Finally finished the third volume of Capital. Not going to lie, it was a challenge and quite a journey, but well worth it. Rip to the many, many highlighters that gave their lives for this endeavor.
AMA!
near mint spines
Smh
I have no idea what people do to the spines of their books to where they’re all fucked up when they finish with them. All the wear on these is just from toting them around with me everywhere
I fold them in half when I read. But I’m abusive and have needed to glue pages back in before lol
Easy, with these same books use whatever I can find as a bookmark (or more than one rando thin thing) while I hunt down whatever I was typing or scrawling notes on, maybe if said thing was a 2000s laptop slap it down on the book while I reflect on my notes. Then another good one is jumping from page whatever to the references to see the full context and then taking note on that, then flipping back, paper books hate that.
I crack the hell out of the spine before reading cause it keeps the book open easier
Apparently there are some people who tear out a page when they’re done reading it
I’m not saying that there’s a book hell, but I am saying that you would definitely go there for that
You can ‘break in’ a spine without breaking it!! You stand it on its spine, ready to read, with all the pages closed. Then you open a few pages from the front to the table. Then a few pages from the back. Then a few from the front. Then the back. Etc, etc, working towards the middle. It stops the spine warping, too.
Damn comrade you’re officially stronger than most marxists(including me, pathetically tapping out at vol 2).
Honest opinion, is volume 3 worth it? I’ve never gone for it, but I’m also one of those weirdos who loves the young Marx and stuff like the German ideology…
Overall, I’d say yes. It has some of his most important insights that really build on the basic analyses in Vol 2 to show how capitalism is a historically transitory mode of production that contains within itself the seeds of its own abolishment. If anything I’d say if you’ve already gotten through Vol 2, which can be pretty dry at times, you might as well.
On the other hand, it also has some difficult parts. The stuff about ground rent is kinda and some parts that are fragmentary (like Vol 2)
Are you referring mainly to the falling rate of profit, or are there other conclusions worth knowing about?
Roughly what ratio do you suppose it could have been condensed by while conveying 90% of the information?
Really hard to say, but you could probably cut out like 20%. Except that 20% is mostly review and summary that’s really helpful to the reader. There’s certainly stuff I just skimmed, particularly the detailed critiques of other economists like Adam Smith. But it’s not like that that stuff is unimportant per se
Appreciate the answer, I didn’t really expect one! I had trouble with the first few chapters where I felt like I got the picture but he kept on about it. Others have said Marx takes the garden path quite a bit. Do you think it was worth reading or would you recommend the marx engles reader instead?
I’m most of the way through Vol 1, and it got a lot more engaging. The mass of repetition and minor variation to establish concepts mostly ended (and when it comes up it’s in much smaller chunks) and it got into some infuriating and fascinating historical analysis. Perhaps try skipping to those chapters to see if they work for you?
I think it was worth it. But generally I would recommend everyone read the first volume, which is the most complete and engaging. Volume 2 gets much more technical, and believe me, I appreciated him pausing to review and summarize when that happens. Honestly it’s a lot more accessible than the literary theory I was trained on in that regard
are women bourgeoisie?
That’s not Harry Potter
