Freedom Socialist Party 2015 Trotsky School Course Outline and Readings
BLOCK ONE: Economic life and the life of thought
Political Economy (first of two sessions)
Required
Recommended
Political economy (second of two sessions)
Required
- Karl Marx, first 13 paragraphs of “Afterword to the Second German edition,” Capital Vol. 1
- “The End of Political Economy,” Ernest Mandel, pp. 729-730 of Marxist Economic Theory Volume 2. [Handout]
Recommended
- Rosa Luxemburg, “What Is Economics” from Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, p. 219-249; alternate translation: “What is Political Economy” in The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 1, Economic Writings, pp. 89-145 [Library and Bookstore]
- William J. Blake, An American Looks at Karl Marx: Section One, Chapter One (“Historical Basis of Marxian Economic Theory”) — “Special Features of Marx’s Doctrine”
Marx’s precursors
Required
Recommended
- Blake, Section IV (“Sources and Philosophy of Marxist Political Economy”) — Chapter 40, “Sources of Marxian Economic Theory”
- From David Harvey’s A Companion to Marx’s Capital, “Introduction”
Supplementary
- George Novack, “The Marxist Revolution in Logic” in An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism
- Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, by Engels. Available as a booklet and in Marx & Engels — Basic Writings on Politics & Philosophy [Library]
Dialectical materialism (first of two sessions)
Required for first session:
- From Lenin’s Foreign Languages Press book Karl Marx (aka The Teachings of Karl Marx from International Publishers, Little Lenin Library, with a couple additional chapters), the first two sections of “The Marxist Doctrine”
- Novack’s Logic of Marxism, Lecture V, “The Dialectical Method: I”
- “Logic for Beginners,” edited by Clara Fraser after the 1984 Trotsky School [Handout]
Recommended
- Blake, excerpt from Chapter 41, “Dialectical and Historical Materialism”: “Dialectical Materialism” and “Economic Illustrations of Dialectical Materialism”
- Novack, Logic of Marxism: first three paragraphs of Preface; Lecture One up to Point 3; Chapters 6 through 8
- Novack, from Origins of Materialism, “The Real Basis of Materialism.” [Handout] [Bookstore]
Supplementary
- George Plekhanov, Fundamentals of Marxism, “The Materialist Dialectic as Method,” paragraphs three through seven, and Chapter XV, “Necessity and Freedom” [Library]
- Rius, Marx for Beginners, pages 65-77 in the print edition [Library]
- Robert Sewell, “What is Dialectical Materialism?”
- Carl Sagan on science and religion
- Neil deGrasse Tyson on science and religion
Dialectical materialism (second of two sessions)
Required
- From Novack’s Pragmatism versus Marxism: Introduction and Chapters 1 [Handout] [Library]
- Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism, “The ABC of Materialist Dialectics” [Library]
Recommended
- Novack’s The Origins of Materialism, Foreword [Library]
- Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, “Introduction” [Library]
Supplementary
- Novack, “Leon Trotsky’s Views on Dialectical Materialism,” in Polemics in Marxist Philosophy, pp. 357-384 [Library]
- Trotsky’s The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution, “Completing the Program and Putting It to Work” [Library]
- One-page handout: “Key Methods of Logic, and Philosophical Starting Points”
- Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Chapter 7, “The Backbone of Night,” starting with “For thousands of years” to end
- From Margaret Alic’s Hypatia’s Heritage: “From the Alexandrians to the Arabs” [Library]
- Neil deGrasse Tyson on reason and faith
Historical materialism
Required
- Preface to Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
- Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism, “The ABC of Materialist Dialectics” [Library]
- Plekhanov, Fundamentals of Marxism, Section V of “The Materialist Conception of History”
Recommended
- From the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels: “Preface to the German Edition of 1883” and Section One, “Bourgeois and Proletarians”
- From Lenin’s Karl Marx, the third section of “The Marxist Doctrine” section — “The Materialist Conception of History” [Library]
Supplementary
