Download the reading: Alex Callinicos, 1983, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx

Popular education tools: Play around on the Dialectics4Kids site, or play a game of Fluxx

1. Key Themes and Terms

• Civil society
• Bourgeois political economy
• Ricardo’s Labor Theory of Value
• Dialectics
• Idealism & materialism

2. Summarization

• Callinicos calls out Smith, Malthus and Ricardo as the main bourgeois political economists who contributed to his thinking. What are some key lessons of each thinker – which parts did Marx keep and which did he reject?
• Callinicos calls out Hegel and Feuerbach as the main philosophers who contributed to his thinking. What are some key lessons of each thinker – which parts did Marx keep and which did he reject?
• How would you combine a critique of political economy (via Smith and Ricardo) with a philosophy (via Hegel and Feuerbach) to create a Marxist method?

3. Critical Thinking

• What are some ways you have heard people thinking like the bourgeois political economists Marx is critiquing? For example, when have you heard arguments about “human nature?” 
• What are some ways civil society explains change and historical conditions? How is this different from Marx’s method?

4. Friendly Debates

• Orthodox Marxists argue that there is a hard split between Marx’s early “more idealistic” works and his later, “more scientific” works, often wholly rejecting the former. Use the tools you’ve developed in this chapter to describe some potential issues with that historical narrative.
• Callinicos comes from a tradition with lineage from Marx to Lenin to Trotsky. At times, this tradition will interpret Marx through Engels, who was a bit more of a materialist than Marx. Can you identify some areas where Callinicos emphasizes an over-correction toward crass materialism, rather than a dialectic between materialism and idealism?

5. Experiential Exercise: 

• Take a story, any story, fact or fiction, and practice applying dialectics. What were the preconditions that gave rise to new conditions in the story? How were the contradictions resolved to become something new?

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1845, Theses on Feuerbach

Pair with: Unity & Struggle, “The Communist Theory of Marx”

Popular education tool: Eve Mitchell, “Quliff Notes on Theses on Feuerbach”

1. Key Themes and Terms

• Philosophical materialism 
• “Feuerbachian” materialism
• Philosophical idealism
• Practico-critical activity

2. Summarization

• Summarize Marx’s beef-tofu with Feuerbach’s materialism. What’s wrong with it, in his view? As one point, specify how Feuerbach’s notion of human essence differs from Marx’s.
• Summarize Marx’s new materialism. How is it new and different?

3. Critical Thinking

• What role does thinking play in “practico-critical activity”? Have you ever achieved “practico-critical activity” in your life?
• In Thesis 11, Marx writes, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world … the point is to change it.”  What are the implications of this statement on revolutionaries, organizers, Marx’s peers, and Marx himself?

4. Friendly Debates

• Brainstorm one example of “Feuerbachian” materialism at work in an institution / group in society today. What makes it “Feuerbachian”? How would you characterize these politics?
• Crass materialists have interpreted Marx’s new materialism in a way that rejects the importance of theory, or disconnects theory from working class practice. How might a crass materialist read this text? How can we use the text to debate crass materialism?

5. Experiential Exercise:

• Collect pictures or advertisements that express Feuerbachian old materialism. Describe what makes them Feuerbachian.

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1846, The German Ideology, Part 1

Pair with: Unity & Struggle, “History and the Social Forms of Existence”

Popular education tools: Kindred graphic novel selection; The Time Machine 2002 movie clip

A. History, division of labor and property, and consciousness (p. 33-54)

1. Key Themes and Terms––Define the Following:

• Mode of production / “mode of life”
• Division of labor
• Property
• Consciousness
• Historical moments

2. Summarization

• Review Marx’s arguments from the Theses on Feuerbach, and the background information from the Callinicos chapters. How does Marx touch on these critiques and frameworks in German Ideology?
• What is the relationship between property and the division of labor? Why is the division of labor important for Marx? Consider this abstractly but also within the context of the examples Marx gives, for example, divisions between: mental / manual labor, town / country, manufacture / large scale industry, etc.
• Describe in your own words the four moments of human history.

3. Critical Thinking

• Connect the four moments of human history to this section’s description of stages as “productive forces.” Do you find “moments” to be a helpful framework? Why or why not?
• What is significant about the various historical forms of property? What are the bases for the further development or revolution of these forms of property?  What do such property forms mean for mode of life? 

4. Friendly Debates

• Contrast Marx’s notes on “moments” and stages as “productive forces” with what you know about more stagist Marxist interpretations. How does this reading shed new light on debates around “primitive communism,” “low” or “high” stages of communism, or whether the peasantry needed to go through a stage of bourgeois capitalism, etc.
• Many Marxists consider “controlling the means of production” to be the key aspect of a communist society, as part of the abolition of property. What does this section teach us about property and its connection to other aspects of capitalism? What would a complete abolition of property entail?

