ComradeRat

It doesn't come up much yeah. He sorta beats metaphysics to death in the 1840s and then drops the topic as far as I can tell from what Marx-works and biographies I've read.

Ancient societies (actually, anything pre-1500ish) is sorta an unknown for Marx and Engels compared to us.

For the middle ages, they have the Renaissance and Enlightenment "Middle ages suck" circlejerk to rely on, as medieval archival research wasnt nearly as thorough.

For Rome and Greece, they had Roman and Greek histories and mythologies that survived; none of the massive professional archaeological excavations or examinations of inscriptions and surviving archival documents was availible.

Before that, their only source is—The Bible. Unironically; until combined archaeology, linguistics and imperialism enabled access to the ancient tablets and such, the Bible was all there was for stuff that old.

A complicated topic.

"Paganism" in the sense of "Ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian or Mesopotamian" is fairly straightforward; in "On the Leading Article in No. 179 of Kölnische Zeitung" Marx wrote:

That with the downfall of the ancient states their religions also disappeared requires no further explanation, for the "true religion" of the ancients was the cult of "their nationality", of their "state".

So in this case Marx would likely argue that their religion is simply "our state; our nation; 'us' as opposed to 'them'". Interestingly, Marx argues that constitutionalists are similarly religious.

"Paganism" in the sense of "animism" and/or indigenous religions generally is more contentious, because Marx wasn't able to access sources on them other than second/thirdhand accounts by bigots. So while Marx in Capital makes claims about 'primitive nature worship of the savage', I'm unsure what he is actually talking about.

Explanations from actual indigenous people about their spirituality/'religion' (e.g. God is Red and Bridging Cultures) have little in common with Marx's depiction. Some (e.g. Frank Black-Elk in "Observations on Marxism and Lakota Tradition") assert that their religion/spirituality is dialectical-er and materialist-er than Marx.

Yeah he makes this sorta association throughout his work (I'm seeing it rn reading Critical Marginal Notes on the Article By a Prussian for example). One thing that should be noted for pedantic historical reasons: the catholicism and feudalism marx discusses are generally the catholicism and feudalism of 17th century europe at earliest, a long while after markets have pretty well penetrated and dissolved everything and turned it towards the production of exchange values (in England, this process actually seems to have nearly finished as England emerges into socio-economic history c.1350)

Yeah, and if anything it's an understatement— he doesn't mention 1. the expropriation of church lands; 2; consequent collapse of what little organised aid for the poor there was; 3. destruction of local religious/cultural/social organisations (saint cults); 4. stricter enforcement of orthdoxy, 5. destruction of the (admittesly limited) fetters of church law and "sacred world"

Tfw all the criticisms of Marx written after Marx's death were deconstructed and debunked by Marx in his book but no one reads it

This is the subject of Part Four: The Production of Relative Surplus Value.

But to jump ahead, imagine a global village where 10 capitalists all produce yarn (buying labour power and means of production in market etc). We will hold the length of the working day steady (as this is the end result of chapter 10).

Each capitalist produces 10 yarn in a day, each bearing 1 unit of value, and hence each capitalist, after selling their yarn, has 10 units of value. The working day cannot be increased, so other methods of increasing the portion of the working day devoted to the production of surplus value must be found.

Suddenly one of the capitalists finds a way to increase the productivity of his spinner, whether by some new machine or by some new organizational method. This capitalist can now produce twice as much yarn in a day per unit of labour power. Hence, he produces 20 yarn a day with the same amount of variable capital. If this new method of production were adopted generally, socially necessary labour time to produce yarn would fall by half, each yarn bearing half as much value. Consequently, if this new method of production were adopted generally, this capitalist would find no new profit, as you say.

But the other 9 capitalists are still using the old production methods, because of patents, lack of funds, etc. Hence, the socially average labour time to produce the yarn hasn't fallen by half; it has fallen by 5% (unless my math is wrong; regardless the socially average labour time falls slower for society than for the capitalist using new production methods).

Each of the other 9 capitalists continue producing as they had before, but now their day's product of 10 yarn bears only 9.5 units of value, in spite of their workers continuing to work for as long as they had before. They begin to see a deficit. In contrast, the capitalist using new productive methods has produced 20 yarn bearing 19 units of value.

To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type [of liberalism].

...

Liberalism...is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. ... It is an extremely bad tendency.

Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.

Excellent place to leave off this week, just beginning to peak inside the realm of production as Marx kicks down the door and we see all manner of manmade horrors

(Well, marx reads the reports of the guys who are legally empowered to kick down the doors anyway)

Time for the factory report excerpts

We stan Leonard Horner, the "factory inspector and tireless censor of the manufacturers"(538)

Tangential rambling is very interesting /genuine, but not quite what I'm talking about wrt "human and animal labour being interchangeable". What I mean is e.g. when the human is turned only into the prime mover (the power source) of a machine, they are replaceable with an animal entirely, to the point that many early machines were operable by man or animal. Similar, coal power can replace human power, and many early machines were operable by burning coal, or by manually turning a wheel. And then as we move further into manufacture and production, we find humans turned into beings that instinctively repeat the same task endlessly without knowledge of the task's goal, any will beyond "avoid being beaten or starving", etc, and this whole ideal-intellectual distinction Marx sets up here becomes much more nonsensical, for example:

In manufacture, the social productive power of the collective worker, hence of capital, is enriched through the impoverishment of the worker in individual productive power. 'Ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition. Reflection and fancy are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand or the foot is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper most where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may ... be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men.'45 As a matter of fact, in the middle of the eighteenth century some manufacturers preferred to employ semi-idiots for certain operations which, though simple, were trade secrets.

(ch14 section 5, Fawkes edition, p483)

the british currency is truly the most painful part of Capital. I feel like there is a social need for a new edition of the book turning it all into dollars just for ease of comprehension

He's not saying it can change at a whim. Its just that saying "exchange value varies" is easier than saying "the method of producing the commodity increases or decreases in productivity in a given society so that the commodities produced each contain labour and hence hence its value is reflected in a smaller quantity of other commodities".

Marx will generally go over a process in exhaustive detail (e.g. how value can vary), and then use shorthand afterwards (value varies) instead of restating the whole complicated process.