Note: the pre-Addendum article was an unfinished rough draft, which I intended to continue work on at a later date. I know the chances of me returning to it are slim, so I offer it in its current state. Everything in the addendum is new material I just wrote, to hopefully leßen the sense of insufficiency from the rough draft.
There is a sure deficiency of Leftist material unbiasedly analysing or critically engaging with Capital, Marx's magnum opus. This work became so influential at the time of publication due to the novelty of its thesis, and the lacking availability confining the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, the Grundriße, Wages, Price, and Profit, and Wage Labour and Capital, to relative obscurity.
From the above circumstances arose an almost religious devotion to the study, even worship of Capital, Das Kapital for those truly attempting to court the grace of our Saviour Marx, likely for redemption of past sin, knowing how culturally inept the Left of late has become. One would think Capital were in the same league as the Holy Havamal, which is there so for Heathens. If Heathens worship the Holy Havamal, then whose book of scripture is Capital? We have been told many times too tiresome that Capital is the bible of the working-claß, yet it is not this claß who treats it as an item of divinity; the petit-bourgeois intelligentsia is the endleßly prayerful devotee to the good book of Marx the Saviour, spreading the gospel of Norman Marketism, through the one orthodox Academic-Marxian denomination.
So, what is wrong with Capital? There are numerous particular or particularly difficult answers which might be given to this question, but I will, in the interest of time and my own sanity list but two of them
I. Capital is not useful in organising against the supremacy of capitalism, nor in building socialism, it being a text-book on the function of capitalism.
II. Capital nigh completely ignores culture and has been at the forefront of promoting the damaging tendency of Economism . When Economism is asked to pine in on cultural matters, it takes either a policy of obtuse avoidance, or defaults to a post-modern position aligned with the tenets of the powers that be.
All of the above is not to wholly denounce Capital, which is indeed a complex, thorough analysis of capitalist economic, no indeed. It is solely in the timing and the method of study which has so rotted apart the discourse around Capital. As Comrade Stalin once said, young Communists ought not to charge immediately into Capital or the works of Hegel at the expence of every other thinker of import, for else they shall become flustered and quit in discourage, or, should they make it out to the end, their inexperienced intellectual development shall inform an incorrect digestion of the material. Too often, many of Marx's and Lenin's works are skipped over or pushed aside as 'too basic', mastered a priori due to the inherent logic in the science of Marxism for he who labels himself a Marxist.
An anecdote, if I may. In high school, a group of four students joined together to form an all-Marxist theory claß, named the Socialist Unity Claß Club (SUCC, both a play on the DDR's [GDR's] Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands [Socialist Unity Party], and regarded by the founders of the group to be a 'revolutionary' {cheeky} acronym appealing to the maßes). A friend of mine comprised that foundership of four, and he therefore invited me to the first meeting, so that I, too, could be SUCCed in and blown by Marxism's epic theoretical vacuum. To be clear, he knew that I was a Marxist, for that was how we became friends. We chose to read Capital, a chapter for every week being discußed. Our last member joined on the second week's meeting, bumping the Club up to the total of six members. To condense the story: half the claß was sufficiently informed enough about Marxism to actually discuß Capital, whilst the rest of us were confined to reading the text and asking very basic questions, to the growing annoyance of our more educated comrades. Eventually, the group elected to dißolve the Policluburo [Political-Club-Bureau], in preparation for the seniors in our group who would be graduating early (but I believe that to just be their excuse, them wanting to no longer be bothered with Claß-busineß anymore). In place of the Policluburo, my friend was appointed Chancellor of the SUCC. Throughout the last few meetings, the claß dwindled to three: my friend, the 'new' member, and myself. We had one more meeting before our unanimous vote for dißolution of the SUCC. The great reveal is that, it was we final three who had no experience in Marxist theory who steadfastly rallied around that Crimson Flag, the Literati having moved onto the next chic clique (which just so happened to be the immor{t}al {leßer} evil science of Clintonism-Democronyism).
Most Leftist groups, potentially influenced by their interactions with liberalism, are so eager to read this or that book to virtue signal about it. This destructive fetishism causes unthinking decisions to be carried out at an exponential rate, severely shortening the lifespan and increasing the splintering of these groupings, whether it is official, external splintering, or internal splintering into factions until factional civil war erupts within an organisation. All of this is preventable by taking in the Leftist community an active attitude against what Mao so accurately denounced as 'book worship' [see Mao's Oppose Book Worship and Combat Liberalism], and which has devolved in our time to the rightly-scorned virtue signalling.
