This is the sixth set of notes for a reading group on Marx’s Capital, and includes a Volume I refresher for further reading of Volume II. There are links to earlier posts and texts that may be useful. Marx is probably too taken with a kind of scientism by proposing...
labour
Darn those class commitments, aligning us to our political choices in a democracy, made worse by all those folks who knew they were in that Gilded Age. “If the future of the Democratic Party is in the rich suburbs, the future of American politics is another long Gilded Age.” Matt...
The modern slave trade. Forced Labour : 25,000,000 Sexually exploited: 4,800,000 [99% women] State sponsored: 4,100,000 Forced marriages: 15,400,000 [71% women] Total: 49,300,000 Women represent [excluding the sex trade] 55% of the total. Another 40,000,000 are living in slave like conditions [eg N. Korea] While there is only limited information...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx Reproduction and accumulation Capital is “self-valorising value”. But for capital to continue to generate new value and create surplus-value, this surplus-value must itself by reinvested back into production – that is, surplus-value must be...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx Summary: Chapter 16 of volume 1 of Capital is called “Absolute and Relative Surplus Value” and discusses the nature of labour, surplus value and surplus labour time. This chapter begins Part 5 of Capital (which...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx. Outline of Marx’s Analysis Chapter 16 The Historical Relation Between Absolute and Relative Surplus Value – in capitalism, social labor produces surplus-value – early on: formal subsumption of labor produces absolute surplus-value by extending the working...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx. Not quite this type of commodity, but more like a pork barrel. x “Ah, pork bellies, I knew it.” ~Louis Winthorpe @dan_aykroyd https://t.co/yeVcYIYtqF— Stephen Bates (@batess) December 3, 2020 M. Proudhon has the misfortune of...
This post in the Anticapitalist Chat supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx This covers chapters 15 and 16. Chapter 15 describes more closely the production process and its relation of technology (to power as machinery and as social relation) Chapter 16 begins a discussion of...
This story supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx This covers chapters 14, 15, 16. Chapter 14 will provide further evidence of alienation in the division of labor and manufacturing in the capitalist reorganization of labor. Chapter 15 describes more closely the production process and...
This story supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. #GoodMorningMarx #WeeklyMarx This covers chapters 11-14. Today’s supporting summary is at the very bottom, below the fold. Set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry, Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley caused a sensation when it...
This story supports a group reading of Karl Marx’s Capital Vol 1. This covers chapters 11-14. Set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry, Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley caused a sensation when it was published in 1849 – under the pseudonym ‘Currer Bell’. Robert Moore is...
This diary is for discussing chapters 9 and 10 of Capital Volume I by Marx. In it the explication of how surplus value as a concept is viable with certain reasonable, historical assumptions. apologies in advance for diverging from an established format. Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only...
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that...
“(T)erminating labour and share markets, along with the type of commercial banking taken for granted today, is a prerequisite for a post-capitalist society with functioning markets, authentic democracy and personal liberty.” Left accelerationism seems tempting in a time when markets, democracy, and liberty are in peril. but Yanis Varoufakis is hinting...
Below is a collection of things that I’ve been saving up — including the problems of CV-19, MMT, neoliberalism, and other things relating pandemics to the economy. If there’s a point to this selection it is to remind ourselves what will happen in 2021 with Larry Summers now advising the Biden...
If electoral victory is a mouse to be caught, the color of the cat deployed doesn’t really matter. Matthew 21:12 He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. Screw inevitability and electability, aphorisms and purity still rule the day in what is now a lively but...
The corporate media is attempting to make UK’s Labour Party & Jeremy Corbyn’s defeat as the future of the American Progressive movement. Don’t buy it. x x YouTube Video I knew it was coming though it came quicker with a larger ferocity than I thought it would. Is UK’s Labour...
A cautionary tale for US Democrats if only because of negative media framing of Jeremy Corbyn. Labour’s worst defeat since the 1930s. Disinformation, racism, Islamophobia, and fascist rhetoric — aided and amplified by the world’s largest social media platform, Facebook — just swung another election. Pay attention to this one,...
Archives In solidarity, Mike Fox for Alan, Mike H., Dan, Janis, Deb, Dr. Bill, Donna, Kimberly, and Bryan—your PDA national team. “We Have No Choice”. Trump Worse Than Nixon. Join Us In The Streets! The table is set. The Judiciary Committee will be voting on two Articles of Impeachment, and...
Archives Alan Minsky, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America Contacts: Alan Minsky, PDA Executive Director, (818)-749-9497 Alan@PDAmerica.org Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director, (301)-602-9388 Mike@PDAmerica.org Today, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) released a statement about Thursday’s UK General Election. Here are key quotes: Alan Minsky, PDA Executive Director, said, “On Thursday,...
