Location
8-week workshop beginning 27 March 2011
Sunday evenings, 7-9pm
$160 advance registration: ; limited to 12 persons.
Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume II is perhaps the least well understood of a trilogy that suffers overall from rampant misunderstandings. Published two years after Marx’s death by his close friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, it is, in the latter’s consideration, the most scientific of the three, containing, as it does, theoretical developments that will afford great pleasure to those who pursue their close study and “great disappointment” to those who “will not take the trouble to fathom them and to follow them out.” For this reason, Engels worried that it was fated to forever remain a “sealed book” for many people and since its publication in 1885, his worries have been to a large extent justified. However, it is the very same reason that makes this the volume that benefits most of all from a clear, visual presentation of the information it contains.
Subtitled “The Process of Circulation of Capital,” Volume II takes off directly from where Volume I left off and investigates the “intertwining of different capitals”: the complicated paths traced by international trade, transport and global finance that thread themselves across surface of the globe to this day. This volume displays the degree to which Marx grasped the global nature of capitalism and had a better handle on what we now call “globalization” than many economists do today.
Although a prior acquaintance with Volume I of Capital will be beneficial when approaching this work, the information will be presented in such a way as make it fully comprehendible on its own. Classes will be divided up between presentation and discussion in order to provide for a democratic, participatory learning experience.
