How to Read Marx's Capital | An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory w/ Deepankar Basu

Deepankar Basu walks us through the scope of Marx’s analysis of the social relation of capital within all three volumes of Das Kapital as well as explains why Marx wrote his magnum opus in the particular way he did and how Marxian economics differs from other traditions.

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[rustyjohnson]

This is good. Covered the essential, yet often unmentioned or misunderstood points up front. I'm lovin' it.

[demonhunter]

Really wonderful stuff! As someone about 600 pages into Volume 1, hearing about how Volumes 2 and 3 expand upon the foundation in Volume 1 is both motivating and exciting. Thanks again so much!

[antoniomachado]

Great interview, looking forward to reading the book

[blassezfaire]

The step by step is what i need..cuz reading das kapital on my own is a lost cause..its so dense and i barely graduated high school.

[noeliabrunini]

Saw the price for the book yikes. Hopefully, Cambridge brings it down a bit
I would like to read it, please it sounds fascinating

[kittywhiskers]

This was a great interview! My attention span is pretty short these days and I watched the whole thing!!! Woooo!!!!

[desi_anarch]

Wow gotta love jacobin for these interviews

[onestraw-zxph]

Professor Basu does a good job of summarizing the essential points of Kapital and also the points of controversy, especially the Transformation problem concerning value and price, a problem of how to account for the changing value of production inputs over time (which IMHO is well discussed in Mr Mandel's introduction to volume 3. Penguin edition. ). Two points, though: it would have been good if Professor Basu discussed how mainstream economists conceived of the nature of profit, which for them is a simple addition of profit rate to the cost of production, in contrast to the source of profit from the surplus value generated in production, and secondly, I recommend reading, before Kapital, Marx's earlier work, A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy, written in 1859. In it are the essential outlines of Marx's thoughts that were elaborated in volumes 1 to 3, with a very good introduction to the nature of money. OK a third point, I advise reading all three books of Volume 4 (Theories of Surplus Value) which is fantastic in it's presentation of economic history, from Stuart to the physiocrats, Smith, Ricardo, etc. (It cost about $130, coming all the way from London). What the vulgar economists call profit, as addition to cost of production, is called by Stuart as Profit Upon Alienation, discussed in Book 1, and Book 2 has a very good discussion of Crisis. All good reads, I guarantee, PLUS, it gives a very good insight into the nature of current phenomena, such as inflation. Happy reading!☺️

[christiani]

Guess he is deepanking the capitalist economy :))

[TheCommonSNse]

I always like to trot out the reserve army of labor whenever someone says that Marx had no valuable insights. If Marx had no valuable insights, then why is the U3 unemployment rate the official measure used for unemployment? The U3 is essentially Marx's reserve army. It is the number of people who are unemployed but are still in the market for a job. The U5 or the U6 would be a more accurate measure of how many people are unemployed, but those numbers don't matter to a capitalist because the people that are in the U5 but not the U3 are not in the labor force anyways and therefore don't impact the cost of labor. We use Marx's theories all the time without even realizing it.

[NathanWHill]

What I wish Marxist economists talked about was the topics in the six volume plan that Marx didn't get to, especially the theory of wages and the theory of world trade.

[daniel]

Excellent! Inspiring me to contribute beyond Volume 1, to the rest of Capital. ♥️📚

[cuttysark]

Should get Steve Keen on sometime. He wrote a few papers in the 90s arguing Marxian economics is ideal as a basis to build Post-Keynesian economics on. But he also argued Marx was wrong in asserting surplus could only come from exploiting labour. Keen argues Marx came to understand he was wrong but was reluctant to admit it because he was determined to show the tendency for profit to fall.

[lightningfirst]

Is anybody else watching a bunch of primers on Marx as a way of putting off actually reading Marx, or is it just me?

[NathanWHill]

According to Paul Cockshott, the empirical data says that there isn't really profit rate equalization. Industries with higher organic composition have lower profit rates. I still think that the movement of capital towards industries with higher profit rates is a thing, but would have appreciated if he's addressed this stand of research.

[richardkut]

Where are these people who distribute properly? I'm not saying your philosophy, (it's not economics) will not work. It sounds like fantasy.

[Sunfried]

Interviewer : please be more concise with setting up your question.

[OccultDemonCassette]

Just go to "Socialism For All". He has Full socialist audiobooks with helpful/accessible commentary putting the topics mentioned into an easily understandable context.

[vipinnegidu]

Thank you Deepankar for making basic concepts of Marxism so easy in understanding

[altai]

There's a typing error in the description of the video. You typed in die instead of did. Just a heads up

This was very informative. Thank you!