Hi All,
One of you sent me an email asking about the Marx reading and it’s inherent impenetrability. This was my answer, as I thought it might be useful:
I’m not surprised you found it difficult–I find it difficult. It is a very dense piece of economic theory. It is useful for us to read it because of the number of other readings we will have that refer to it, but that doesn’t mean we are going to get it in one go. But yes we will spend the class unpacking it. As with many conceptual things, it can often help to turn to secondary sources. The main take-away concept for this reading is the idea of ‘commodity fetishism’; if you google this term you will find an array of discussions about it (some still quite dense, and some that probably contradict each other) but if you start from shorter definitions, you can start to build up a picture. And don’t worry if it is a slow process, it is for everyone.
If you have questions or thoughts about the reading, please feel free to post them as comments here. Questions in particular will help me sort out what I should focus on in the lecture.
Also, I notice that some of you are using tags in the blog. Great! This is something I forgot to mention, but a great way to keep our discussions organized. I have added a Tag Cloud to the sidebar that will grow as we add tags.
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