notes on capital
chapters 1: the commodity

(in general): terms one must be able to define--value (128), use-value (126), exchange-value (126), useful labor (133), simple average labor (or, abstract labor) (135), labor-power (136), relative form of value (139), equivalent form of value (139), universal equivalent (159)

(128): "exchange-value as the necessary mode of expression, or form of appearence, of value."

(129): pay attention to the critical point here. we are speaking, ostensibly, about commodities as "things", but Marx wants us to know that commodities are really processes. indeed, that is the essence of what makes a commodity (in that sense it is a definition embedded in the social relations that produce it).

(131): in the discussion of value, use-value is never absent. for if a thing that is produced is un-wanted, it cannot be realized as a commodity and therefore the labor contained in it is valueless.

(132): the divison of labor precedes commodity production, but the opposite cannot be true (i.e., you need a heterogeneity of use-values--you need a social division of labor, or different people producing different things).

(137): summary passage--"on the one hand, all labour is an expenditure of human labour-power, in the physiological sense, and it is in this quality of being equal, or abstract, human labour that it forms the value of commodities. on the other hand, all labour is an expenditure of human labour-power in a particular form and with a definite aim, and it is in this quality of being concrete useful labour that it produces use-values"

(140): the idea that you cannot understand a commodity's value except in relation to another commodity (a different use-value) is, on reflection, trivial. but, on further reflection, it is critical, because it foregrounds the necessarily social nature of commodities.

(144): summary passage--"by means of the value-relation, therefore, the natural form of commodity B becomes the value-form of comodity A, in other words the physical body of commodity B becomes a mirror for the value of commodity A. Commodity A, then, in entering into a relation with commodity B as an object of value, as a materialization of human labor, makes the use-value B into the material through which its own value is expressed. the value of commodity A, thus expressed int eh use-value of commodity B, has the form of relative value."

(145): changes in the value of the equivalent (the coat, or commodity B) are important, in light of the history of the goal standard.

(148): important: "use-value becomes the form of appearance of its opposite, value"--in other words, a particular commodity comes to stand in for abstract value. this is critical when considering the problems with the gold-standard. As Marx writes two pages later, "concrete labour therefore becomes the expression of abstract human labour." (what he calls the second particularity) This automatically begets the third particularity--useful labour, which is the work of private, specific individuals here is also representing labour in its directly social form (i.e., abstract human labour).

(159-160): in a sense, if this argument about the ascent of the universal equivalent is meant to be historical, then he is making a point relevant to historical materialism, as well--namely, this notion that the ascendancy of a universal equivalent begins to reveal, to observers, the fact that all commodities share the property of being a product of abstract human labor. in this sense, a la Aristotle, one could not arrive at this prior to this era.

(160): summary paragraph--"the simple or isolated relative form of value of one commodity converts some other commodity into an isolated equivalent. the expanded form of relative value, that expression of the value of one commodity in terms of all other commodities, imprints those other commodities with the form of particular equivalents of different kinds. finally, a particular kind of commodity acquires the form of universal equivalent, because all other commodities make it the material embodiment of their uniform and universal form of value."

(162): It is important, what he is doing in this chapter, precisely because it demonstrates that the myriad contradictions (or, "particularities") of the money form begin earlier, at the level of the expression of one commodity (relative) in terms of another (equivalent). ("The simple commodity form is therefore the germ of the money-form"). And that can root monetary analysis in social analysis. It is perhaps too much to say that it frees us from the follies of the neo-classicals, but one can dream.

(167): space, here, to speak about Fields and the way in which these relations of production are ritualized to appear natural. in that sense there is also a distant connection to evangelical leninism--implicit in marx's exposition is the notion that a "scientific discovery" is necessary to unravel the fetishism that traps commodity producers. (but i think that "class consciousness", as a concept, is insufficient to discuss the "unveiling" being done here--of course, there is the basic notion that the bourgeois notion of equal exchange between worker and capitalist masks the deeper inequalities. but is this class consciousness? does every worker not live that reality? i'd like the leninists to make a list of what exactly one should teach a worker to make him/her "class conscious"? and how does one tell when it's been achieved?).

(173): more specific working out of historical materialism--nature of religion and relationship to commodity production, asiatic mode of production, etc. here, also, suggesting that the veil is only finally removed under socialist production, not once "it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control."

the carving up of the congo [great as a detalied case-study of the seediness of carving up]:Most people who became aware of the 2nd Congo War (1998-2003) did so because of the violence unleased in the (then) Ituri District, which was created in June of 1999 by General James Kazini of the Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF). After the Lusaka Accords were signed and the UPDF officially pulled out of the country, the neighboring countries of Uganda and Rwanda aggravated and exploited ethnic differences to create numerous militias that went to war over the vast gold tracts in Ituri. The illegal sale of this gold in neighboring countries served to fund the war by purchasing arms, military uniforms, and other supplies. Incomprehensable acts of violence and rape occurred, and child soldiers were the norm. Today, with the aid of U.N. forces, Ituri has found a relative peace.
(...) Ituri is unique compared to the Kivu provinces to the south because throughout the 1st Congo War (1996-1997) to the present day, war over minerals has always been about gold and timber. The rest of Northeastern Congo went through several distict phases where one particular commodity was more sought after than another. When the 2nd Congo War broke out, diamonds were the most coveted mineral until mid-2000. In 2000, the coltan (columbium-tantalite) boom occurred due to increased military-industrial spending, and the arrival of popular electronics equipment (the cell phone boom, Sony Playstation, etc.), which drastically increased market demand for coltan. What started off in 1999 as a $20 (U.S.) per pound commodity rose to $380 (U.S.) per pound by December of 2000. With 80% of the world’s coltan reserves, fierce fighting for the mining sites claimed countless victims [1]. The world market reserves quickly became so saturated with smuggled coltan that the price plummeted back down by the end of 2001. The smugglers in the Kivus then focused on the highest grade ores that were found primarily in Walikale Territory.
(...) Throughout the wars and for years before that, multinational corporations sought to exploit the same gold mining areas in Ituri that the militias did.
(...)