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How dense is Marx? Is it just a standard read with an intimidating page count?
It's dry, admittedly, but it's pretty air-tight.
>>7848591
very dense. you have to be dense to come up with such a mass murdering ideology
>>7848600
>mass murdering ideology
That was Lenin, Stalin and Mao.
>>7848591
Extremely
Don't read him. It's obvious you don't know what you're getting into
>>7848600
this is facebook mom tier humor
>>7848612
It's extremely dense not in the sense that it's super complicated it just has a shit ton of stuff in it and he presents it all in a very boring way
Do not read this book unless you have severe autism
>>7848621
>that marx formulated
>thinks those people followed the same form of Communism Marx created
Wew lad
Capital is an economic text
if you don't have a good grasp of classical economics and the associated vernacular don't bother
>>7848621
>he admitted to hating the church which is the foundation of western civilization
nice meme
>>7848621
>the church which is the foundation of western civilization which just proves he is out for destruction
[Spooks intensify]
>>7848621
marx was a jew of course he hated the church and set out to destroy it, duh
>>7848621
pol pls
>>7848631
What should one read before tackling Das Kapital then?
>>7848635
whats the matter? can't handle it?
>>7848610
Eve with the most fallacious and inflated "le death counts" possible, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao don't even touch the amount killed by liberalism. But enjoy being a brain-dead useful idiot.
>>7848675
Oh I acknowledge that liberal capitalism and fascism have killed way more than the any Marxist-Leninist or Maoist state. But that doesn't mean I need to like them or agree with their brand of socialism, comrade.
>>7848685
>fascism
>killed more than any Marxist-Lenist or Maoist state
how?
>>7848737
Actual fascists are literally responsible for the deaths of 3% of the entire world's population, the majority of whom were civilian non-combatants.
>>7848746
And the other 97% were direct and indirect byproducts of contemporary capitalism. Oink oink.
>>7848753
reddit is thataway fiend
>>7848658
a textbook is a decent enough primer
>>7848608
Check my three of a kind
>>7848766
One day you will die. And on your death bed you will remember this post, and you will see my anonymous face as you realize it wasn't the 10 inch dildo that perforated your lower intestine and caused internal bleeding that killed you, it was the capitalist imperative.
>>7848591
I'm sure it's as dense as you the reader.
>>7848658
I found an old guide to Capital by some communist party. Made for the working class.
They say you should absolutely skip the 1st chapters, which become clear only after reading the rest.
They say it's the main reason why people drop the book so early.
I never read more than 30 pages, things about surplus value, and the disconnection between exchange value and value in terms of labor. (I think he says prices should be proportional to the hours worked, which would be the case without the merchant class)
But he writes clearly, unlike Hegel.
Also, he criticizes the social division of labor. As opposed to the technical division of labor, which is necessary.
>>7848591
I've actually recently acquired a hard copy of the Capital trilogy, but before I even try it, it's clear to me that I have to do Wealth of Nations first as a primer.
>>7848591
Capital tl;dr strategies on how to identify those in power and recruit the masses to help replace them with you and your friends
By what mechanisms has capitalism killed more people than socialism? Honest question from someone who leans strongly towards free markets.
>>7849124
I'm guessing some of it is artificial shortages required for the uphold of global capitalism, but I'm not very well versed on the subject.
>>7849124
Someone answer to this with the train-lever ethical problem image please.
>>7848600
muh petit bourgeois humour
>>7849134
Life is a trolley problem. Fuck, man.
Although that does give a very easy way to show what's wrong with utopianism.
Side question: what's the relationship of utopianism and ideology?
>>7848631
>Capital is an economic text
>>7848658
wealth of nations
principles of political economy and taxation by Ricardo
hegels philosophy of history
>>7849097
you are wrong and you should feel bad. marx explicitly sets out why prices are very very rarely proportional to hours worked
>>7849779
>Capital is an economic text
it is you fucking spastic
>>7849114
just read ricardo, he simplifies and improves on smith other wise you will be reading a 1000+ page book
>>7848658
You should have at least a very general understanding of the various branches of classical economics. Maybe read something like "Theories of Value and Distribution Since Adam Smith: Ideology and Economic Theory", it's not perfect but it will give you the general gist.
>>7849779
Fuck off post-modernist fart
>>7849940
The Ricardian school was very different from Smith in not so subtle ways
There's a reason Marx generally talks of Smith in a slightly more positive manner than Ricardo... because he was a revolutionary and not a mere conservative even though he was wrong it was historically situated
Just try to understand what Marx means by surplus value, productive/unproductive labour and abstract labour vs. concentrate labour
read these short letters from Marx to Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_01_08.htm
https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_08_02.htm
and read this article
http://monthlyreview.org/2011/09/01/robinson-crusoe-and-the-secret-of-primitive-accumulation/
Not too dense, though a little denser than, say, the Communist Manifesto.
Marx is really much more readable than something like Keynes or Minsky. It gets slightly technical at times but frankly Marx is just a better writer than most economists - he manages to keep it pretty entertaining.
