The Capitalist Production & Accumulation Process

In this session, we’ll discuss the economic laws of capitalist development and how they help explain its historical development. Make sure to put your algebra hat on because these laws are, for the most part, relationships between specific quantities! For our purposes, we’ll be focusing on just two. First is the general law of capitalist accumulation and how it expresses itself in the formation of an “industrial reserve army.” Second is the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and how it expresses itself in decades long crises of absolute overproduction.

Readings

Readings are required unless marked optional. Use the PDF links to read or save a copy. Original online versions are also linked where available.

• PDF
  PDF Wages, Price, and Profit — Chapters 6–14

  Karl Marx

  Read / download PDF: Wages, Price, and Profit — Chapters 6–14 Web version (complete text): Wages, Price, and Profit — Chapters 6–14 Listen / download audio: Wages, Price, and Profit — Chapters 6–14

  Listen here: Wages, Price, and Profit — Chapters 6–14
• PDF
  PDF Capital, Volume 1 — Chapter 4

  Karl Marx

  Read / download PDF: Capital, Volume 1 — Chapter 4 Web version: Capital, Volume 1 — Chapter 4

Session slides

Unit 2: Science & Production — shared slide deck.

Session handouts

Session handout · Download PDF

Materials folder

Week 4 materials