This page consolidates the list of posts related to Capital, volume 1, that I have been preparing as part of the draft work for the thesis. Many posts on Marx are therefore not included here – only those that were written as part of the process of working out the thesis argument. Note that a more systematic presentation of much of the material that was first sketched in the posts below, has now been collected in the draft of my doctoral thesis. The blog posts are better for getting a sense of how I arrived at the conclusions presented in the thesis; the thesis is better for getting a systematic overview of what those conclusions are…
The list of posts below is divided into some recent posts for a reading group on Chapter 25, those on the long series on the first chapter of Capital volume 1, a series united more by the logic of my thesis, than the logic of Capital itself, and relating to Marx’s use of inversion, and what the inversions around labour-power imply for Capital as a theory of forms of subjectivity and embodiment, and then a collection of posts written at various points, trying to work out how to express the gestalt of the category of value, a few conference papers, and then a catchall list of miscellaneous other posts on various parts of the first volume. Note that I have not included here the thesis chapter drafts, which revise and consolidate the arguments initially sketched in these posts.
Posts for the Marx Reading Group on Volume 1, Ch. 25
Archive of posts from here and other participants, at Duncan’s Blog
Revisiting the Product of the Hand
Blog Series on Volume 1: Inversions, Labour-Power and Subjectivity
Abstract Materialisms vs. Real Abstractions
Fragment on State “Intervention”
Fragment on Crisis, Contradiction and Critique
Many Fragments on the Centrality of Wage Labour
Blog Series on Chapter 1, Volume 1:
Note: the first chapter of the thesis brings together many of the themes that were first explored and worked out in the posts below. If you want an overview of my reading of the first chapter, I would start with the chapter. If you are interested in seeing how my thoughts on the chapter evolve over time, or interested in the various tangents and details that were explored along the way, then the list below may be of greater interest.
Fragment on Textual Strategy in Capital
Reflections on the “Greatest Difficulty”
Value and Abstract Labour as Real Abstractions
An Aside on the Category of Capital
Value and Its Form – from Deduction to Dialectic
Subjects, Objects and Things In Between
Relativism, Absolutes, and the Present as History
What Is the “Social Character of Labour” in Capitalism?
A Way of Visualising Abstract Labour and Value
A Close Reading of the Naming of the Fetish
When Is It Safe to Read Capital
Occasional Posts on Value
The Quantitative Indeterminacy of Value
Conference Papers:
When Is It Safe to Read Capital