Pod Kapital #1: Seeing the Monster

Note: Nick Estes and I have launched a new project called Pod Kapital in which we will be reading canonical Marxist texts for weekly episodes on his Substack. I will be posting the audio editions for all my patrons but if you want to watch the video edition, you will have to sign up behind his paywall! I encourage you to do so anyway for the great content he is posting !

The Red-Brown alliance is finally happening! The American Indian-Iranian alliance, that is. Host of the East Is a Podcast, Sina Rahmani, joins the Red Scare Podcast for the “Pod Kapital” series, where we dissect and discuss classic Marxist texts. We’re aiming for the fences for the first reading, starting with Karl Marx’s magnum opus: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (1867). 

We’re offering this introduction for free, hoping that you will subscribe to the Substack to join our semi-weekly classes.

This eight-week course will meet via livestream on Substack every Tuesday at 1 pm CT. Recordings will be reposted for those who cannot attend the livestreams but still want to follow along.

Here’s the reading and podcast schedule: 

September 9: Introduction: Seeing the Monster

September 16: Part 1: The Commodity and Money

September 23: Part 2: Money and Capital

September 30: No Class

October 7: No Class

October 14: Part 3: Absolute Surplus Value

October 21: Part 4: Relative Surplus Value

October 28: Parts 5 & 6: Surplus Value and Wages

November 4: Part 7: Process of Accumulation

November 11: Part 8: Original Accumulation

November 18: Conclusion: The Secrets of Political Economy

There are several English translations of Capital. For this series, we’ll be using the recent Princeton version, translated and edited by Paul Reitter. We also recommend, and will be referencing, the Ben Fowkes translation and the English version available for free at Marxists.org. Purchasing a copy of the book isn’t a prerequisite for participating in this study group. (If you’re interested in a critical conversation about the Princeton translation, check out the episode of Guerrilla History with Paul North and Paul Reitter.)

Sina will also be referring directly to the original German texts found at the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) archives.

Jonathan Sperber’s Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life (2013) is an excellent intellectual biography of Karl Marx. We will be referring to it throughout the series.

We hope that you read along. But we also want to provide you with enough context and analysis that may inspire you to read or give a foundational overview of Capital. 

Each episode will be structured with an introduction, a summary, and a critical reflection on the reading, concluding with answering subscriber questions about the text. We hope you tune in to the livestream or post your questions in the comments section or chat function. 

Pilamayaye ota!

Many thanks for your continued support.