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

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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.

The Working Day

Tony Phillips will introduce a discussion on
‘The Working Day’.
Tuesday 23rd February
6pm
Room 2.80 F-WB
Waterloo Campus, KCL

“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 10 in preparation for this discussion.

Apologies

Apologies to those looking to download the seminar on Climate Change. The seminar was unfortunately posted by the group against the wishes of Jonathan Neale and Gareth Dale. Jonathan's contribution was a work in progress for a piece he is writing for the International Socialism Journal and he would rather people read this upcoming work as his contribution than refer to the seminar. Respecting these wishes we have taken the recording down from the blog.

KCL Reading Capital

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Jonathan and Gareth's previous works are available at:

Gareth's article from International Socialism 116, available online: http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=369

Jonathan's recent articles on Copenhagen (http://www.swp.org.uk/23/12/2009/copenhagen-betrayal-jonathan-neale and http://www.swp.org.uk/23/12/2009/copenhagen-new-movement-jonathan-neale)

Jonathan's book is available from Bookmarks for the reduced price of £10: http://www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk/cgi/store/bookmark.cgi?review=new&isbn=9781905192373&cart_id=9137614.28572

Valorization and the Labour Process

Jonny Jones, deputy-editor of International Socialism Journal, and Adam Fabry of the Reading Capital group will introduce a discussion on

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

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

"A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement."

"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 same elements of capital which, from the point of view of the labour-process, present themselves respectively as the objective and subjective factors, as means of production and labour-power, present themselves, from the point of view of the process of creating surplus-value, as constant and variable capital."

N.B. We will be reading Chapters 7-9 in preparation for this discussion.

Capitalism, Class and Climate Change

Welcome back - Reading Capital continues this semester with a special event organised by the Internation Socialism Journal and supported by KCL Reading Capital:

Gareth Dale and Jonathan Neale on 'Capitalism, Class and Climate Change'

Gareth Dale, author of "Corporations and climate change" and several books on East Germany
Jonathan Neale, author of Stop Global Warming: Change the World and secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change (pc)

In the wake of the fiasco at Copenhagen, Gareth and Jonathan will be presenting an in-depth discussion of climate change, ranging from the science behind it through to the role of the working class in preventing it. This seminar will be of real benefit to all those concerned about climate change, whether new to the subject or a longstanding campaigner.

7pm, Monday 25 January, Kings College Waterloo Campus

(F-WB Classroom 2.40, 2nd floor of the Franlkin-Wilkins building)
Map: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/campuses/waterloo.html

As background for the discussion, you may want to read:

Gareth's article from International Socialism 116, available online: http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=369

Jonathan's recent articles on Copenhagen (http://www.swp.org.uk/23/12/2009/copenhagen-betrayal-jonathan-neale and http://www.swp.org.uk/23/12/2009/copenhagen-new-movement-jonathan-neale)

Jonathan's book is available from Bookmarks for the reduced price of £10: http://www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk/cgi/store/bookmark.cgi?review=new&isbn=9781905192373&cart_id=9137614.28572