5. Experiential Exercise: 

• Spend a few hours this week learning a new skill. This could be cooking a new dish, learning to play a song on an instrument, learning a craft like knitting or crocheting, etc. Compare your experience learning this skill with humanity’s social, historical “learning” process, or moments in history. How does the concept of “trial and error” apply here?

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B. Civil society, class and revolutionary struggle; Freedom and communism (p. 57-102)

1. Key Themes and Terms––Define the Following:

• Civil society
• Class and revolutionary struggle
• Contradiction between productive forces and form of intercourse
• Separation of town and country
• Freedom
• Communism

2. Summarization

• What are the elements included in class formation and revolutionary struggle?
• Marx uses the antagonism between town vs. country, and mental vs. manual labor as examples of contradictions that capitalist society throws up. Dissect these examples. How do they apply to today’s societal form?
• What is freedom for Marx? What is his communist vision? Consider aspects such as the abolition of property, abolition of division of labor, the abolition of social conditions of labor outside of our control, etc.

3. Critical Thinking

• How does Marx relate social consciousness to social being? Where do dominant ideas come from, in Marx’s estimation? Is it the same as “brainwashing”?  How about “false consciousness”?
• Look at German Ideology as a whole. What method is Marx using to analyze history? Relate this back to the Theses on Feuerbach.

4. Friendly Debates

• If “The existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class,” what does this mean for the revolutionary “Party”? Consider Lenin’s statement (from “What Is to Be Done?”) that “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” Are these two quotes fundamentally opposed to one another? Or is there a possible synthesis of the two? 
• Anarchism on its own is a philosophy of morals, arguing that oppressive institutions like white supremacy, patriarchy, the state, and hierarchy are morally corrupt and must be opposed on ethical grounds. What are the limitations of this framework, given Marx’s understanding of the development of history? What might some Anarchists see as the limitations of Marx’s arguments laid out in the study thus far? How can the Anarchist framework be strengthened when combined with a Marxist framework?

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1844, “Estranged Labor” from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Popular education tools: listen to Peter Hudis KPFA interview on Marx, watch Get Out “Sink Into the Floor” and “Auction” scenes, or these 2018 BLM-Inspired Films

1. Key Themes and Terms

• “Critique of political economy”
• Species-being / “human nature”
• Estrangement / alienation and its various forms
• Labor

2. Summarization

• Summarize the different forms of alienation described in the piece. Describe areas of your life where you’ve experienced each one.
• What does Marx mean by species-being? What are some other ways of understanding this concept?

3. Critical Thinking

• If our labor is alienated under capitalism, who owns our labor? What is the relationship between alienated labor and private property?
• Alienated labor exponentially reproduces itself. Why / how does this happen?
• Use the concept of estranged labor to help us understand race and gender: how do race and gender operate through different forms of alienation?

4. Friendly Debates.

• As mentioned, many Orthodox Marxists see Marx’s early writings, like the 1844 Manuscripts as idealistic (overly influenced by Hegel), and therefore do not read this text. What are some ways that this text provides a fundamental critique of Stalinist, hard Leninist and Maoist understandings of the world?
• Some critique Marx as being too human-centric, and sowing a division between humans and the natural world. Indeed, some of his later writing is much more divisive in this way. How does this text provide a counterexample to this rigid division / speciesism / human-chauvinism?

5. Experiential Exercises

• Scan your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or other social media for content about “human nature,” or make a post to ask people what they think about “human nature.” What are common conceptions? How do they contrast to what Marx says about “human nature,” or “species-being?”
• Write a journal entry describing a single interaction with someone in your life. Point out the different alienated experiences. Consider the various forms of alienation Marx describes and connect this to your experiences.
• Identify a movie, visual art piece, song, or other work of art or culture that has themes of alienation in it. How does the artist describe this alienation? How do you relate? Analyze the work in Marxist terms.

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1859, “Preface” from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Pair with: Eve Mitchell and Tyler Zimmerman, “For Herself, and Therefore, for the Class: Toward a Methodological Feminism”

1. Key Themes and Terms

• Civil society
• Totality of relations of production / productive forces
• Base / economic foundation & superstructure
• Social consciousness

2. Summarization

• What does Marx mean when he writes that “the anatomy of this civil society has to be sought in political economy”?
• What is the relationship between base, superstructure and social consciousness?

3. Critical Thinking 

• How does Marx discuss the role of social relations in the “development of … the material forces of production”? Put this in conversation with his conception of the various moments of history in German Ideology.
• How might you apply earlier concepts, like subject and object; or idealism and materialism; to this piece?