Archives In solidarity, Debra Schrishuhn for Alan, Mike F, Janis, Mike H, Donna, Dan, Dr Bill, Kimberly, and Bryan—your PDA National Team Support PDA’s Win 2020 Action FundClick to Make Monthly Gifts for Victories 2019 may be drawing to a close, but Progressive Democrats of America carries on our...
Archives In solidarity, Mike Hersh for Alan, Mike F., Deb, Janis, Kimberly, Bryan, Dr. Bill, Donna, and Dan—Your PDA National Team Click Here to Demand Student Debt Cancellation! This past week, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) mobilized with thousands of Climate Strikers at hundreds of events nationally. Our activists are...
Archives photo: Climate Activists Demand the Declaration of a Climate Emergency, (Takver • CC BY-SA 2.0) In solidarity, Mike Hersh for Alan, Mike F., Deb, Janis, Kimberly, Bryan, Dr. Bill, Donna, and Dan—Your PDA National Team . Climate Strikes Happening TODAY!Contact Mike Fox to Get Involved! Since our founding...
Archives In solidarity, Mike Fox for Alan, Mike H., Dan, Janis, Deb, Dr. Bill, Donna, Kimberly, and Bryan—your PDA national team. “We Have No Choice”. Trump Worse Than Nixon. Join Us In The Streets! After a history-making hearing on Wednesday — featuring testimony stating this is the worst...
Archives In solidarity, Alan Minsky for Mike F., Dr. Bill, Dan, Janis, Deb, Kimberly, Bryan, Mike H., and Donna—your PDA national team. Join PDA Supporting ProgressiveLeader Eva Putzova For Congress! Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) endorsed Eva Putzova for Congress in a highly-selective process reflecting the consensus of local...
The BBC identified 12 key issues for the Labour party’s manifesto in preparation for the December General Election. Not wishing to take anything away from NY Brit Expat’s cogent analyses, I wanted to reflect on one item, the potential for re-nationalizing of key sectors in the US 2020 election context,...
< p class=”is-empty-p”> x YouTube Video In less than 400 days the US could be relieved of perhaps the stupidest self-proclaimed “environmentalist” in US history. We will need to refocus the post-Trump environmental economy to sustainable goals that reposition the discourse about economic growth, particularly energy production, distribution, and consumption. The Green...
1) Cobalt In High-Nickel Batteries: Does It Do Anything Useful At All? Of all of the components of a lithium-ion battery, cobalt has historically been one of the more expensive and controversial. The three most costly raw materials, generally, are battery-grade cobalt oxide (~$80/kg as of November, likely less now),...
NOTE: If you’re a “ChemTruther”… if you disagree with Amnesty International, the OPCW, WHO, MSF, the UN (breakdown), and all public evidence about past attacks, and are here to do the same about the most recent one… leave. You’re not welcome here, any more than a 9/11 Truther would be welcome in a liveblog...
A great deal of attention has been focused on the connection between North Korea and China, and the pressure China can (or cannot) and will (or will not) put on the North Korean government. North Korea, a state with a GDP of only $25B (1/3rd that of Salt Lake City),...
Taxes should be paid where the sales generate profit, this in turn benefits those who actually buy the products. If money is continually siphoned out of an economy that economy will suffer. When those sums become so great as they bend political parties to their will [btw the Tories have...
This is not the politics of envy, this is utter madness Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much as the poorest half of the world's population, according to an Oxfam report published today ahead of the annual gathering of the world's financial and political elites...
It has been longer than that if you include my school years [St George’s Edinburgh, it would be 26] but 20 years a full time expat split between the UK and France, so over half my life. The reason I bring this up? I think that it is really this...
No sporting event is worth 1 death let alone over 4000 to date Qatar has the highest ratio of migrant workers to domestic population in the world: more than 90% of the workforce are immigrants and the country is expected to recruit up to 1.5 million more labourers to build...
David Brooks states the issue properly: Given the financial crisis, widening inequality, the unpopularity of the right’s stances on social issues and immigration, you would have thought that progressive parties would be cruising from win to win. But, instead, right-leaning parties are doing well. In the United States, Republicans control...
Now it should be explicit, not suspected or implicit that elections are not democratic in the presence of Murdoch, the Kochs or Adelman. What we see is that anything will be done where the most powerful are sure they will not be prosecuted. Lies count for nothing. There is no...
Recalculating the UK 2015 election vote to remove UKIP impact, the Conservative Party majority victory (329 seats) goes down to at best a 318-308 loss to Labour/SNP coalition. One helluva false flag operation. United Kingdom Independence Party remains a well financed, Murdoch supported propaganda operation that prior to 2015 had...