To end this admittedly far too cursory article, two sets of Leftists must be called out, for they negatively synergise with each other: the enlightened Trendians, and the profeßorial Academic-Marxists. Apart, both groups serve important functions, but they misinterpret each others purpose... [manuscript ends.]
[A separate rought draft addition to the above unfinished paragraph]
(add to end of Capital Problems): One damagingly erroneous idea created conjointly betwixt these two tendencies, is the irrational distrust of introductions and guides. This distrust raises the learning curve and slows the very proceß of learning to a crawl. This relatively recent phenomenon, once strictly an academic peeve, has spread into the public as the next 'hottest' political trend, a new identity for the Trendians.
[Newly Written Addendum]: With the state of this eßay being woefully incomplete, I have decided to add a few new paragraphs. One of the big debates over Capital, and really the legacy of all of Marx's writings, is what the role Hegel plays in them is, if he plays a role at all, for the proper understanding of Marx in general, and Capital in particular. To be straight in front with my personal opinion, I am unsure or mildly negative towards Hegel, and I fail to see how he is relevant to Marxism in any capacity, including in the reading of Capital. In a study of Marx, the thoughts of the man himself, I could better appreciate the usefulneß of having a knowledge of Hegel, who Marx interpreted and reformulated the philosophy of. There is little Hegel to be found in the Economistic Marx, however, and I think it not too far from fact to reason that the farther one travels in the timeline of Marxism, the weaker becomes what lingering Hegelianism is left. Whether the Hegelian Lenin represents a break with the Economistic Marx is a legitimate discußion, yet impertinent for Capital.
What is truly a sorrowful shame moreso in connexion with the domain of Capital is the problem of secondary literary resources. There is a plethora of ald and modern guides and introductions to Capital. I have a hypothesis for why this rule, normally confined to academia, has become so stringently applied especially to Capital. This hypothesis came to me in my reading of Marx's Capital, by Master Geoffrey Pilling, namely end-note one to the Introduction:
'We cannot here go into all the details of this degeneration [in the sense of revisionism]. But it was [the Dark Lord ;D] Stalin's now notorious Dialectical and Historical Materialism, first published in 1938, which [mind-] controlled all philosophical activity in the USSR for almost twenty years. Printed in over 200-million copies, this pamphlet stultified all creative work in the field of philosophy and did much to discredit Marxism... Stalin's position is a direct repudiation of Lenin's position... Once more this was a direct negation of Lenin's stance.'.
We see here what one might wryly state is the true 'protestant ethic', the paranoia of authoritatial corruption. The good book written by Marx our Saviour, brought to Earth by his archengels, and correctly taught to us by the prophet Lenin, has through the ages since become corrupted by the false political stewardship of Secretary Stalin I. The Soviet States causes all of Communistendom to be discredited! Only by ourselves reading, to restore, the sacred scripture of Marx the Lord, can we redeem ourselves for salvation; Solidarity! I suspect that the profeßorial intelligentsia's real gripe with Comrade Stalin is that, as an actually existing Marxist leader he opened theory up to the filthy, unlearned, ( too poor to pay tuition fees) maßes, who have simply ruined 'le Monsieur d'Philosophie' Pilling's favourite parlour-room past-time. My hypothesis' full thesis is that this academic anti-Communism, at first restricted merely to Soviet and Communist Party works, has transformed into a dogma of Leftism spanning every author within this sphere. To rely upon the word of another is to forsake the divine truth of the Lord Marx, to instead trust the serpent only pretending to be a comrade. it should go without saying, this paranoid hyper-prosecution is terrible for the Left, and prosecution with neither charge nor trial, is naught else than persecution.
Speaking of persecution, I have saved the most unpleasant matter, indeed the most potentially controversial one, for last. Throughout the centuries, the first form of political correctneß has been enlarged to encompaß more subjects, catching nearly everyone in its sinister grasp: the holy buzzword of anti-Semitism and the European N-word 'you stupid N***!'. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the Kims, Castro, Che, Trotsky, Bauer, Hébert, Robespierre, Kautsky, Napoléon, Friedrich II, Wilhelm II, Luther, Marcion, Paul the Apostle, even Jesus Christ himself, be not fooled, is a raging anti-Semite (and poßible founding member of the N*** Party, leading a programme as an SS necromancer during the war, but Moßad has yet to confirm this, their investigation is still ongoing). Each person on this list has at one time been accused of anti-Semitism, been compared or unfavourably contrasted to the N****, or has been called a precursor to them. Apologies to any followers of Proudhon reading this, for he actually was in the rationally collected sense an anti-Semite. Bakunin, I think, may have rather been an anti-Judaist (a perfectly respectable, secular humanitarian view), merely untactful in the expreßion of these views, and liable to get carried away with 'unfortunate miscommunications' when riled in anger. But Marx I know not to be anti-Semitic, nor Das Kapital to be a prequel volume to Mein Kampf. Criticism of Israel and Judaism are both valid varieties of critique, it is in these cases the politician and rabbi, exploiting the cover of anti-Semitism to smother just critique without having to expose their positions in a balanced debate, who prove the anti-Semites. Regarding Marx, specifically his eßay On the Jewish Question, he did level criticism at Judaism for fostering backward ideals such as greed, religious bigotry, racial superiority, and racially-motivated discrimination (id est in loaning terms of interest). Do these criticisms sound anything like the opinions of a fascist, let alone a N***? Marx was a gentleman of the enlightened humanitarian century, and every word of his writing does demonstrate this truth. I am pretty sure that Judaism is the first race-centric (perhaps even fascistic) ideology in history, as well, but I would have to do more research before positively affirming this.
