Finally finished the third volume of Capital. Not going to lie, it was a challenge and quite a journey, but well worth it. Rip to the many, many highlighters that gave their lives for this endeavor.
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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ive read it
most of it is REALLY dry and boring economic stuff
so id say pace yourself and dont be ashamed to skim a little over the super indepth parts about specific economic shit. marx actually makes a few mathematical errors himself in those parts anyways (it doesnt alter his arguments) but if you arent studying it academically then just getting the main concepts is good enough (it was for me)
I agree with most of this, but not that it's mostly dry and boring. It's difficult at times, and complex, but also passionate and funny. Mostly I felt like I was finally understanding things that had been in front of my face my whole life without me really seeing them, and that was what was compelling enough to keep me going
But yeah I skimmed the less relevant stuff. I'm sure the critiques of Adam Smith are devastating but maybe I'll come back to them some other time
fair enough
what i found impressive is how you see all that, the extent of which the marxist critique of capitalism is explored in those three volumes and then you realize he really did manage to compress it down and simplify the ideas pretty fucking well in the manifesto
It is pretty impressive. I don't think everyone will want or need to see exactly how he reached his conclusions, but it's a staggering achievement
I'd say that they teach you how to read them in terms of content. Vol 1 prepares you for Vol 2 and so on. I don't have an economics background at all, but I do have a background in literary theory, and it is helpful to have personal strategies for parsing dense texts. Personally I highlight and annotate to force myself to slow down and parse the text and think about what the key points being made are