Format
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Reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year. This will repeat yearly until communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.
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I’ll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Discuss the week’s reading in the comments.
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Use any translation/edition you like.
Resources
(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)
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Harvey’s guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf
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A University of Warwick guide to reading it: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/worldlitworldsystems/hotr.marxs_capital.untilp72.pdf
Are there any prerequisites for understanding? I’ve never taken things like calculus or Econ, for example :(
The difficulty is almost entirely in understanding the concepts. Math-wise, it does not surpass simple algebra. Even then, if you have not learned algebra, then you can take Marx’s word for the numerical calculation and continue reading his explanation.
It’s not as bad as you’d think. Marx is very repetitive with his concepts. Almost annoyingly so.
I have a degree in econ and it’s all useless baggage you have to unlearn. You’re in a great place for kapital
Read Synopsis of Capital. Engels wrote this as a study guide/summary for Capital. He didn’t complete it and the latter parts of the synopsis are incredibly half-assed to the point of him using phrases instead of sentences, but the beginning parts, the parts that almost everyone struggles with, are complete.