Explain the bookclub: We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year and discussing it in weekly threads. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included in this particular reading club, but comrades are encouraged to do other solo and collaborative reading.) This bookclub will repeat yearly.
This week’s reading is shorter than most.
I’ll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.
Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there’s always next year.
Archives: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7 – Week 8 – Week 9 – Week 10 – Week 11 – Week 12 – Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Week 16 – Week 17 – Week 18 – Week 19 – Week 20 – Week 21 – Week 22 – Week 23 – Week 24 – Week 25 – Week 26 – Week 27 – Week 28 – Week 29 – Week 30 – Week 31 – Week 32 – Week 33 – Week 34 – Week 35 – Week 36 – Week 37 – Week 38 – Week 39
The rest of your points seem fine, though
^Correction: 140 is the value of the commodties, 120 is merely the cost of constant and variable capital bought to make commodities
But just to reiterate my point, how does the industrial capitalist preserve his capital value of 120, while adding a surplus value of 20 onto it, despite the financial capitalist’s taking of principal and sum?
Because it seems to me, that after the process of selling the commodities, the industrial capitalist has to deal with the following costs:
100 + 5 = principal + interest, taken by the money capitalist (note: the interest is derived from the surplus value created, due to 5% interest)
20 = variable capital paid
140 - 125 = 15
Leaving 15 to be the industrial capitalist’s profit, of the original surplus value of 20.
However, a transformation from 120 capital --> 15 increase seems to me a decrease… to counter this, this would indicate some preservation of the initial capital used in production, to continue capitalist expansion.
TO make it so that 120 capital -> + 20 surplus value -> 140 capital
I realized partway through editing my answer what I missed, I think I got it now though.
He owes the capital back. He doesn’t keep it, he is buying its use temporarily. He started without it and pays it back at the end, everything has depreciated in the normal process in the interim.