Marx's Capital, Volume I

 

Andrew Kliman

Tuesdays, 6:00 – 7:30pm

March 1 – June 14

Tuition: $150 – $180, sliding scale

 

This 15-week course is devoted to Volume I of Karl Marx's Capital: A critique of political economy.  Marx analyzes the capital relation as a process of "self-expanding value." Throughout the course, we will stress the relevance of this concept to the contemporary expansionism of the capitalist system and the new movements against global capitalism.  The specific character of Marx's critique of capital, and its differences from others' critiques, will also be highlighted.

 

We will go through most of the text fairly carefully, but proceed quickly through some lengthy discussions of factual material -- on struggles over the length of the workday, "machinofacture," and the historical origins of the capitalist system -- in order to have more time to devote to more difficult portions of the work.   The instructor will provide study questions to assist students as they work through the text. Students are strongly encouraged to obtain the Penguin (or Vintage) edition of Capital, since this is what will be cited in class.  (The Penguin and Vintage editions are identical in terms of translation and page numbers.)

 

There will be no class on March 22.

 

Andrew Kliman, a professor of economics at Pace University, has published extensively on Marx’s Capital, crisis theory, and value theory — topics that he also teaches regularly.  Co-editor of The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics (2004), he is currently finishing a book that reclaims Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency, and is also working on a book-length study guide to Volumes II and III of that work.

 

Syllabus

 

 
Home