Explain the bookclub: We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year and discussing it in weekly threads. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included in this particular reading club, but comrades are encouraged to do other solo and collaborative reading.) This bookclub will repeat yearly. The three volumes in a year works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46⅔ pages a week.
I’ll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.
Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at [email protected] ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there’s always next year.
Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20
It’s honestly impressive how well Marx understands accounting. People who aren’t involved in accounting may not think it’s important but accounting is how you can understand how money flows within and without a capitalist enterprise. The whole idea about how fixed capital adds value proportional to its “wear and tear” is essentially the same thing as how we calculate depreciation on equipment. Cost accounting is how costs are allocated to things that don’t directly incur a cost that can be measured per item produced, and Marx uses that conceptually throughout Vol 1 & 2.