Status Updates From Political Economy: a Marxis...

Chapter 11 was about socialism and man's future, but instead of telling me about how socialism would actually work, this was focused more on how it will come to happen, and the historical rise of Russia into the USSR.

Chapter 10 was on the national product and its distribution. This one started to get into what I was looking for - how socialism/communism would be different, but it was still largely just a summary and critique of capitalism.

Chapter 9 was on Imperialism. It really shows what is happening in the USA right now, with Trump's imperialist notions leading him to demand more and more of the western hemisphere, and his notion that we don't export enough capital.

Chapter 8 is on the reproduction of capital and crisis. Still mostly a review of capitalism, with a lot of emphasis on Keynes' attack on classical theory, but criticizing Keynes for not attacking capitalism as a foundation. However, there were two paragraphs that actually talked about the difference between a socialist and capitalist economy! I liked that bit a lot!

Chapter 7 was about rent and capitalism in agriculture. More review of capitalism and not a single word about how a socialist / communist economy would do it differently. I'm over half-way through the book and I am no wiser about Marxist economics than I was when I started the book.

Chapter 6 was on the distribution of surplus value in a capitalist economy. Again, more about capitalist economics. I know all of this. I don't need more review. What I want to know about is how a Socialist/Communist economy should work. But so far, all it does is describe capitalism and how it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. I know all this. Grrr.

Chapter 5 is about Capital and Accumulation. Not a lot new here for me. It's still all about capitalism, and I still don't understand how a communist economy would work.

Chapter four was on the essence of capitalist exploitation, and did a fair job of explaining how profit is made by the wealthy, but what I am really interested in is how a socialist/communist economy would work. I'm familiar with most of the economic concepts thus far discussed. I get that it's laying a groundwork, but I am becoming impatient.

Chapter 3 was on the origins of capitalism. I most enjoyed how it described the change from feudalism to mercantilism to capitalism, especially how the rising capitalists got around the guilds by using the putting-out system. I also liked the section on how the proletariat became a thing.

Chapter Two was on the concepts of commodity production, which I largely understood and agreed with, although I would have liked more elaboration why he dismissed the law of diminishing marginal utility. I don't think that economic law is incorrect. There's a reason it moved past a theory into law.

Read chapter 1, which was a historical overview on the rise of capitalism. I don't have much to say about it. For all its brevity, it covered it well enough.

nice