- Blake, excerpt from Chapter 41, “Dialectical and Historical Materialism”: “Historical Materialism” up to “So while there is no limit …”
- Letter from Engels to Joseph Bloch in “Letters on Historical Materialism” section of Marx & Engels — Basic Writings on Politics & Philosophy [Bookstore]
- From Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: Evelyn Reed’s Introduction up to the paragraph that begins “Unlike the state, whose roots …” (page 16 in the 1979 Pathfinder printing); and Engels’ Preface to the First Edition 1884
- Blake, “The Antecedents of Capitalism” and “Origin of the Capitalist System”
- Excerpt from Novack’s Understanding History: the conclusion of Chapter 1, from “Marxism has incorporated” to the end of the chapter [Library]
- Excerpt from Novack’s Understanding History: Chapter 2, “The Long View of History,” beginning with “In its evolution to our own century” to the end of the chapter. In the book this is the last two-thirds of the chapter. Online, it is the last two sections of the first link and the whole of the second link:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
•••••
BLOCK TWO: Commodities and the labor law of value (Capital, vol. I, section I)
Marx’s method in Capital
Required
- First paragraph of Capital
- Mandel’s introduction to the Penguin Classics Capital, first five paragraphs of Point 1, “The Purpose of Capital.” [Handout]
- “Preface to the First German Edition,” Capital
- “Afterword to the Second German Edition,” paragraph 14 to end, Capital
- “Preface to the French Edition,” Capital
- “Preface to the Third German Edition,” Capital
Recommended
- “Preface to the Fourth German Edition,” Capital
Capital, Section One
Paragraphs 2-4: Use-value
Required
- From David Harvey’s A Companion to Marx’s Capital: Chapter One, Section One, first five paragraphs
- From Blake: Chapter 6, Commodities and Value, first two paragraphs
Recommended
- From David Harvey’s A Companion to Marx’s Capital: Preface and Introduction
- Blake: Preface
Paragraphs 5-9: Exchange-value
Required
- Harvey, paragraphs six and seven
- Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, paragraphs one through five
Recommended
- Blake, “Wealth Is Not Related to Goods” through “The Generality of Exchange Value”
Supplementary
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory: “Commodities, Use-Value and Exchange-Value”
- Blake, from Chapter 40, “Sources of Marxian Economic Theory” — from “The Physiocrats” through “Theory of Interest by Fructification”
Paragraphs 10-12: Abstract human labor and value
Required
- From Karl Marx by Lenin, opening paragraph of “Marx’s Economic Doctrine” plus first section, “Value”
Recommended
- Harvey, paragraphs eight through 11
- Blake, “Abstract Labor Produces Value” and “Value Antecedent to Exchange Value”
- From Marx’s “Value, Price and Profit”: first eight paragraphs of “Value and Labor” [Bookstore]
Supplementary
- Living Thoughts of Karl Marx by Trotsky: “The Law of Labor Value” [Library]
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory: “The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value”
Paragraphs 13-15: Socially necessary labor time
Required
- Harvey, paragraphs 12 through 17
- Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, paragraphs six through 18
Recommended
- Blake: “The Magnitude of Value” through “How Capitalism Realizes Value”
- Trotsky, “The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx” — “The Law of Labor Value”
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory: “Author’s Note to the Second Edition: On Socially Necessary Labor” [Library]
- From Marx’s “Value, Price and Profit:” paragraph nine through 14 of “Value and Labor”
Paragraphs 16-17: Productivity, and synthesis of Section 1
Required
- Harvey: paragraph 18 up to “Section 2: The Dual Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities”
- Blake, “The Theory of Labor-Time” through “Law of Quantity of Value”
Recommended
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory: “The Law of Value” through “What Is Socially Necessary Labor?”
Supplementary
- From Marx’s “Value, Price and Profit”: paragraph 15 through 19 of “Value and Labor”
- Marx’s Critique, paragraphs 19 through 29
Review Section One
Recommended
- Mandel’s introduction to Capital: The plan of Volume I. Handout.
BLOCK THREE: What else is Volume I about?
