Can Capitalism Survive the Great Recession? Re-Examining Marx’s Capital for Today
Speaker: Stephan Hammel, UCI Professor and writer on Marxian economics and value theory
Commentator: Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist thinker and translator
Main readings: Capital III, Chs. 13-15 (see note at end on online and print sources)
Supplementary readings: Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, pp. 137-49; Michael Roberts, “A World Rate of Profit” (Sept. 2012) https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/a-world-rate-of-profit.pdf
Topic: Causes of crises in relation to Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit; Marx’s method
Sunday, September 17
6:15-8:00 PM
Art Share
801 East Fourth Place (Arts District)
Los Ángeles
(Free parking in lot across the street on Hewitt St. by the Aztec calendar)
First in a seven-part series on CAPITAL
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HERE IS THE ENTIRE SERIES
Marx’s Capital as Theoretical Ground for Uprooting the System: A Seven-Part Series
We are conducting this seven-part series of classes, free and open to the public, in order to commemorate the150th anniversary of Marx’s Capital, Vol. I. People are encouraged to attend all seven sessions, but are free to drop in on individual ones as well.
Each class will address a different topic taken from the book. We will discuss core concepts like the underlying causes of economic crises; value, surplus value, and the exploitation of the worker; commodity fetishism and dehumanization; the extended working day; capital’s control over labor through the instrumentality of the machine; accumulation of capital and permanent unemployment; colonialism, slavery, and dispossession; and revolution against capital. At the same time, we will also view other concepts at the center of the Marxist-Humanist interpretation of Capital, such as the working class drive for self-emancipation, the dialectics of race and class, gender and work, and Marx’s underlying concept of a humanist alternative to capitalism, in contrast to the centralized, statist forms found in twentieth century communism and social democracy.
Sessions will feature a speaker and a commentator. They will introduce the themes of that session, followed by free and open discussion of Marx’s Capital and the present crisis.
Two Sundays per month
6:15-8:00 PM
Art Share
801 East Fourth Place (Arts District)
Los Ángeles
(Free parking in lot across the street on Hewitt St. by the Aztec calendar)
September 17
Can Capitalism Survive the Great Recession? Re-Examining Marx’s Capital for Today
Speaker: Stephan Hammel, UCI Professor and writer on Marxian economics and value theory
Commentator: Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist thinker and translator
Main readings: Capital III, Chs. 13-15
Supplementary readings: Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, pp. 137-49; Michael Roberts, “A World Rate of Profit” (Sept. 2012) https://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/a-world-rate-of-profit.pdf
Topic: Causes of crises in relation to Marx’s law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit; Marx’s method
2. October 1
The Value Form and Commodity Fetishism
Speaker: Kevin B. Anderson, UCSB Professor and author of Marx at the Margins
Commentator: Nick Takeyama, student activist
Reading: Ch. 1 of Capital I, esp. sections 1, 2, and 4, Ch. 2
Supplementary: Lukács, section 1 of “Reification” chapter of History and Class Consciousness (pp. 83-92); Hudis, Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (pp. 147-61)
Topics: value theory, commodity fetishism and dehumanization, the alternative to capitalism
3. October 15
Creation of Surplus Value vs. the Creativity of Human Labor: Why Wage Labor Is Always Exploited
Speaker: Nathan Fisher, LA DSA organizer
Commentator: Mansoor M., Iranian cultural worker
Reading: Chs. 7-8 of Capital I
Supplementary: Cleaver, Rupturing the Dialectic (pp. 29-71), Greenhouse and Kasperkevic, “Fight for turns into largest protest by low-wage workers in U.S. history,” Guardian, April 15, 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/15/fight-for-15-minimum-wage-protests-new-york-los-angeles-atlanta-boston
Topics: creative and conscious human labor; labor theory of value; labor power, surplus value, and variable capital
4. November 5
The Longer Working Day/Absolute Surplus Value, and the Dialectics of Race and Class
Speaker: Chris Gardner, writer on war, imperialism, and the Middle East
Commentator: TBA
Reading: Ch. 9, 10:5-7 of Capital I
Supplementary: Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, Ch. 5; Dustin Guastella, “Why We Should Demand a Shorter Workweek” (DSA 9-6-14)
http://www.dsausa.org/shorter_work_weeks
Topics: Accumulation of absolute surplus value by increasing the working day; workers struggle for shorter working day; slavery, racism and class divisions in the U.S., from the Civil War to today
5. November 26
Machine Production/Relative Surplus Value: Alienated Labor and Gender and the Family
Speaker: Mariah Brennan Clegg, ecological Marxist
Commentator: Marcelo Mendez, Marxist student activist
Reading: Ch. 15:1-5 + pp. 618-21 of Capital I, including paragraph on gender and the family
Supplementary: Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, Ch. 16; Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (pp. 24-38)
Topics: Extraction of relative surplus value from labor via machinery and automation, workers struggles against the domination of machinery and automation, capitalism’s use of and impact on gender divisions and roles
6. December 3
Accumulation of Capital: Permanent Unemployment and Colonial Super-Exploitation
Speaker: Lilia Monzó, Chapman University Professor; writer on Marxism and women of color
Commentator: Hamid Assian, environmental and anti-racist activist
Reading: Ch. 25:1-4, 5f of Capital I
Supplementary: Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom pp. 120-25; Anderson, Marx at the Margins (pp. 149-51, 190-92)
Topics: Permanent unemployment as a feature of advanced capitalism; Ireland -- colonial dispossession, famine, mass emigration, and global revolution
7. December 17
Primitive Accumulation of Capital: Dispossession, Slavery, and Revolution
Speaker: Ali Kiani, Iranian Marxist thinker and translator
Commentator: René Moya, socialist and immigrant rights activist
Reading: Chs. 26-32 of Capital I
Supplementary: Luxemburg, from “Struggle Against Natural Economy” (pp. 368-77) in Accumulation of Capital; Edward L. Tapia, “Remembering Dependency Theory: A Marxist-Humanist Review,” New Politics (Summer 2017) http://newpol.org/content/remembering-dependency-theory
Topics: Dispossession of the British peasantry, the Atlantic slave system, and the origins of capitalism; centralization of capital and workers’ revolution (negation of the negation)
Note on Sources: Marx completed the drafts of what became Vol. III in 1864-65, before Vol. I, which is why we are reading Capital III first, in addition to the importance of his crisis theory for today. We recommend the later translations of Capital III (David Fernbach) and Capital I (Ben Fowkes,) both from Penguin Books, but note that the older translation is out of copyright and easily available free for both Vol. III https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ and Vol. I https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1 Print copies of Capital I and III will be on sale at the meetings at a low price.
Sponsored by the West Coast Chapter, International Marxist-Humanist Organization
More information:
http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/
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