4. Friendly Debates.

• Pick a movement, institution, or cultural trend you have interacted with recently, and describe it in terms of base and superstructure––how are these aspects distinguished from one another, and how are they intertwined?
• This piece is the only one where Marx discusses “base” and “superstructure,” yet, for many Orthodox Marxists this is a key concept. How do Orthodox Marxists understand these concepts, and why might it be so central to their way of thinking? Be sure to put this in conversation with lessons from the “Theses on Feuerbach,” “Estranged Labor,” and German Ideology.

5. Experiential Exercise:

• Orthodox Marxists adopt the concepts of “base” and “superstructure” to constitute a pyramid. Draw out an alternative shape or form that could help us understand a more libertarian application of “base” and “superstructure.”

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1867, Capital: Volume I

Popular education tools: read Kapital for Beginners; listen to tracks from Capital, a Playlist

A) The Two Factors of the Commodity (p.125-138)

Pair with: Unity & Struggle, “Capitalism and the Value Form” 

Key Themes and Terms:

• Commodity
• Use-value vs. exchange value
• Exchange value vs. value
• Useful Labor vs. Abstract Labor
• Socially necessary labor time

Summarization:

• Which of the terms above refer to specific kinds of labor/value, and which ones refer to specific amounts?
• What does Marx mean when he says that the wealth of capitalist societies appears as an immense collection of commodities? What other forms has wealth appeared in before capitalism? What forms do you think it could take after?

Critical Thinking:

• Why do you think Marx is beginning with a discussion of the commodity? In other pieces like the Communist Manifesto we begin by talking about class struggle, and in German Ideology, Marx’s critique focuses on private property and the division of labor. Why do you think an analysis of the commodity form is part of that same project? What do you think this approach might tell us that the others don’t?
• Since Marx’s time, most mainstream economists have come to believe that the “third thing” that two commodities have in common that makes them exchange at a particular rate is their usefulness. Why would this answer be unsatisfactory for Marx?

Experiential Exercise:

• Try and identify some useful objects around you or in your home that are not commodities

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B) The Form of Value (p.138-163)

Key Themes and Terms:

• Relative and equivalent forms of value
• The various social forms of value: simple, expanded, general, money

Summarization:

• Marx describes commodities as “having” value, but also insists value is not a physical thing in the commodity. How, then, do commodities come to “have” value? Point to specific passages to form an answer.
• How does the capitalist “money form” arise, in Marx’s account? Is he saying this is how money was invented historically, or that this is how money becomes logically necessary when you think about it, or some combination?

Critical Thinking:

• Marx spends a lot of time detailing the relative and equivalent forms of value. What aspects of commodities matter when they serve as each of these forms? Why?

Friendly Debate:

• Robert Owen and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon were socialists who thought poverty was caused by banks extracting rents and interests, and manipulating markets to avoid giving producers a fair price for their goods. Their goal was to abolish money and replace it with some other system (labor tokens, etc.) that would allow commodities to circulate at their true value. What is the problem with this perspective based on what we’ve read so far? (Secondary Resource: Marx’s Inferno p.70-81)

Experiential Exercise:

• Think of an example (real or fictional) where a commodity other than gold serves as a general equivalent

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C) The Commodity Fetish (p.163-178)

Secondary resource: I.I. Rubin, “The Objective Basis of Commodity Fetishism” (5 pages)

Key Themes and Terms:

• “Phantom-like objectivity”
• “Material relations between people become social relations between things”

Summarization:

• The term “commodity fetish” is sometimes used casually to mean a consumerist mindset. How does this differ from Marx’s use of the term?
• How do things become commodities? List a few commodities in today’s society, and describe how they take on the character of a commodity, instead of simply being goods or services.

Critical Thinking:

• After many hours studying the critique of political economy, I’ve unlearned the idea that commodities really “have” value, but sometimes I still find myself exchanging them as if they did. What can I do to stop treating commodities like a fetish object?

Friendly Debate:

• Orthodox Marxists have historically cut or de-emphasized chapter one of Capital. Why do you think this is the case?  What is your experience with orthodox Marxism?

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D)  What is Capital? (Ch. 4, 6, & 26)

Pair with: U&S Podcast Interview: Primitive Accumulation and U&S Podcast Interview: Free & Unfree Labor

Terms:

• Labor power
• Surplus value
• Free / Unfree labor
• Primitive accumulation

Summarization:

• What is capital? What makes it distinct from ‘wealth’ or ‘means of production?’
• How does capital come into being? What are the preconditions necessary for it to exist?

