LECTURES
CELEBRATING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF
Thursdays at 7 p.m. at Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1 All are welcome: £5 (£3 unwaged) admission
DAS KAPITAL
31 August
DAS KAPITAL AND MARX’S ECONOMICS Ben Fine
21 September DAS KAPITAL: ITS PLACE IN MARX’S THOUGHT AND RELEVANCE TODAY David McLellan Marx Memorial Library is holding three lectures to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Marx’s Das Kapital first published in Leipzig on 14 September 1867.
5 October
John McDonnell has said that ‘there is a lot to learn from Marx’s Das Kapital’ and Jeremy Corbyn has described Marx as ‘a great economist’. Our series of lectures and classes is intended to introduce Marx’s work to a new generation.
Ben Fine is Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and the author of Marx’s Capital (fifth edition 2010) and, with Laurence Harris, Re-Reading Capital (1979).
Crystallising Marx’s critique of capitalism, Das Kapital laid the basis for the rise of working class movements, including the British Labour Party, that sought to create a new type of society based on the social ownership of the means of production. The first lecture by Professor Ben Fine will defend Marx’s economics against critics, past and present, and demonstrate their continuing relevance to any discussion of alternatives to capitalism. Professor David McLellan, President of Marx Memorial Library, will examine the importance of Das Kapital for understanding how Marx analysed societies and social change and his insistence on seeing social processes as a whole. Dr Jonathan White, associate editor of Theory and Struggle, will conclude the series by relating Marx’s approach, summed up as historical materialism, to the analysis of capitalist society today. Dr White will also lead three weekly classes, starting on Tuesday 13 September, on ‘Reading Capital’ that will provide an introduction to the book itself and how to read it.
DAS KAPITAL AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM Jonathan White
David McLellan is Visiting Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. His publications will include Karl Marx: His Life and Thought and Karl Marx Selected Writings. Dr Jonathan White is Associate Editor of Theory and Struggle and is currently preparing a book on historical materialism.
READING CAPITAL CLASSES
7 p.m. on Tuesdays at Marx Memorial Library All welcome: Tutor Dr Jonathan White: £3 a class 12 September READING CAPITAL I 19 September READING CAPITAL II 26 September READING CAPITAL III No preliminary reading is required but you might want to look at Vale, Price and Profit (sometimes titled Wages, Price and Profit) which Marx wrote two years before Capital was published and which sums up its argument in an accessible form. It is available for download at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/value-priceprofit.pdf Capital is also available online at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf