Aman’s Reviews > Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1 > Status Update

Chapter 10 was a very long, but very interesting (if even a little depressing) chapter on the working conditions of 19th century industrial England. As an empirical chapter, it was long, but a fairly quick read.

And, Chapter 11 was a brief discussion on the rate and mass of surplus-value, which segued into a slightly more philosophical point on how capitalism fumble up the end of productive life as a mere means.

Labour-power produces products, so long as labourers are provided with enough mula to reproduce said labour-power, i.e. income for food, shelter, future labourers. However, if a capitalist advances capital, they're not looking simply to receive what they advanced. So, labourers work beyond what's necessary to reproduce their labour-power, creating surplus-value, which capitalists appropriate, thus exploiting workers.

Chapters 4, 5, 6: Marx introduces labour-power to understand how the M-C-M' circulation is logical, or how it actually happens. Its M' because of the augmentation of money (M) by the end of the circulation.

This M-C-M' movement, which creates surplus-value using (Marx doesn't touch exploitation quite yet) labour-power, converts money into capital.

This was an incredibly interesting section, not as difficult as I heard. I think the onion analogy is apt: starting with the commodity, we are inside the onion's core, and as we progress throughout the book, we slowly work our way to the surface.

And like if you found yourself inside an onion, you might begin have an idea of where you are, but things don't quite become clear until you start seeing the surface.

Yo, I'm not ready for chapter 3.

Part 1 complete, though I may need to reexamine the section on commodity fetishism.