The New SPACE
http://new-space.mahost.org
Marx's Capital, Volumes II and III
Wednesdays, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
15 sessions: January 25 - May 17 (except for March 22 and April 12)
Tuition: $150 - $180, sliding scale (Vol. II only: $75 - $100; Vol. III only: $100 - $120)
Clemente Soto
Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
107 Suffolk Street, between Rivington Street and Delancey Street, in the Lower
East Side of Manhattan. Second floor in the Art Gallery.
If you’ve read Volume I of Capital and want to know how the book turns out, this is the course for you! In this 15-week course, we will emphasize how a rigorous theoretical understanding of the capital relation can aid ongoing challenges to global capitalism.
Volumes II and III of Capital complement and complete the analysis begun in Volume I. Volume II situates Volume I’s analysis of the immediate process of capitalist production within the circulation and reproduction processes. Volume III endeavors to show that real-world phenomena do not contradict, but are “forms of appearance” of, the “essential” relations and categories developed in Volume I.
We will begin with a 6-week survey of Volume II, focusing on the circuits of capital, the concept of productive labor, and the reproduction schemes. In connection with the latter, we will also discuss the debate over underconsumptionism, from Luxemburg to Hardt & Negri. The remaining 9 weeks, devoted to Volume III, will concentrate on the appearance of surplus-value as profit; the distribution of surplus-value within the capitalist class; Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit and crisis theory; and his argument that capitalism’s production relations (not only its relations of income and wealth distribution) are historically specific and transitory. We will also critically examine critics’ persistent efforts to prove that Marx’s account of the transformation of values into production prices, and his theory of the falling rate of profit, are internally inconsistent.
Andrew Kliman has taught courses on Capital, Volume I and John Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power at The New SPACE. A professor of economics at Pace University, he has published extensively on Capital, crisis theory, and value theory. Co-editor of The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics (2004), he has recently finished a book that reclaims Capital from the myth of internal inconsistency. Many of Kliman's writings are available at his website: http://akliman.squarespace.com.
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. II. (Hereafter: C2.)
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III. (Hereafter: C3)
Use of the Penguin or Vintage edition of Volumes II and III, translated by David Fernbach, is strongly suggested. All page numbers in this syllabus, and in the reading suggestions that I will be distributing, refer to these editions (which have the same pagination).
Freddie Forest [Raya Dunayevskaya], “Outline of Marx’s Capital Volume Two,” 1945. Contained in the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection. 36 pages.
This “Outline” was prepared for a course Dunayevskaya taught in 1946. I have found it helpful. It is the only guide to C2 that I know of. I will make it available to interested students, at cost.
Andrew Kliman, Rough Draft of Study Guide and Commentary to Capital, Vols. II & III.
The draft of the Study Guide / Commentary is available at ______________________________ to registered students in this course only. Please do not give the URL of this page – a private page of my website – to anyone. Also, please do not distribute any of the materials to anyone else. The Study Guide / Commentary is still in a very rough state and dissemination of the Study Guide / Commentary prior to publication will jeopardize my chances of getting it published.
There is a tremendous amount of secondary literature that one can read. I have not listed any of it, however, because I think one understands Marx much better by engaging in a serious, careful reading of his texts than by reading what others say about them. I have not suggested that you read any additional material for the sessions that will take up critiques and defenses of Marx, because there is so much reading to do without it. I will be happy, however, to offer suggestions to those of you who wish to study these debates.
Reading Suggestions
The reading load for this course is heavy. To ease the burden, I have prepared Reading Suggestions that call attention to aspects of the text that I’ve found to be particularly significant. You may wish to pay special attention to them as well. I will distribute the Reading Suggestions in class; they can also be found on my website, at the private page for this course:
___________________________________
In offering these suggestions, I’m pursuing a middle road between skipping portions of the text
– which I find objectionable, since you’re entitled to read what the author wrote as he wrote it and draw your own conclusions about what is significant – and providing no guidance at all.
Reading Suggestions for Sessions 1 & 2
· Do look over the pages of Engels’ prefaces that I’ve listed as supplementary readings. They indicate the difficulties he faced in editing C2, how he approached the task, and when different parts were written.
· Marx uses some symbols extensively in the 1st 4 chapters. This is not “math,” just notation. The symbols can be mastered quickly, and I suggest you master them, since doing so will make the rest of the reading easier.
· Throughout the reading for session 1, focus on the distinction between changes in form (of capital, of value) and changes in magnitude (of capital, of value).
· It may help to review Ch. 4 (and Ch. 5?) of Vol. I, where Marx first discusses the circuit of (money) capital. It might also help to review Ch. 8 of Vol. I, especially the end of the chapter, because it discusses changes in the form that value takes vs. changes in the magnitude of value.
· In Ch. 1 of C2, focus on the 1st page (p. 109), which introduces the idea of stages of the circuit of capital and discusses the assumptions Marx is making. (Always pay close attention to what he says he is assuming.) Focus on p. 110 to the top of p. 112. Focus on Section 2, dealing with productive capital. Focus on the 3rd through 6th paras. of Section 4 (pp. 132-33), dealing with industrial capital, and pay attention to this concept. Later in C2, and in C3, Marx will be discussing other forms of capital. From the middle of pp. 134 to the middle of pp. 136 are significant passages on the concept of commodity, transportation, and industrial capital. Focus on p. 141 to the end of Ch. 1.
· In Ch. 2 of C2, focus on the 1st 2 ½ pages.
· In Ch. 3 of C2, focus on the 1st page.
· In Ch. 4 of C2, focus on the 1st 7 pages (pp. 180-86). Pay attention to the notion of the continuity of the circulation and reproduction of capital as well as the discontinuity (pp. 184-86) in the process brought about by revolutions in value.
Session No.
and Date Topic Main Reading
1. Jan. 25 Introduction; Overview of Course; Review of Frederick Engels, “Preface,” 1st
Circuit of Capital (M-C-M’) 5 pgs. only (C2, pp. 83-87), and
“Preface to the Second
Edition” (C2, pp. 103-04)
2. Feb. 1 The Circuits of Capital. C2, Chs. 1-4
3. Feb. 8 Costs of Circulation, Productive and Unproductive C2, Chs. 5-11
Labor, Fixed and Circulating Capital
4. Feb. 15 Turnover of Capital: Other Aspects C2, Chs. 12-17
5. Feb. 22 Reproduction of Capital (1) C2, Chs. 18-19, plus
secs. 1-10 of Ch. 20
6. Mar. 1 Reproduction of Capital (2); Critiques and C2, secs. 11-13 of
Defenses of Marx on Reproduction Ch. 20, plus Ch. 21
7. Mar. 8 The Transformation of Surplus-Value into Profit C3, Chs. 1-7
[Supplementary reading:
F. Engels, “Preface,”
4th through 7th page only
(C3, p. 94 to top of p. 98)]
8. Mar. 15 Transformation of Profit into Average Profit C3, Chs. 8-12
No Class on March 22
9. Mar. 29 Critiques and Defenses of Marx on the C3, Ch. 9
Transformation
10. Apr. 5 The Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit C3, Chs. 13-15
No Class on April 12
11. Apr. 19 Critiques and Defenses of Marx’s Law; C3, Chs. 16-20
Commercial and Merchant’s Capital
12. Apr. 26 Interest, Profit of Enterprise, Money Capital (1) C3, Chs. 21-36
13. May 3 Interest, Profit of Enterprise, Money Capital (2); C3, Chs. 37-42
Ground-Rent (1)
14. May 10 Ground-Rent (2) C3, Chs. 43-47
15. May 17 Revenues and their Sources; Summation C3, Chs. 48-52