this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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Finally finished the third volume of Capital. Not going to lie, it was a challenge and quite a journey, but well worth it. Rip to the many, many highlighters that gave their lives for this endeavor.

marx-hi AMA!

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[–] ChestRockwell@hexbear.net 26 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Damn comrade you're officially stronger than most marxists(including me, pathetically tapping out at vol 2).

Honest opinion, is volume 3 worth it? I've never gone for it, but I'm also one of those weirdos who loves the young Marx and stuff like the German ideology.... marx-goth

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 20 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Overall, I'd say yes. It has some of his most important insights that really build on the basic analyses in Vol 2 to show how capitalism is a historically transitory mode of production that contains within itself the seeds of its own abolishment. If anything I'd say if you've already gotten through Vol 2, which can be pretty dry at times, you might as well.

On the other hand, it also has some difficult parts. The stuff about ground rent is kinda wowee and some parts that are fragmentary (like Vol 2)

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are you referring mainly to the falling rate of profit, or are there other conclusions worth knowing about?

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago

That's the big one, but discussions of the credit system and ficticious capital as well

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 20 points 3 months ago

Oh god, that's bad. Surely you can think of something better.

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 28 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I have no idea what people do to the spines of their books to where they're all fucked up when they finish with them. All the wear on these is just from toting them around with me everywhere

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I fold them in half when I read. But I'm abusive and have needed to glue pages back in before lol

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

Tbf, it depends on the publisher. I've never had to glue in pages from Zone Books for example. Some publishers really cheap out on binding

[–] tamagotchicowboy@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago

Easy, with these same books use whatever I can find as a bookmark (or more than one rando thin thing) while I hunt down whatever I was typing or scrawling notes on, maybe if said thing was a 2000s laptop slap it down on the book while I reflect on my notes. Then another good one is jumping from page whatever to the references to see the full context and then taking note on that, then flipping back, paper books hate that.

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I crack the hell out of the spine before reading cause it keeps the book open easier

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 25 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Apparently there are some people who tear out a page when they're done reading it

I'm not saying that there's a book hell, but I am saying that you would definitely go there for that

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 24 points 3 months ago

Apparently there are some people who tear out a page when they're done reading it

gulag

[–] Wertheimer@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Goddamn, I was coming here to call you a blasphemer for defacing your books with highlighting but that is some ninth circle shit.

[–] Antiwork@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Marking up books is good and everyone should do it when reading. Fiction and non fiction. You're actively engaging with the material. Of course unless it's a shared book or ya just don't want to

[–] Wertheimer@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I get why people do it, especially for dense texts like these, but to me it’d be like hard-coding a commentary track from someone who hasn’t seen the full movie.

[–] Antiwork@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

I think that’s part of the fun. You go back and read and see what you missed or realize you still don’t understand a concept or learn that you now understand and want to dig deeper. If now you understand and find the commentary unhelpful you erase.

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[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago

That is incredibly strange behavior. Books ain't cheap and the library really won't approve of it.

Do that but use every page to roll a joint and try to finish capital

That's just.. A lot of effort for no real benefit.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 months ago

You can 'break in' a spine without breaking it!! You stand it on its spine, ready to read, with all the pages closed. Then you open a few pages from the front to the table. Then a few pages from the back. Then a few from the front. Then the back. Etc, etc, working towards the middle. It stops the spine warping, too.

[–] Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago

That's not Harry Potter

[–] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The respective thicknesses reminds me of His Dark Materials. Sorry I had to go all lib there.

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 14 points 3 months ago

The thicknesses are very important hyperflush

[–] tentaclius@lemm.ee 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why is there Linux logo on the books?

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

Those are some fun stickers I put on there to celebrate my favorite OS

[–] The_sleepy_woke_dialectic@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Roughly what ratio do you suppose it could have been condensed by while conveying 90% of the information?

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Really hard to say, but you could probably cut out like 20%. Except that 20% is mostly review and summary that's really helpful to the reader. There's certainly stuff I just skimmed, particularly the detailed critiques of other economists like Adam Smith. But it's not like that that stuff is unimportant per se

[–] The_sleepy_woke_dialectic@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Appreciate the answer, I didn't really expect one! I had trouble with the first few chapters where I felt like I got the picture but he kept on about it. Others have said Marx takes the garden path quite a bit. Do you think it was worth reading or would you recommend the marx engles reader instead?

[–] Nacarbac@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

I'm most of the way through Vol 1, and it got a lot more engaging. The mass of repetition and minor variation to establish concepts mostly ended (and when it comes up it's in much smaller chunks) and it got into some infuriating and fascinating historical analysis. Perhaps try skipping to those chapters to see if they work for you?

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think it was worth it. But generally I would recommend everyone read the first volume, which is the most complete and engaging. Volume 2 gets much more technical, and believe me, I appreciated him pausing to review and summarize when that happens. Honestly it's a lot more accessible than the literary theory I was trained on in that regard

[–] I_CAST_BEAM_OF_BATS_I_CAST_BOLT_OF_BATS@hexbear.net 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No, you have to read The Dialectics of Dependency by Ruy Mauro Marini. I'm not kidding. Do it soon.

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] I_CAST_BEAM_OF_BATS_I_CAST_BOLT_OF_BATS@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's my answer to the meme question "which book is Capital vol. 4" so I rate it over any kind of Adornoid navel gazing or MMT authors' 400 pages of "wow did you know neoliberalism is stupid?"

Also bump this one up as it may help you eliminate some others off the list begone A Deep Plough: Unscrambling Major Post-Marxist Texts from Adorno to Žižek

More on reading list nuking certain traditions https://monthlyreview.org/2023/06/01/the-myth-of-1968-thought-and-the-french-intelligentsia-historical-commodity-fetishism-and-ideological-rollback/

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[–] Antiwork@hexbear.net 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Highlighting with no book tags. Courageous

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