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Studies in Marx’s Capital

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

Following up on the MEP's long-running study group on Karl Marx's Grundrisse, we have been reading closely and discussing Marx's 'Theories of Surplus Value' and related works. At present we are completing a study of capitalist landholding and ground rent. Future readings may include Soren Mau's 'Mute Compulsion' and Beverley Best's 'The Automatic Fetish.'

Free

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

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

A weekly study group covering Marx's Capital, Volume II, The Process of Circulation of Capital. In this volume, Marx addresses the 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.

Free

AI versus Labor: Luddism and Beyond

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

8 weekly sessions starting Oct 1. Is Artificial Intelligence (AI, sic) really the dire threat to the future of humanity as even some of its proponents claim, or is it a more mundane and familiar threat to working people who face loss of their livelihoods and/or further speed-up and alienation? The entire history of industrial capitalism is punctuated by recurring waves of automation to reduce labor costs and turnover time, each time provoking strong resistance by the affected workforce. This reading group will probe the history both of AI and computer technology specifically and of working-class resistance to capitalist automation in general.

Free

Reading Marx’s Capital, Volume III

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

A weekly study group covering Marx's Capital, Volume III, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. This work integrates and completes Marx's analysis, enabling us to understand and make sense of how the phenomena we see occurring on the surface of society are related to the underlying system of capitalism.

Adam Smith and ‘The Wealth of Nations’

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

Adam Smith deals with such issues as the so-called labor-theory of value, the equalization of the rate of profit, and the determination of commodity prices in important ways that anticipate Marx or require the corrections Marx provides. So, in this group, we will dive headlong into Smith's opus, The Wealth of Nations.

Marx’s Capital Volume 1: A Short Course for Today

Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants

Have you always wanted to study Marx’s Capital, Vol 1, and hesitated because of the time commitment to read the entire volume from start to finish? Join us for a 12-week study group covering key sections of the book.