RE-SCHEDULED: 'The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value':

A quick reminder of the next session (TUES) (re-scheduled and now at Strand campus)...

Joseph Choonara, former deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal, will introduce a discussion on:

‘The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value'.
Tuesday June 29th
6pm
Room S-1.29 Strand Campus KCL

"From one standpoint, any distinction between absolute and relative surplus-value appears illusory. Relative surplus-value is absolute, since it compels the absolute prolongation of the working-day beyond the labour-time necessary to the existence of the labourer himself. Absolute surplus-value is relative, since it makes necessary such a development of the productiveness of labour, as will allow of the necessary labour-time being confined to a portion of the working-day. But if we keep in mind the behaviour of surplus-value, this appearance of identity vanishes. Once the capitalist mode of production is established and become general, the difference between absolute and relative surplus-value makes itself felt, whenever there is a question of raising the rate of surplus-value."

N.B. We will be reading Part V (chapters 16-18) for this session.

Next Session: 'The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value':

Joseph Choonara, former deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal, will introduce a discussion on:

‘The Production of Absolute and of Relative Surplus-Value'.

Tuesday May 25th
6pm
F-WB 2.80 Waterloo Campus KCL

"From one standpoint, any distinction between absolute and relative surplus-value appears illusory. Relative surplus-value is absolute, since it compels the absolute prolongation of the working-day beyond the labour-time necessary to the existence of the labourer himself. Absolute surplus-value is relative, since it makes necessary such a development of the productiveness of labour, as will allow of the necessary labour-time being confined to a portion of the working-day. But if we keep in mind the behaviour of surplus-value, this appearance of identity vanishes. Once the capitalist mode of production is established and become general, the difference between absolute and relative surplus-value makes itself felt, whenever there is a question of raising the rate of surplus-value."

N.B. We will be reading Part V (chapters 16-18) for this session.

Facebook event at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129398700403817

'Machinery and Modern Industry'

Nicholas Beech, a PhD student from University College London, and Ken Kobayashi of the Reading Capital group will introduce a discussion on:

‘Machinery and Modern Industry'.

Tuesday May 11th
6pm
F-WB 2.80 Waterloo Campus KCL

"John Stuart Mill says in his “Principles of Political Economy":

“It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.”

That is, however, by no means the aim of the capitalistic application of machinery. Like every other increase in the productiveness of labour, machinery is intended to cheapen commodities, and, by shortening that portion of the working-day, in which the labourer works for himself, to lengthen the other portion that he gives, without an equivalent, to the capitalist. In short, it is a means for producing surplus-value.

In manufacture, the revolution in the mode of production begins with the labour-power, in modern industry it begins with the instruments of labour. Our first inquiry then is, how the instruments of labour are converted from tools into machines, or what is the difference between a machine and the implements of a handicraft? We are only concerned here with striking and general characteristics; for epochs in the history of society are no more separated from each other by hard and fast lines of demarcation, than are geological epochs."

N.B. We will be reading chapter 15 for this session.

Facebook event at:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114369608599776&ref=mf

David Harvey - The Enigma of Capital - King's College London 27 April 2010

David Harvey - The Enigma of Capital - Kings College from swpUkTv on Vimeo.

Between two and three hundred people came to King's College London last Tuesday 27 April to hear Marxist geographer David Harvey speak on 'The Enigma of Capital' and the crisis of capitalism. The meeting was jointly hosted by the King's Reading Capital Society and the Centre for European Studies.

DAVID HARVEY AT KING'S COLLEGE - TUES 27 APRIL

The Centre for European Studies & KCL Reading Capital present...

The Enigma of Capital

A talk by the world's most cited academic geographer

DAVID HARVEY

Author of 'A Companion to Marx's Capital'

Tuesday 27 April. 6.30pm. Free.

Great Hall, Strand, King's College London

Please arrive early to avoid disappointment (Doors open 6pm).

