Saturday, January 17
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Indianapolis Liberation Center
It’s not too late to join the Indy Liberation Store‘s first book study of 2026: Marx’s Capital (Vol. 1). In this session, we’ll cover chapters 4-9. We’ll get our first definitions of capital, surplus-value, labor power, as well as the relationship between the legal superstructure and the economic base. Picking up on the introduction of money into the exchange process and the contradictions between use-value and exchange-value, we begin by distinguishing C-M-C from M-C-M’, before questioning where the increase in M (or surplus-value) comes from. The answer? Labor power!
Then, chapters 7-9 move us deeper into (absolute) surplus-value and the exploitation of labor-power. We’ll distinguish labor from labor-power as a commodity and identify the contradiction between the use and the use value of labor power.
Throughout, we’ll start getting at the roots of the contradictions that cause so much suffering in our lives, city, and world.
Readings and resources
While you can use any complete edition of the first volume of Capital, we recommend the International Publishers edition, which is the original English translation of the book. This is the preferred edition for political and and literary reasons, which we’ll cover in class.
It’s also the edition available for free online here).
The other main version is the Penguin edition, which is perfectly fine. However, it’s easiest if we’re all on the same page (literally), although the facilitator will try to identify the key passages in both versions.
Reading guide for chapters 4-9: PDF
Episode 4 (Chapters 4-6)
Episode 5 (7-9)