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Hey, c/lit/s. I am by no means a Marxist, but I'm trudging through Capital because I'm extremely interested in Marxism and this book in particular based on what I've read on Wikipedia lol. I haven't read any later Marxist works and I haven't progressed past the part about commodities, but I was wondering if there were any Marxists on /lit/ who'd be interested in chatting.
One thing that's struck me so far is that Marx's initial definition of a commodity is "an object outside us, a thing that satisfies human wants of some sort another." I know what Marx actually means (i.e a good or service that is bought and sold in the capitalist market), but this definition is problematic. By this definition, aren't intangible things like love commodities? Also, would Marx consider things like unpaid work (i.e. raising children/homemaking, which many feminist economists think ought to be calculated for in GDP) commodities? If you put labor into raising a child, you "crystallize labor" and value in that individual. Is a laborer/person a commodity? A person can certainly "[satisfiy] human wants of some sort or another." Thoughts?
Also, Marxism general. I will be a liberal until the day I die but Marx's vision of the world fascinates me.
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When we say object, we mean a physical thing which exists in material form. Love isn't an object.
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>domestic work
I think Marx would include that as something which goes towards the reproduction of labour power, and not valued as labour power itself, since one doesn't turn the product of domestic labour (clean dishes, e.g.) into something which is sold on the market.
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>>8043592
>tfw gonna read das kapital
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>>8043592
I think love generally wouldn't be considered "outside" of us, and in the cases where it is you could argue that it has been commodified in some way.
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>>8043592
this is pretty good for marx:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g6XaOX8RldHRg_JradONkS99oE6uC5dc9EuyOa5rips/edit
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