In conclusion, if Marx is an anti-Semite for opposing the racist and unegalitarian tenets of a religion (recall: an ideology of the pre-Enlightenment centuries), then no explanation remains but that anti-Semitism must be an egalitarian, humanitarian stance to hold. Anti-Semitism ought not to be redefined as just another political slur to lob at one's political rivals, as it most certainly is for those who throw it at Marx and Capital. It is my firm judgement that religions which become in some fashion protected from criticism, fester greater arrogance (intolerance), authoritarianism, and aggreßion (violence), the Three As, to the detriment of all, be they inside or outside the religion. The only exception, those who gain, are the fanatics on both sides (you cannot have a holy war without two religions, after all; for one side killing would just be genocide, and that looks bad!). Marx and Capital are not anti-Semitic, and are not proto-fascistic. It is a slanderous lie to say that they are.
It is no secret that a reading club I am a member of embarked on a year-long reading and discußion of Capital, and to wholly ignore it, while perhaps safer for my career and esteem, would be a dismal dißervice to the Club and a dereliction of my duty as an Executive Committier. It is indeed true that I was at the beginning opposed to this project. My reasoning was simply that the Club was too small at the time (and since then we have in fact lost a member, who as a mother and teacher no longer has enough time for Club affairs), that such a large book would be unsuitable for membership growth (one of the proposed selling-points for choosing Capital), and that the present membership likely did not poßeß the requisite theoretical knowledge to start such a heavy tome (namely, myself). I must confeß that I consider my concerns vindicated; established by the net-loß of membership and the sheer inability for someone to reasonably become involved in the Club's Capital meetings after we paßed the third chapter, and anecdotally, I have failed to retain any information from the reading or the discußion. Could this year-long Capital reading have worked, or was it doomed from the start? It may come as a surprise, in light of what I have just written, that I actually believe it might have been succeßful. If, say, a three-month preparatory period preceding the reading were inaugurated, to make ready with smaller works such as Wage Labour and Capital, Wages, Price, and Profit, and most crucially of all, a guide or introduction to Capital, with the timetable protracted to two years instead of the original one, or, most blankly, with more members in the Club, this project could have been far more beneficial than it has to this point been. I must also, in the spirit of honesty, mention that there was a bit of a, 'scuffle' or 'misunderstanding' about one of the Club rules when this project was confirmed. It was agreed very early on in the Club's history that members should not be coerced into purchasing another copy of a book selection based upon edition or translation if they already have one. This rule was momentarily forgotten about, which caused some friction. Thankfully, the rule was quickly rediscovered and calm was reinstated. This serves to further illustrate my reasoning, which at its core revolves around the Club not being numerically or organisationally capable of reaping the highest yield from a book of this calibre at present. For a Club to succeßfully function, and then expand to works of the grade of Capital, it must not exceed its logistical bounds. I fear that excitement outpaced, if not overrode, planning in this instance. However, failure is no flatneß; it is the most brilliant form of fruit for those who humble themselves to study it.
One thing more must be added; Citizen-Committier Kathy has graciously contributed her thoughts on the matter:
'Because Capital is based on a formulaic theory, the reading seems leß open for discußion of theory and more a discußion of application, criticisms, and agreement.
I think we needed to work up to 'Capital'. We should have a more foundational education. The level of knowledge within the group is too diverse. Our discußions were interesting with the different interpretations and different themes. I do feel I know Marx better and the way he came to his conclusions such as on surplus value.'.
There are many more things I might dispense comment on, yet this eßay feels to me solidly complete, in contrast to the previous state it was in. Capital is no doubt an important work, as it shall continue to remain, hopefully for millennia, lest the Red Flag once again rise, but over all the Earth. Workers of the World; UNITE!
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