Highlights of Marx’s Capital, Volume 1

with Juliet Ucelli

THIS CLASS IS FOR WOMEN ONLY

Capital is the indispensable sourcebook on Marx’s method for analyzing the economy, politics and struggles. The MEP introduced the highlights format because, over the past 40 years, the lengthening of people’s work week along with increased job instability (issues that Marx analyzes) have made it harder for people to commit to longer studies.

In a continuing quest to increase access for those who have been historically excluded, turned off or silenced by the way this theory is often taught and discussed, we are offering the highlights class beginning this January for women only. Everyone who identifies as a woman is welcome.

While Capital consists of three volumes, a basic familiarity with the key concepts and sections of Volume I offers many tools for understanding the mode of production we live under. We’ll delve into:

• use value, value and surplus value;
• why capitalism has needed conquest, enslavement and white supremacy and how it reshapes patriarchy;
• why capitalism drives technological innovation, overwork and unemployment and leads to ecological destruction;
• how working-class people (employed and unemployed) have historically won improvements in living and working conditions. Participant reports and life experiences are welcome!

Juliet Ucelli has taught labor economics and class/race/gender for unions and activists, and writes on Eurocentrism in Marxist theory and Marxist understandings of human development.