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

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!

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

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

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!☺️

Great interview, looking forward to reading the book

Thank you, Deepankar Basu and Cale.

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

Wow gotta love jacobin for these interviews

fantastic discussion and interview!!

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

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.

Great video, guys. Thank you.

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

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.

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.

Algo Boost

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.

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.

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!

Why is it so hard for interviewers, especially this one, to let the guests speak?

it seems to me marx's main contribution to philosophy was historical materialism. secondarily he points out that exploitation and crisis are foundational aspects of capitalism. i would argue that his dialectic taken from hegel does necessarily forecast a future in which capitalism collapses to be replaced by a socialist state, then a world communist culture. the idea of a historical dialectic is that it progresses forward.

good job journalists

I saw the name Jacobin being British I thought about our Monarchy and King James that plus your guest.The origins of modern Sociology

This analysis of commercial capital seems strange to me. If Walmart and Amazon are making profit by appropriating surplus from industrial capitalists and the workers "aren't making anything" then why are they constantly pushing workers to work faster? The way I see it the commercial capitalists are buying products at their value and increasing their value by incorporating them into a new labor process, that of organizing those commodities into a storefront or marketplace.

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

The preesnter makes a basic mistake in suggesting that Vol I was the only volume that was completed by Marx. This is untrue. In fact Marx had completed the volumes in reverse order. Volume I was completed last but was the first that was ready for publication. the entire three volumes were completed back to front. Marx's research actually encompassed capitalist production as a whole. See Rosdolsky (The Making of Marx's Capital).

one major aspect of modern capitalism that marx did not analyse was branding. perhaps in marx's day the impact of branding/marketing was not a factor. i consider branding one of capitalism's greatest achievements in order to transform commodities into something like local monopolies. what do marxist scholars have to say on this phenomenon?

read Michael Heinrich

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

We need a program to get Leftist literature, Parenti, Huey newton etc. to Ex-Cons. Educate the disenfranchised!

Guess he is deepanking the capitalist economy :))

👍

I got my 3 volumes of CAPITAL long time ago, but never got to read them as his analysis was highly technical and so never finished the three volumes. Deepankar reveals the intricacies of Marxian analysis so easily that I get the impression how Xi Jinping was able to navigate through the complicated capitalist system of the west and beat them and even overcome all that they threw at him and yet dictate terms to them that they fail to ignore.

Capitalism is like feudalism but people like it.

I just want to point out that his book is $91 lol

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

Richard Wolff's books on Marxism David Harvey as well.

Marx is the Book of Revelation but translated into economics

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

Marginal Utility of a product and dissonance

Long live Naxalism

“Don’t worry guys, THIS TIME Communism will work!” - Every Marxist ever 😂

Interviewer: tell us how Marxism isn’t just about predicting crisis and explaining economy as class struggle. Interviewee: Marxism is about predicting crisis and explaining the economy as class struggle

Well, this was very interesting and enlightening, but I would suggest people to look up Moishe Postone for a really deep analysis of the fundamental concepts in Marx, like “value” and “commodity”. These terms are not used in the common-sense way.

TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS, ULIMITED GROWTH, AND PROFIT ONLY STRATAGIES, ARE A FAILURE.

algorithm!!

That book is $120 :(

Oh NO! Basu is is profit squeeze idialogue!!

Marx was a very deep thinker. But he made one fundamental error - he insisted that only human labor could create “surplus value” and hence profits. His prediction of socialist revolution was based on this false premise. But he was certainly correct on pointing out that capitalism is based on exploitation of labor and is an inherently unbalanced system. A system that is entirely based on capital accumulation and not in satisfying human needs will never produce a decent and fair society. Selfishness and cutthroat competition is encouraged and the greedy psychopaths grab all the money for themselves.

1/5 OF PROFITS SHOULD BE ALLOCATED TO LABOR AND ANOTHER FIFTH TO TAXES. IF YOU DON'T SHARE THERE IS NO VIRTUOUS SPIRAL. WE NEED A SOCIALLY ENVIGORATING CAPITAILISM

THE MANAGEMENT OF GARBAGE IS A NEW PRIORITY. THERE IS MANUFACTURE WITH OUT SALES, SO, THERE IS LOT OF UNBOUGHT GARBAGE. THEN, IN CHINA THERE IS A HUGE PILE OF BIKES THAT WERE SOCIAL LENDING BIKES THAT JUST GOT THROWN AWAY IN A BIG PILE. AND. AS FOR TIRES, THEY STILL HAVAN'T FOUND WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM, THE MALARIA PROBLEM IS WORSE AT TIRE GRAVE YARDS.

boring but somewhat useful like most of this channel's videos,

Marx 🤮

The one issue that was barely address was brought up at the very end... that the price of the book set was a bit too high. Pricing goes into consideration of making and selling a product and if the price is not seen as advantageous to the consumer, they won't buy the product. I can say with absolute certainty, I never had a customer insist on paying more. Would have nice though. Calling management non-workers shows an arrogant streak as without management, no large scale project could ever happen.

Ouch. Steer clear of "how to read".

1st rule. don't read it

Income inequality in Cuba, China, Russia and North Korea are greater than in the United States....... Stop being lied to. Get an education.