Marx Reading Group: Marx's "Value, Price, and Profit"
The Marx Reading Group had their first meeting of the 2020-21 academic year on October 14, 2020. The group met over Zoom to discuss Marx's "".
During the meeting, the group spent some time trying to figure out the difference between "labor" and "labor power," two terms that Marx insists are totally different but also, confusingly, uses interchangeably (coming to a tentative conclusion that labor is a much more general term that doesn't necessarily have to apply to work performed for wages, while labor power is what is expended over the course of a workday, given specific technological and material conditions).
The other main topic of conversation was the idea of value, both in terms of Marx's definition of it and in the broader context of the market economy. Overall, the meeting was about an hour and a half in length, and it was a very fun discussion.