Our twelfth episode studies the last part of the book, chapters 26-33, which Marx begins by critiquing bourgeois political economy’s concept of “primitive accumulation.” Throughout the book so far, Marx has assumed that the conditions of capitalism already exist: a class of those with nothing to sell but their labor power and a class that owns the …

Our eleventh episode concentrates on chapter 25, where Marx synthesizes his findings so far to articulate some general laws (or tendencies) of capitalist accumulation. We cover the different compositions of capital before turning to the two models of accumulation Marx proposes, the difference between concentration and centralization, and how the ce…

Our tenth episode marks a transition from examining the production of capital on an individual scale to capitalism as a totality that continually reproduces and expands. We begin with the introduction to Part 7 of the book (the only part that has one), where Marx defines the circulation of capital and articulates the assumptions he makes in the fol…

Our ninth episode reviews chapters 16-22, starting with a discussion of the commonly misunderstood concept of “productive labor.” We clarify Marx’s use of this concept and the role it plays in Marxist theory and organizing. We then reconsider the relationship between relative and absolute surplus value, viewing them as a contradictory unity and as …

Reading chapter 15 on machinery and modern industry, episode 8 focuses on the relationship between technology, capital, and class struggle. After examining Marx’s method of approaching technological transformation, we show how machinery provides the adequate technical foundations for the capitalist mode of production because it displaces and object…

Our seventh episode covers chapters 11-14. After covering the rate and mass of surplus value, we examine how capitalists can increase surplus value (and therefore exploitation) without making the working day longer, which leads to the distinction between absolute and relative surplus value. Absolute surplus value is produced by prolonging the worki…

Focusing on chapter 10, our sixth episode locates class struggle as the motor of capitalism and as that which determines the rate of exploitation and the value of labor power. By examining how the “normal working day” is established--in theory and in historical practice--Marx emphasizes how the command over time is central to the class struggle. We…

Our fifth episode covers chapters 7-9, which move us deeper into (absolute) surplus-value and the exploitation of labor power. We begin by distinguishing labor in general from labor power as a commodity, before uncovering the roots of surplus value in the exploitation of the latter. Surplus value and exploitation arise from the contradiction betwee…

Our fourth episode covers chapters 4-6, where Marx offers the first definitions of capital, surplus-value, labor power, as well as the relationship between the legal superstructure and the economic base. Picking up on the introduction of money into the exchange process and the contradictions between use-value and exchange-value, we begin by disting…

Our third episode takes up chapters 2 and 3 on exchange and money, where the C-M-C circuit makes its first appearance. After setting up the juridical conditions of market exchange, we look at how money arises out of and transforms the exchange process. Next, we examine some of the contradictions inherent in the money-form, including those between C…

Our second episode covers the first chapter on “commodities,” where Marx begins laying the conceptual building blocks for his investigation. We cover use-value, exchange-value, and value, the two-fold character of labor and its correspondence with different forms of value, and the fetishism of commodities. Throughout, we emphasize the social relati…

We begin our study of Capital, vol. 1 by discussing what it means to read, study, and apply the book as comrades in the struggle for socialism in the U.S. today. We situate our reading within the struggle to not only popularize and give definition to socialism, but to establish Marxism as the guiding theory of struggles. Next, we cover some of the …