The Circulation of Capital: Reading Volume II of Marx’s Capital

In Volume I of Capital, Marx analyzes the processes of capitalist production and accumulation and identifies the real sources of wealth: nature and the labor performed by working people. In Volume II, The Process of Circulation of Capital, he addresses the next big question: How can the reproduction of society as a whole take place, if there is no conscious social planning that ensures that all needs are met, in the necessary proportions, such that life can persist and the capitalist relations of production be sustained? We discover the answer, but we also learn of new contradictions and sources of crisis inherent to capitalist society. Marx thereby lays the groundwork for the system-wide analyses in Volume III, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole.

We welcome all who have a basic knowledge of Volume I of Capital to this ongoing weekly study group. Participants will closely read and discuss Volume II, guided by Fred Murphy and other experienced students of Marx from the MEP. We will use a hybrid approach to cover the entire book. For key chapters or sections, we will do a line-by-line reading with commentary and occasional supplemental materials. Participants will read other sections on their own, and we will summarize and discuss when we meet. The conversation continues in the group’s Slack channel. The series is offered in 10-week segments, recurring until we have read the entire book (however long that takes). The second segment begins April 8.

Fred Murphy has led numerous study groups on ecosocialism, science and technology, the history of capitalism, and Latin American politics at the Marxist Education Project since 2015. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research.