Sasuke

comrade orca

Capital, as self-valorizing value, does not just comprise class relations, a definite social character that depends on the existence of labour as wage-labour. It is a movement, a circulatory process through different stages, which itself in turn includes three different forms of the circulatory process. Hence it can only be grasped as a movement, and not as a static thing.

– ch. 4, p. 185 in my penguin ed.

i think this must be one of the key passages so far in our reading? i'll try to come back and share some thoughts once i'm done with the chapter

but, as someone with a degree in literature, one thing that strikes me immediately is that so much of so-called "marxist" literary analysis is just an alasysis of class relations—often focused on the bourgeoisie, and their cultural artifacts—and not the totality produced by the circulation of capital that marx is detailing here

wow, this donald guy sure sounds scary! maybe the democrats should try to do something to stop him? like appealing to their voters, perhaps

“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”

I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?

– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

i think this is a genuine possibility in schools now, at least in my country. maybe not removing access to the internet entirely, but at least severely restricting it, and going back to analog teaching methods wherever possible.

we were very early on digitalizing education btw, giving every elementary school kid their own tablet, implementing digital tools in almost every subject, and in recent years, replacing physical books with digital copies.

and surprise surprise, it's been a fucking disaster. i can't even imagine what it'll be like as AI gets more widespread

reporting in for posting duty

some things (licorice) are worth dying for

The mechanisms that leads to crisis is something I'm really looking forward to reading more about.

So far, I'm not sure I totally understand the argument against the supply and demand explanation? If I understand Marx correctly, I think he's saying that it's overproduction—brought on by the constant need for capitalists to expand their production, and thus produce more goods—that leads to a decrease in commodity prices.

But bourgeois economists explain the decrease in commodity prices by showing to supply and demand, which they treat as some sort of "natural" cycle:

The quantity of commodities created in masses by capitalist production depends on the scale of production and on the need for constantly expanding this production, and not on a predestined circle of supply and demand, on wants that have to be satisfied.

Continuing, from the same paragraph...

The commodity-capitals compete with one another for a place in the market. Late-comers, to sell at all, sell at lower prices. The former streams have not yet been disposed of when payment for them falls due. Their owners must declare their insolvency or sell at any price to meet their obligations. This sale has nothing whatever to do with the actual state of the demand. It only concerns the demand for payment, the pressing necessity of transforming commodities into money. Then a crisis breaks out. It becomes visible not in the direct decrease of consumer demand, the demand for individual consumption, but in the decrease of exchanges of capital for capital, of the reproductive process of capital.

– Ch 2., Section 1, p. 156 of my Penguin ed.

The process of production appears merely as an unavoidable intermediate link, as a necessary evil for the sake of money-making. All nations with a capitalist mode of production are therefore seized periodically by a feverish attempt to make money without the intervention of the process of production.

– Ch. 1, section 4 (p. 137 in my Penguin ed.)

we need someone to dunk on

hell yeah, i'm ready for vol 2

✨️ THE CIRCULATION OF MONEY CAPITAL ✨️

– as half-understood by someone with a bad brain and 500+ pages left of capital vol 2

i, a capitalist, will use my money💰 (M) to create a worm factory 🪱🏭, which makes worms 🪱 from wormparts 🧱

i invest my M 💰 ($100) in the commodities (C) necessary for the creation of my worm factory 🪱 🏭, with the intention to create more value from making worms 🪱 from the resource known as 'wormparts' 🧱. the C part of the cycle must be further split into the mp (means of production) 📠 (<- machine that makes worms from worm parts 🧱) and labour (L) 👷‍♀️(<- underpaid worker that operates the machine that makes worms from worm parts 🧱)

the circulation of money capital is interrupted by P, the production stage of the cycle, where worm parts 🧱 is turned into highly sought-after worms 🪱 by exploiting the labour (L) of my worm-operator 👷‍♀️

the cycle then continues with the production of my finished worms 🪱 (C') which can be sold at a higher price than the worm parts 🧱

So C' = C + c, big C being the original commodity form(s) and little c (the ') being the new commodity form(s)

And M' = M + m, big M being the original money capital (100$) that started the circut, and little m (the ') being the surplus value created by selling my worms 🪱

(crying and screaming and pulling my hair out... but being very brave about it)