Rethinking Marx

If Marx were walking around today, he would be unrecognisable to most of the contemporary Left. Many would call him a pro-imperialist radlib! Yet most tendencies and organisations –many of which are not even Marxist- use terminologies from Marx and Marxism without understanding the original context. The point is not to have the orthodox understanding of Marxism. The real crisis is quite the opposite! Most of us believe we have the orthodox and original interpretation of Marx. After this reading group, you will be surprised at the disjunction between the contemporary common sense understanding of capitalism, imperialism, and bourgeois society, versus the perspective of the 1st International. How have our ideas changed to a point that it would be unrecognisable to Marx, and why has Marx become unrecognisable to us? This is perhaps the most interesting question!

Books

• Karl Marx, Early Writings . Penguin Books. London (1992)
• Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume One , Penguin Books (1976)
• Karl Marx, Capital: Volume Three, Penguin Books (1991)
• Karl Marx, The Political Writings. Verso (2019)
• Bertell Ollman, Dance of the Dialectic. Illinois University Press (2003)

Syllabus

W.1&2 – Introduction

• Marx, Letter to Ruge in Dresden (1844)

• Bertell Ollman, Dance of the Dialectics

  • Internal Relations p.36-51
  • Putting Dialectics to Work: The Process of Abstraction in Marx's Method p.59-114

• Marx, Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (1859) in Early Writings p.424-8

• Georg Lukács, What is Orthodox Marxism?

• Adorno, Is Marx Obsolete?

W.3-7: Critique of Political Economy

• Marx, Capital Vol 1 (1867) Book 1; Part 1

  • THEORETICAL REF: (I.I. Rubin) Ch.3: Reification of Production Relations among People and Personification of Things

• Marx,

  • Capital Vol 1: Ch.8+9, Ch.10: The Working Day
  • Capital Vol 3. Ch 23: Interest and Profit of Enterprise, p.505-14 (Notes on Management)

• Marx,

  • Capital Vol1: Ch.15. Machinery and Large-Scale Industry
  • Grundrisse: Fragment On Machines . p. 690-712
  • Capital Vol2: Ch 6. The Cost of Circulation

• Marx, Capital Vol1: Part 8. Primitive Accumulation + Appendix: Part II. p. 1019-49, skip Net & Gross Product, p.1052-59

  • HISTORICAL REF: E.M. Woods, The Origins of Capitalism:The Long View

• Marx,

  • Capital Vol 3. Ch 27: The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production, Ch 48: The Trinity Formula + Ch 51: Distribution Relations and Production Relations + Ch 52: Classes…
  • Optional: Capital Vol1. Ch 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation; Section 3: Progressive Production of a Relative surplus population or Industrial Reserve Army p. 781-94

• Richard Gunn, Notes On ‘Class’

W.8-12: Marx's Political Theory

• Simon Clarke, Keynesianism Monetarism and the Crisis of the State : Chapter 5. The Form of the Capitalist State

  • Optional: Marx, Marginalism, and Modern Sociology: Ch3. (The critique of Hegel’s theory of the state) p.40-3

• Marx,

  • Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly . Third Article. (1842)
  • Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State: Introductory notes (1843) in Early Writings p.57-74
    • HISTORICAL REF: Spencer Leonard, ‘A Theatre of Disputes’: The East India Company Election of 1764 as the Founding of British India

• Marx,

  • The 18th Brumaire (1852)
    • HISTORICAL REF: Roger Price, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte: ‘Hero’ or ‘Grotesque Mediocrity
  • Final Issue Neue Rheinische Zeitung (May 1849): Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung

• Marx,

  • (& Engels) Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League (March, 1850)
  • Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association (1864)
  • The Beginning of the Franco-Prussian War (From the Civil War in France, 1870)
  Engels,
  • The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party (1865)
  • On the Question of Free Trade: Preface (1888)
    • Optional: Marx, Capital Vol3, Ch 27: The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production p. 568-9 (Engel’s note)
    • HISTORICAL REF: M. Palen, Pax Economica: intro & Ch1-3

• Marx, The Civil War in France (1871)

  • HISTORICAL REF: Hal Draper, KMTR Vol3. Ch1: The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Marx and Engels
• Letter from Marx to J. Weydemeyer in New York (March 5, 1852)

• TBA

• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program (1875, published post-hum, 1890)

• Karl Korsch, Introduction to the Critique of the Gotha Programme
  • HISTORICAL REF: Hal Draper, KMTR Vol4. Ch3: Of State-Socialism: The Lassallean Model
• Transcript of Karl Marx’s Funeral (1883)

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