Critical Thinking:

• Classical economists in Marx’s time, and Neoclassical economists in ours understand capital to be one of the three essential factors of production, along with labor and land. How does this differ from Marx’s view? Have you encountered any parts of the left that think this way?
• Where does primitive accumulation and unfree labor take place today?

Friendly Debates:

• In Capital in the 21st Century, the popular socialist economist Thomas Piketty defines capital as “a saleable asset that can receive a monetary return.”  (link)   How do you think Marx would critique this definition?

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E) The Working Day (Ch. 10)

Terms and Themes:

• Corvée system
• Surplus labor 
• ”Between equal rights force decides”

Summarization:

• How is wage labor different from the corvée system? How is it similar?
• How did the English workers win the 8 hour day?
• Why does Marx say these forms of struggle were impossible in America until the abolition of slavery?

Critical Thinking:

• What does Marx mean when he says the corvee created serfdom, not the other way around?
• Besides serfdom, are there any situations where surplus labor doesn’t produce surplus value?
• Why does Marx compare the factory laws to a farmer letting a field rest to avoid depleting its soil? Whose interests are being advanced by these laws? Can you think of other laws that function similarly?
• Consider the dialogue between worker and capitalist in section 1: what is at stake? What kinds of real life interactions are being represented?
• What preconditions are necessary for the worker to be able to confront the capitalist as an apparent equal in the market? How would this dialogue look different if these preconditions were not met?

Exercise:

• Consider a situation where a capitalist is not giving their workers enough hours per week to reproduce themselves. What different demands could the workers take up in this case?

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F) Machinery and Large Scale Industry (Ch. 15 sections 1-5)

Summarization:

• In a footnote at the beginning of the chapter, Marx says it’s a shame nobody has written a critical history of technology on par with Darwin’s history of living organisms. Why does he think this sort of research would be so valuable?
• How can machinery that increases the productivity of our labor make us poorer?
• How did capitalists use work machinery as a weapon of class warfare?
• Why did the English workers abandon machine-breaking as a tactic?

Critical Thinking:

• Read for German Ideology. How does industrialization affect our social consciousness? Our division of labor?
• Read for Theses on Feuerbach. Where do you see people engaging in practico-critical activity?
• How do you think technology could be different if it were made to serve our real desires rather than the production of surplus value?

Experiential Exercise:

• Have you ever had a job where there was a piece of equipment that you came to hate or fear?

Download the reading: Karl Marx, 1875, Critique of the Gotha Programme

Pair with: Section 27, “Was China State Capitalist,” in Maoism and the Chinese Revolution

Popular education tool: Land and Freedom scene

1. Key Themes and Terms

• Low and high communist stages
• Marx’s critique of Lassalle’s workers’ cooperatives
• The democratic demands of the Gotha program
• Dictatorship of the proletariat

2. Summarization

• Look up the context for what Gotha programme was, and the level of development and political debates at the time. Then, summarize the main points of Marx’s critique: what does he take issue with, and what does he propose?
• What political forms does Marx anticipate the revolutionary society will take at different points? Why does he think these will be needed? What political forms do you think could be necessary today?

3. Critical Thinking

• Describe an example of a “bourgeois right” in today’s society. Why does Marx critique “bourgeois rights”, yet think they will persist for a time after the revolution?
• Why does Marx oppose the idea of “equal right to the undiminished proceeds of labour” and “just distribution” of the surplus?

4. Friendly Debates

• How might progressives or social democrats orient to Marx’s concept of “bourgeois rights”? Using Marx’s method to devise some counter arguments.
• In this piece Marx argues that the transition to communism will have to pass through various stages? How have Orthodox Marxists interpreted this concept? How might this look today?
• Many Marxist-Leninist groups believe state socialism in the USSR, China or Cuba realized the “lower stage of communism” imagined by Marx. Do you agree? Based on what you know of these societies, assess them using Marx’s analysis in Capital and “Estranged Labor.”

5. Experiential Exercise: 

• Watch this scene from Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom and have a debate about what the villagers should do.

Hal Draper, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ in Marx and Engels”

Kevin Anderson, Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies  // U&S article on this book

Harry Cleaver, Reading Capital Politically

Communist Research Cluster, European Socialism and Communism

Gilles Duavé, “From Crisis to Communization”

Raya Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom

Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction

Silvia Federici, “Why Sexuality is Work”

Stuart Hall, “The Problem of Ideology: Marxism Without Guarantees”

Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas, “Marx ha vuelto” Youtube series

Peter Hudis, Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Historical Materialism)  // KPFA Interview

Noel Ignatiev, “The Worldview of C.L.R. James”

Michael Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital

Marxist Project Youtube

Bertell Ollman, Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method

Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature

Raymond Williams, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory”

Youtube series (TBA)