JCC Is It Time To Close The Libraries?

The best thing about the city and school libraries near me is that they actually carry out-of-print or hard to find books that I really want to read that would otherwise cost me at least $40. That's mainly because of rarity and being out of print, not so much because of current production costs. Strangely enough though, there doesn't appear to be a single copy of Marx's Capital between any of the three libraries near me.

 

Blithe not even volume 1? that's odd. usually even barnes and noble stocks volume 1.

btw if you're thinking of diving into Capital with no previous reading in marxism or radical economics id advise against it. its a bear. ive read parts of it but ive yet to mount a successful cover to cover read-through. his more historical materialist/political works (the communist manifesto, the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte, the civil war in france) are less opaque, and ive been working on more contemporary marxist and marxist-influenced economists like andrew kliman, richard wolff, david harvey, and david graeber to kind of help me nibble around the edges of marx's tougher work like grundrisse and capital before i dive in again. when i do i intend to be following along with david harvey's chapter-by-chapter companion book and online lecture series. id also like to find/start a discussion reading group to join, ideally. it really is a bear. only things ive tried to read and found tougher would be hegel and deleuze & guattari

 

Well it looks like I'm going to have to buy it through amazon or barnes & noble more than likely. There's a good price for the Penguin edition. Thanks for the heads up about Capital though. I was actually thinking of getting one of Harvey's books as a companion piece when I go through Capital. Probably something for a re-read or when I'm absolutely stumped. I like to try and get my own impression of things first, or at least as much as I can with my limited knowledge. I wonder how much of Marx's original meaning gets lost in translation though? I've been told that that's been an issue with authors like Nietzsche.

 

ive always heard the kaufmann translations for nietzsche are the best so those are the only ones i use.

likewise ive never heard anyone recommend any edition other than the penguin for any of marx's works that they offer, so you're on the right track there. harvey uses penguin, so it would match up to his Companion to Marx's Capital. which by the way only covers volume 1 but he has video lectures on his website for free which cover volume 1 and part of volume 2, (lastest one just went up today actually) and i presume he'll eventually cover volume 3.

the fourth/supplementary volume of capital, "theories of surplus value" is much tougher to find because penguin hasn't put it out. i think there's only one english translation of it tho so not much dilemma there. that one's basically his notes on all the economists/theories he researched in the run up to writing capital (ricardo, sisimondi, mill, smith, locke and a bajillion others ive never heard of). actually capital was supposed to be much longer than the three (four) volumes we have but he died without publishing anything but 1 and only partially completing 2 and 3 so engels' fingermarks are all over those, especially 3.

its good to get your own impressions but honestly im reading this other stuff to increase my ability to engage with the conceptual level he's working on in capital. at present im honestly too much of a lightweight. i find it helps to expose myself to those sorts of concepts in the modern context people like kliman, wolff, harvey and co can place it in. marx is working with object lessons from a time and place i have nowhere near enough experience with

 

Did you read Locke, Smith, Say, Ricardo, Mill, Malthus, and Proudhon first?

 

locke, smith, ricardo, mill to varying degrees (ordered most to last), secondary familiarity with malthus and proudhon. no say

 

While we're at it, rogue, what would you recommend to get a grasp on the Maoist perspective? Now that's an area of material that's hard to find.

Maybe we just need a Marx/radical left-wing thread?

 

yeah with the exception of maoist-third worldist j sakai's settlers (full free pdf here, its a self/internet published book, but very influential/talked about in radical circles online), i havent read any avowedly maoist books yet. my experience there is confined to message board conversation and excerpts from the little red book and the like on marxists.org. which, by the way, is an amazing resource for anything marxist that you cant find/cant afford in print.

as for a radical reading thread, i think said thread would probably amount you and i talking back and forth with ender sai taking occassional dip-pig-tail-in-the-paint love potshots at me

 

Rogue_Ten, well someone has to think of the white male landowners.

 

he's just a little scamp, really

 

You can't close down the libraries!


Where else are the homeless going to go to watch porn online?

(for those offended by that statement, it's a joke, get over yourselves)

 

Speaking of libraries and anti-technology, I just tried to rent out an e-book from my local library and the damn thing is bugged and won't download...

 

I'm sure the librarians know how to get around it though.

 

I don't. I think librarians would do that for when librarians want to watch porn.

 

mmmmm.... sexay librarians with glasses....

*watches thread derail*