Two-fold nature of the labor embodied in commodities
Required
- Section 2 of Part I of Capital
Recommended
- Blake: “Value a Transient Category” through the end of Chapter 6
- Harvey: [Marx] Section 2: The Dual Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities (pages 27-30)
Supplementary
- Excerpt from PRT document on ecosocialism: points one through three of the first section, “Claiming Marxist thought” [Handout]
- Marx, “Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations,” from para beginning “What Mr. Proudhon calls” to end (last third)
- John Bellamy Foster, “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology”
The forms of value, money, and gold
Required
- Harvey, [Marx’s] Section 3: The Value Form, or Exchange-Value (read this before Capital Section 3) (pages 30-37)
- Capital, Chapter 1, Section 3: from beginning up to Point 2, “The relative form of value”; from Point 3, “Transition from the general form of value to the money-form” to the end of Section 3
Recommended
- Capital, all of Section 3
- Harvey: [Marx’s] Chapter 2: The Process of Exchange; and [Harvey’s] Chapter Two, “Money” (pages 47-83)
- Blake, Chapter 7, “The Forms of Value”
Supplementary
- Engels on Marx’s Capital, Chapter 1: “Commodities and Money” (Commodities as Such; The Process of Commodity Exchange; and Money, or the Circulation of Commodities)
- Capital, Chapters II and III
- Blake, Chapter 10, “Money, or the Circulation of Commodities”
- Novack, Logic of Marxism, Lecture 8, “The Categories of Dialectical Logic”
The fetishism of commodities
Required
- Capital, Chapter 1, Section 4: “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof”
- Harvey, [Marx] Section 4: The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret (pages 38-47)
Recommended
- Blake: Chapter 8, Why Karl Marx’s Theories Are So Complex; and from Chapter 41 (Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism), “Note: The Role of Antagonisms and Fetiches”
Supplementary
- YouTube: Marxism 108 Commodity Fetishism
- YouTube: Law of Value 2: The Fetishism of Commodities
The transformation of money into capital
Required
- Blake, Chapter 11, “Capital”
- Capital, Part II, Chapter 6, The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power
Recommended
- Harvey: Capital, Part II (pages 85-107)
- Capital, the rest of Part II (The Transformation of Money into Capital)
Supplementary
- Engels, On Marx’s Capital: Chapter II — The Transformation of Money into Capital
- Blake, Chapter 12, The Enigma of Surplus-Value Solved
Absolute surplus-value
Required
- Capital, Part III, Chapter 7, Section 2: The Production of Surplus-Value
Recommended
- Clara Fraser, “More Socialism for Skeptics,” in both Socialism for Skeptics and in Revolution, She Wrote [Library]
- Blake, Chapter 13, Absolute Surplus-Value
- Harvey: from [Harvey] Chapter 4 (“The Labor Process and the Production of Surplus-Value”) up to [Marx’s] Chapters 8 & 9 (pages 109-127)
- Trotsky, The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx: “Inequality and Exploitation” [Library]
Supplementary
- Capital, Part III, Chapter 7, Section 1: The Labour-Process or the Production of Use-Values
- Engels, On Marx’s Capital, in Part I: Review Number 3, “Karl Marx on Capital”
- Mandel’s An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, “The Origin and Nature of Surplus-Value”
- ISO, “What do we mean by exploitation?”
Constant capital and variable capital
Required
- Capital, Part III, Chapter 8, Constant Capital and Variable Capital
Recommended
- Harvey: from [Harvey] Chapter 4 (“The Labor Process and the Production of Surplus-Value”), the beginning of his section on Marx’s Chapters 8 & 9, up to “This leads into Chapter 9” (pages 127-130)
- Blake, Chapter 14, Constant and Variable Capital
Supplementary
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, “The Growth in the Organic Composition of Capital,” in Part II (Capital and Capitalism)
- Harvey, “ A Commentary on the Value Composition of Capital,” Chapter 10, pages 263-267
- Blake, Chapter 26, The Tendency of the Rate of Profits to Decline
Relative surplus-value; automation
Required
- Capital, Part IV, Chapter 12, The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value
Recommended
- Lenin’s Karl Marx, first four paragraphs of “Surplus Value” (up to “To continue.”)
- Blake, Chapter 18, The Functioning of Capitalist Production, or Relative Surplus-Value
Supplementary
- Harvey, Chapter 6, Relative Surplus-Value
- Seattle Times article “The Rise of the Robots” by Jon Talton
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, “The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value” (see especially his final paragraphs beginning with “A third and final proof”)
- Capital, Part IV, Section 5: The Strife between Workman and Machine
- Barbara Ehrenreich book review of Rise of the Robots
- “The Robots Are Coming,” book reviews by John Lanchester (author of a wonderful book called Capital: A Novel)
Wages and degree of exploitation
Required
- Marx’s “Wage-Labour and Capital,” Chapter 2: “What Are Wages?”
- Trotsky, Transitional Program, “Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours”
Recommended
- Capital, Part VI, Chapter XIX, The transformation of the Value (And Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power into Wages
- Blake, Chapter 22: Wages, the Price of Labour-Power
- Engels, On Marx’s Capital, in Part I: Review Number 1, “Marx’s Capital,” and Review Number 2, “Karl Marx, Das Kapital”
- Freedom Socialist article: State budget crises call for a united response by labor unions and communities
Supplementary
- Harvey, Chapter 9, [Marx] “Chapters 19-22: Wages” (pages 241-243)
- Mother Jones article on CEO earnings versus workers’ pay
- IWW, “Arguments for a Four-Hour Day”
- NPR, “Why A Seattle Restaurant Owner Is Against ‘Living Wage’ Laws”
- Canadian Party of Labour 1971 article “30 Hours Work for 40 Hours Pay”
- PBS “Reinventing the Workday: Meet the Guru”
Accumulation of capital
Required
- Capital, from Part VIII, The So-Called Primitive Accumulation: Chapter 26, The Secret of Primitive Accumulation; Chapter 31, Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist; and Chapter 32, Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation
Recommended
- Blake, Chapter 23, The Accumulation of Capital, up to “The Separation of Surplus-Value into Capital and Revenue”
- Capital, Part VII, The Accumulation of Capital: opening paragraphs; Chapter 23, Simple Reproduction; and Chapter 24, Section 1, Capitalist Production on a Progressively Increasing Scale, etc.
