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Marx’s Grundrisse
Sat, September 23, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
$85 – $115
Saturdays, 11 am to 2 pm
Beginning September 23 through December 16
“Forces of production and social relations – two different sides of the development of the social individual – appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high…” —Karl Marx, The Grundrisse
Perhaps the most curious and least understood aspect of Marx’s work is his method of analysis. Marx viewed all his economic laws as tendencies and it is hard to deny that those tendencies are becoming more and more the realities of today’s capitalism. However, to understand our society we need to do more than reading and accepting his concepts, we must critically analyze them and look for the way of thinking that produced them. It is with this goal in my mind that we should embark on a journey through the long and complex sentences of The German Ideology and the Grundrisse. These works are perhaps the best representation of the process of thinking that found its culmination in Capital and we will be engaging with it during our study. Without a doubt, this will be a long and arduous process but we should always keep in mind that “there is no royal road to science and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
The Grundrisse (1857) is considered by many scholars to be the first draft of Capital. It was followed by the Manuscripts of 1861-63 and the Manuscripts of 1863-65, the second and third drafts, respectively. What we now refer to as Capital Volume I (1867) is effectively the fourth draft with Volumes II and III, which were edited by Engels and published after Marx’s death in 1883, drawing on the work developed by Marx in the earlier drafts.
Starting September 16 we will read from Notebook Six of The Chapter on Capital from the Penguin edition of Marx’s Grundrisse.
These three-hour sessions will have a 30 minute break at 12:30
No one turned away for inability to pay. $10 per session suggested fee.