Luke’s Reviews > Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production > Status Update

Home Stretch! Both Part VII and Part VIII make quite good reading apart from the rest of the work. The first deals with the general theory of capitalist accumulation and the later with the actual history of primitive accumulation. Both are powerful tools for activists.

In the home stretch. The opening sections on the nature of accumulation are profound and echo Marx's earlier writing on alienation.

Now into the creation of relative surplus value. Intense reflections on the nature of cooperation and the division of labor.

Getting into the meat of the book: absolute surplus value, rate and mode of exploitation, etc.

Chapter Seven and it gets more and more interesting. From the more abstract to the more concrete, with more profuse examples, Marx illustrates the process of the creation and appropriation of surplus value.

Breakin' into chapter four. Good stuff. What makes circulation under capitalism distinct from other modes of circulating commodities? It begins with money in the form of capital and, after transforming into a commodity and back, ends there in a quantitatively greater form, ready to begin the cycle again. The aim of the circulation of money is the accumulation of more money, not the satisfaction of human needs.

Now we're rolling. It's all about the hard cash now. Coins, hoarding, etc. Good stuff, too. Plenty of quotable quotes.

It gets much easier once you reach the end of the first chapter/beginning of the second. Fetishism of commodities and the secrets of the money-form, yay!