That said, it's an economics (or "political economy") work. They are, as a rule, pretty dense. If you're used to this stuff it's fine - denser than Piketty but not by much, and more fun to to read. If you're not used to this stuff, I wouldn't start here. (Give me more info on what you're looking for/why you're reading and I'll make a recommendation if you'd like.)
Capital is incredibly difficult and tedious to read and anyone who has read him Marx will freely admit it. His other writings are much easier and he has his moments where he's a brilliant stylist.
Capital is notoriously dense. There are some really nice bits and anecdotes and stuff in the first volume, but for the most part it's unnecessarily obtuse and abstract, and a really bad motivation to read the easier second and third volumes.
>>7848591
Friendo: don't be intimidated by all the ideological naysayers in this thread.
He's very readable with, yes, a high page count. There's no reason not to try your hand at it, and maybe glance supplement now and then if you feel you need some more contextual background.
I read it without anything except having read Wealth of Nations (also very readable) and a study guide which clarified some terminological differences between them, and I enjoyed it.
>>7851031
It's definitely not impenetrable without a significant intro, like Heidegger would be to some random guy who had never really read philosophy before. But it does deserve to be intro'ed and read with a guide or two.
I tried reading it in my late teens and gave up, not because any one obstacle was insurmountable, but because there were so MANY "huh???"-type obstacles that it was easy for my motivation to bleed away and for the book to get shelved forever. I regret not just reading some secondary materials first, otherwise I'd have saved myself a lot of time and enriched my mind a lot.
Not a Marxist btw. The ideological content is nothing to be afraid of. Actual "Marxists" are a hilarious minority in academia now, and even those who would say they're Marxist mean it in a very diffuse sense like "I think class is a major or the major category of historical analysis, but I probably don't even say so explicitly in anything I publish."
>>7848646
>marx was a jew of course he hated the church and set out to destroy it, duh
He was a Jew who hated Jews. He saw them as greedy capitalists
>>7850776
>easier second and third volumes
If you think Volumes II and III are simpler to grasp then Volume I then you are terribly, terribly misreading them. I bet you think Marx's real problematic in Volume III is merely quantitatively turning labour time into prices...
>>7849983
Marx is not in the same theoretical, scientific realm as Smith and Ricardo. He is fundamentally breaking with political economy, enacting something akin to a scientific revolution.
>>7849938
Capital is a scientific inquiry into the particular social formation that is capitalism. The object of analysis is not "the economy" but rather the social form of a particular, definite period in which capital can describe a complex of logics and structures that simultaneously obscure themselves. What is historical becomes general; what is class structured becomes reduced to liberal individualism; what is social becomes purely a quality of material objects themselves; etc...
Volumes I and II outline the internal logic of Capital and establish its class structured particularities and moments necessary for its reproducible positing as the ordering concept of society. Volume III explores the way in which capital presents itself to agents within it, concealing its internal particularity in the process.
The movement is establishing value as a social relation within circulation, moving to value's origin in production, outlining value's movement within circulation and production and then showing how value as an internal concept is externalized in the form of profit and differentiated, seemingly autonomous agents.
>>7849124
Capitalism, by not distributing resources property, leads to millions of deaths every year as a result of poverty-related causes (i.e., starvation, easily treatable diseases, etc.). We literally have the resources to end global food shortages, but market forces prevent this from happening. Poor people have less money, so, naturally, in a system where people "vote with their money", food, clothing, and shelter will be provided in abundance to relatively wealthy people and be nearly absent among the poor (i.e., several billion people).
In addition, global capitalism relies on slave labor and drastically underpaid workers, both of which kill many people. That, combined with the fact that corporations play a VERY direct role in starting wars and armed struggle leads to one of the deadliest forms of social organization in the history of mankind.
>>7852505
>Capital is a scientific inquiry
stopped there
>>7848591
>IF IT DOESNT HAVE A PROSE VERSION, ITS NOT WORTH READING
>current year
>people unironically praising Marx
Holy shit.
>that moment when /lit/'s resident diehard Marxist shows up and tries to act like he's an authority on Marx when he's actually a dilettante who doesn't know anything about the history of 20th century Marxism
He's here! Please keep asking him questions so I can keep laughing at him.
>>7854332
>current year
>still being a capital cuck
>>7854332
you is your quarrel with him?
>>7854340
how about you correct him if you are more knowledgeable on Marx than him?
>>7851050
what if I'm in my mid twenties and not some random teen who picked up something "complex" to seem smart?
>>7848591
>How dense is Marx?
he's so dense he's retarded.
>>7854426
Read Volume III to understand a provisional Marxist approach to supply and demand. Marx purposely abstracts from them until reaching the level of prices because they offer no explanatory power for capital as understood in its simplest, most internal form (the logic of value). Supply and demand can explain fluctuations in market prices but cannot explain why prices fluctuate around a particular regulator.
>>7854340
Why are you so upset?
>>7854347
Stop stealing our memes, /leftypol/
You do not have the right to use the word "cuck".
