Well it's the 22nd, the deadline for reading chapters 1 and 2, which i have done, and hopefully being the first to post is due to my timezone. we'll see anyway. if enough of us have, then that make the deadline for reading chapter 3 monday the 6th of october. can we keep any discussion of this deadline and other general stuff about the reading group in the original thread here? that should help keep things on track. if a new deadline is agreed i'll edit this post accordingly.
well, apart from the long bit of this equals this explaining the elementary commodity form, which i suppose was necessary to make it as clear an unequivocal as possible, i actually found it rather entertaining. i've taken notes as my memory is dodgy and i thought it might help me understand etc., so here is a brief summary of the main points as i understand them. [moved so as not to clutter so much]
that's all i've got time for at the moment. did i miss anything vital/misunderstand anything? it seems pretty clear, though obviously i don't express my self as well or a eloquently or go into as much detail since i'm not rewriting the book... i'll try to continue this tomorrow.
I've just resumed reading capital, so I'll try to contribute to this as well. I'll check where I am with the reading, but I think it is around here.
What you've got down looks like my take on it.
That analysis in many ways seems quite obvious when it is explained to you, so it's quite surprising that it was so tricky to figure out.
I did wonder, though, if there were exceptions to this general rule. But then I suppose depending on what you define as "labour" they can be explained. For example a certain type of old car could, due to some general trend, or it being in a film, or a celebrity driving it, could suddenly become much more in demand, and much more valuable.
Although of course the amount of labour congealed in the car would be the same. Unless of course you include as abstract labour all various social processes, from things like marketing (which would clearly add value) to more generalised things like the spreading by word of mouth of spontaneous trends and fads.
Any thoughts on this? Am I missing something?