For more info contact kclreadingcapital@gmail.com

www.kclreadingcapital.blogspot.com

With grateful thanks to

Bookmarks Bookshop

www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk

Facebook event at:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111026518917557&index=1

- - -

David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), and author of numerous books including 'The Limits to Capital', and 'A Brief History of Neo-liberalism'. His most recent works are 'The Enigma of Capital' and 'A Companion to Marx's Capital', which aims to get "you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…”. The latter book is based on his hugely popular on-line lectures at www.davidharvey.org. They have been viewed over 700,000 times in 187 countries since June 2008.

David has been teaching Karl Marx's Capital for nearly 40 years. His work has contributed greatly to a resurgent interest in Marx's critique of global capitalism. He continues to bring his insights to these new debates about the economic crisis, social class and the continuing relevance of the methodological tools passed on to us by Marx. Join this discussion on TUESDAY 27 April in the Great Hall, Strand, King's College London.

‘The Division of Labour and Manufacture'

Nicholas Beech, a PhD student from University College London, will introduce a discussion on:

‘The Division of Labour and Manufacture'

Tuesday April 13th (NOTE New date! - Giving everyone extra time to read this section)
6pm
F-WB 2.80
Waterloo Campus KCL

"That co-operation which is based on division of labour, assumes its typical form in manufacture, and is the prevalent characteristic form of the capitalist process of production throughout the manufacturing period properly so called. That period, roughly speaking, extends from the middle of the 16th to the last third of the 18th century."

"The organisation of manufacture has two fundamental forms which, in spite of occasional blending, are essentially different in kind, and, moreover, play very distinct parts in the subsequent transformation of manufacture into modern industry carried on by machinery. This double character arises from the nature of the article produced. This article either results from the mere mechanical fitting together of partial products made independently, or owes its completed shape to a series of connected processes and manipulations."

"An increased number of labourers under the control of one capitalist is the natural starting-point, as well of co-operation generally, as of manufacture in particular. But the division of labour in manufacture makes this increase in the number of workmen a technical necessity."

"The knowledge, the judgement, and the will, which, though in ever so small a degree, are practised by the independent peasant or handicraftsman, in the same way as the savage makes the whole art of war consist in the exercise of his personal cunning these faculties are now required only for the workshop as a whole. Intelligence in production expands in one direction, because it vanishes in many others. What is lost by the detail labourers, is concentrated in the capital that employs them."

N.B. We will be reading chapters 14 for this session.

Facebook event at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49539959005&ref=ts#!/event.php?eid=375361080676&ref=mf

Surplus-Value, Relative Surplus-Value & Co-operation

Lorenzo Fusaro, Jonny Jones (deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal), and John Cooper of the Reading Capital group will introduce a discussion on chapters 11, 12 and 13 respectively:

‘Surplus-Value, Relative Surplus-Value & Co-operation’.

Tuesday March 9th
6pm
F-WB 2.80 Waterloo Campus KCL

"At first, capital subordinates labour on the basis of the technical conditions in which it historically finds it. It does not, therefore, change immediately the mode of production. The production of surplus-value — in the form hitherto considered by us — by means of simple extension of the working day, proved, therefore, to be independent of any change in the mode of production itself. It was not less active in the oldfashioned bakeries than in the modern cotton factories."

"The object of all development of the productiveness of labour, within the limits of capitalist production, is to shorten that part of the working-day, during which the workman must labour for his own benefit, and by that very shortening, to lengthen the other part of the day, during which he is at liberty to work gratis for the capitalist."

"...the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one and the same undivided operation... Not only have we here an increase in the productive power of the individual, by means of co-operation, but the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses."

"Just as the social productive power of labour that is developed by co-operation, appears to be the productive power of capital, so co-operation itself, contrasted with the process of production carried on by isolated independent labourers, or even by small employers, appears to be a specific form of the capitalist process of production."

N.B. We will be reading chapters 11, 12 and 13 for this session.