- Blake, Chapter 3: Origin of the Capitalist System
Supplementary
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, from Part 2: Origins of the Capitalist Mode of Production; and Origins and Definition of the Modern Proletariat
- Harvey, Chapter 11, The Secret of Primitive Accumulation
- Harvey, Chapter 10, Capitalist Accumulation
- Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital: Chapter 32, Militarism as a Province of Accumulation
•••••
BLOCK FOUR: Economic and Philosophic Perspectives Since Marx
Key Economic Theories of the 20th and 21st centuries
Required
- Karl Marx, The German Ideology (from Part I, Feuerbach. Section B, “The Illusion of the Epoch): “Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas” [Library]
- Richard D. Wolff & Stephen A. Resnick, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian — Chapter 1, “Three Different Theories,” pp. 1-33 (optional 33-49). [Handout]
Recommended
- Guerry Hoddersen, One Hemisphere Indivisible: “The rise of neoliberalism in our hemisphere” [Library]
- Blake, Chapter 39, Economic Theories of Capitalist Society
- Mandel’s Introduction to his book Late Capitalism [Library]
Crisis
Required
- From International Marxist Tendency website: Why Keynesianism is unable to solve today’s crisis
- Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part III: Socialism: Section II, “Theoretical” [Library (2)]
Recommended
- Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party: Chapter 1, Bourgeois and Proletarians
- Andrea Bauer, From the ashes of the old century, a better world’s in birth: Parts II and III (“The inevitable economic crisis” and “Capitalist Leaders in a Tailspin”)
- Mandel, An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory: “The Fundamental Contradiction in the Capitalist System and the Periodic Crises of Overproduction”
- Mandel, Late Capitalism, “The Crisis of Capitalist Relations of Production” [Library]
- Megan Cornish, “A Marxist Looks at Capitalism’s Meltdown”
The role of the union bureaucracy as the transmitter of ruling-class ideology
Required
- Lenin, Imperialism — The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Preface to the French and German editions: Section V, beginning “A few words must be said about Chapter VIII”
- Murry Weiss, Sam Deaderick, Clara Fraser, “The Precarious ’80s — Crisis and Opportunity”: “Goodbye to detente with labor”; and Part III, “The global middle caste,” up to “Tipping the old balances”
Recommended
- Sections from Steve Hoffman’s political resolution: U.S. labor leaders — AWOL in the face of disaster; and “Middle class” delusions
- Weiss, “The Coming Labor Party”
- Fraser, “On the dialectics of U.S. ‘backwardness’”
Is inequality inevitable?
Required
Recommended
Afternoon session
Schemes for capitalist salvation
Required
Recommended
- Nicole Aschoff, The New Prophets of Capital [Library)
- The World Bank on Green Growth
Left perspectives on achieving economic justice
Required
- Cornish, “Toxic Capitalism and the Socialist Cure”
- On Michael Alpert and “participatory economy,” or Parecon
- Interview with Richard Wolff on cooperatives
Recommended
Supplementary
- Info on workers’ self-directed enterprises
- Gar Alperovitz and the “new economy” movement
- Marxists on planned economy
- Noam Chomsky interview, cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises
Critical Appraisal of Economic Analyses—Student Presentations
Required: Choose an article from recent Left or bourgeois media to summarize and critique. See Susan for suggestions if needed.
The philosophic front in the class war
Required
- Woo and Williams, “The Philosophic Front of the Class Struggle: Deconstructing the Chaos of Fuzzy Thinking,” page 1 to the top of page 7. [Handout]
- “Post-modernism is the new black”
Recommended
Marxist Philosophy after Marx
Recommended
- George Novack, “In Defense of Engels,” pp. 111-151. in Polemics in Marxist Philosophy, pp. 153-189. [scanned document will be emailed]
- On Mao’s Contradictions
Supplementary
- George Novack, “Georg Lukács as a Marxist Philosopher,” in Polemics in Marxist Philosophy, pp. 153-189. [scanned document will be emailed]
- Benjamin Kunkel
- Perry Anderson, “The Classical Tradition,” and “The Advent of Western Marxism,” in Consideration on Western Marxism¸ pp. 1-48 [scanned document will be emailed]
The FSP’s contributions to Marxist Theory
Required
