Karl Marx and Capitalism Now
I have been reading Karl Marx’s, Capital: Volume 1 over the past year. I’m using some great resources for my studies. Most valuable of all is an online course “Reading
Marx’s Capital with David Harvey.” The
web where this can be found is: http://davidharvey.org/. The site contains a video lecture course that
was delivered by Harvey to his classes at The Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. Harvey is a
scholarly radical. In addition to
lectures dealing with Volume 1, David
Harvey has delivered complete courses on Volumes 2 and 3 of Capital that can be found on the web as
well. Harvey has written A Companion to Marx’s Capital that
tracks the course on Volume 1. These tools have made Capital: Volume 1 more accessible
to me. It might help you as well.
I’m nearly to the end of Capital:
Volume 1. Last evening I was reading
the chapter entitled, The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation. I could not help relate the treatment of
agricultural workers in England in the 1860’s to those of Walmart associates
today. The “agricultural proletariat” was
not provided a living wage by the farmers and estate owners who employed them. Therefore, it became the responsibility of
the parish to make good the deficit.
Walmart, likewise, does not provide a living wage to its employees. Associates look toward the federal government
to make up the deficit in the form of Medicaid and food stamps. Thus the tax payers pick up the
difference. This “difference” becomes
pure profit to Walmart heirs and stock holders.
This capitalist accumulation seems even more bizarre when it is
understood that the Walmart CEO, Shelley G. Broader, earns 717 times that of
the “associates.” Moreover, the six
Walmart heirs, in 2011, had a combined net worth equivalent to that of the
bottom 30% of US citizens.
