The world economy has been thrown into the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, putting workers lives and livelihoods at risk all around the world. This study group will provide an introduction to Marxist economics and then apply those tools to explain today’s crisis.

Agenda:
1. Discussion of Marx’s “Wage Labor and Capital,” introduced by Carl Martin
2. Discussion of interview with David McNally and Michael Roberts, introduced by Betsy McGavisk

Readings:
Karl Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital,” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/
Interview with David McNally, “How Should the Left Respond to a New Global Slump,” https://jacobinmag.com/2019/09/david-mcnally-global-slump-crisis-recession
Interview with Michael Roberts, “The Virus, Capitalism, and the Long Depression,” https://spectrejournal.com/the-virus-capitalism-and-the-long-depression/

Study Questions for “Wage Labor and Capital”
1. What is the difference between labor and labor-power, and why is it important?
2. In an ideal capitalist economy, everything is bought and sold at the going rate - in an equal exchange. Yet inequality is the result. Marx argues that this inequality arises from the exchange in which labor-power is bought and sold. Why? What is special about that exchange?
3. Because of the special features of the sale of labor-power, workers are exploited, i.e. capitalists get surplus-value. But a defender of capitalism would reply that nevertheless workers still do all right, better than they would without the ability of dynamic capitalism to increase overall production, and it is just mean, destructive envy to complain about the capitalists getting a bit extra. What do you think of that argument?
4. What other bad consequences does the sale of labor power have for the working class, apart from it making the capitalists relatively rich and the workers relatively poor?
5. Conservatives argue that workers and capitalists have a common interest in general prosperity. What is Marx's answer to this argument?

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Zoom info:

DSA Line 14 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Wage Labor & Capital Reading Group
Time: May 24, 2020 04:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://dsausa.zoom.us/j/93021669316

Meeting ID: 930 2166 9316
Password: 993771
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