this peculiarity which gives to this portion of constant capital the form of fixed capital. All the other material parts of capital advanced in the process of production form by way of contrast the circulating, or fluid, capital."

N.B. We will be reading Vol.II Chapters 7-8 for this meeting.
Facebook event at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173865585976269

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3) Upcoming Events:

London Seminar on Contemporary Marxist Theory:

15th December, 5pm King's College London, Strand Campus, K.3.11 Raked Lecture Theatre
Peter D. Thomas (Brunel University) Contours of Contemporary Western Marxism