“Value” in the strictly theoretical sense Marx is using here does not necessarily correspond to personal or political notions of what is “valuable.” A use-value has “value” insofar as, and only insofar as, its production is “socially necessary” (meaning, a requisite part of the reproduction of the class relation - this will be a key idea if you get to volume II) and requires in the abstract an aliquot portion of the society’s total available labour time to reproduce. So if you want to understand how art is valued, you have to understand the labor going into it and the consumption habits of those who purchase it. If the rich have little interest for the arts and the poor are desperate to express themselves but have little disposable income to consume art, then most art production will be in excess of social necessity and hence fetch little value in exchange. If a strong labor movement raises living standards in that same society, the value of art will rise with the needs of the society, which here are in proportion to the standing of the working class. If a cultural shift brings the wealthy to see art as a status symbol, or as an especially enjoyable route of luxury consumption, this too will raise the value of art, though in this case we might expect the gains to be highly concentrated among an elite tier of artists favored by the wealthy but not numerous class of patrons. In none of these cases is art necessarily better or worse, or more or less worthwhile a pursuit - more or less “valuable” in the common sense of the word. All that is relevant to value in the economic sense is who produces and how, and who consumes and to what extent. And while consumption habits do impart some sense of what the society considers “valuable” into the value of goods, they do so only through the distorted lenses of the lopsided class structure in one eye, and of abstract necessary labor time in the other.

mr president im afraid i cant let you past TSA with this meme

I’m a fan but hadn’t seen it danced before. Thanks for sharing! Great piece.

owls can have little a beans, as a treat

i’m old enough to remember when donald trump was funny

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type ":melon-musk:"

Edit: you can also hit the smiley in the comment editor to browse our emote catalogue. not sure if availability is limited for non-local users

Most people rejected His message. They hated Beanis because He told them the truth.

people out there actin like there gonna be a 2028

I. Eat. Your. Burger. choooommmp I eat it up!

And the buildings just - fell down? Wow. I didn’t know that. I just - you’re telling me now for the first time

ba da ba ba ba I’m hatin’ it

typo of WLW (women loving women) - copy-pasting from the OP reveals it’s a lowercase l and not an I

(A Cincinnati radio station does incidentally also appear as the top Google result, though the following several results reference the queer terminology.)

critical thinking is when you write “critical thinking” on the whiteboard/screen, and the more times you write it the criticaler it is

they’re eating the DOGS

they’re eating the CATS

they’re eating the PETS

of the people that live there

Finished with about 8 hours in the year to spare!

I definitely got a lot out of this. I’d previously read excerpts from Vol. I for a class, and while that was definitely a good first taste, I think it’s really important for actual understanding to have the broader perspective of Marx’s argument that requires actually going and reading all the way through rather than trying to pick out isolated and decontextualized bits of understanding.

I’m a little sad I wasn’t able to participate in the group more, I was constantly a few weeks behind pretty much the entire year - whenever I was just about caught up I’d either get really busy, or Marx would start talking about some particular misunderstanding of Adam Smith’s for 50 pages causing my eyes to glaze over. I’m hoping I can maybe skim back over it along with next year’s group so that I can contribute some to discussion.

The occasional dry Adam Smith passage aside, Marx is actually a really engaging and (mostly) surprisingly clear writer. I could only manage maybe 10 pages an hour most of the time, but despite the pace it never really feels like just a textbook. What Marx does especially well (and what I think doesn’t come through unless you read him on his own terms) is that he encourages the process of critical thinking in his readers. It’s a testament I think to his strength as a writer that I often found myself getting lost in thought digesting the implications of a particular development and at times anticipating the direction of the argument pages or even chapters ahead.

Overall, 10/10 great book great experience would recommend

beepboopasaurus comrade

God forgot about him and thanks Hexbear for the reminder

I spent like an hour trying to get DALL-E to give me a good ancom Netanyahu for a prostate removal joke but it wouldn’t budge