We are reading Volumes 1, 2, and 3 in one year. This will repeat yearly until communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.
I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested.
Week 1, Jan 1-7, we are reading Volume 1, Chapter 1 'The Commodity'
Discuss the week's reading in the comments.
Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=9C4A100BD61BB2DB9BE26773E4DBC5D
AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added, or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself.
Resources
(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)
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Harvey's guide to reading it: https://www.davidharvey.org/media/Intro_A_Companion_to_Marxs_Capital.pdf
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A University of Warwick guide to reading it: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/worldlitworldsystems/hotr.marxs_capital.untilp72.pdf
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Reading Capital with Comrades: A Liberation School podcast series - https://www.liberationschool.org/reading-capital-with-comrades-podcast/
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When I buy a television for gold, I am interested in the use-value of the television, but only interested in the exchange-value of the gold.
That's very good. There can be an equivalence relation because both A and B can be considered in the abstract, that is by their exchange value. There is no equivalence in use value since this is different between all commodities for which such a statement would be informative. So when will one of the commodities "figure as mere use value", while the other still "figures as mere exchange value"? If I understand you correctly this is in the practical context of a person having a particular need to fulfil. What is the function/consequence of use value entering the picture in this manner? It seems like in addition to identifying value with abstract labor, both value and abstract labor are being connected to something very different, concrete human practice.
This interpretation is reinforced in Chap.2 with "His commodity possesses for himself no immediate use-value. Otherwise, he would not bring it to the market. It has use-value for others; but for himself its only direct use-value is that of being a depository of exchange-value, and, consequently, a means of exchange. Therefore, he makes up his mind to part with it for commodities whose value in use is of service to him. All commodities are non-use-values for their owners, and use-values for their non-owners.
Nice! It's clearly the method of chapter 1, section 3 to start with a particular and expanding to some totality. Maybe this method will develop further or appear again? I'm kinda looking for what happens in such an expansion. For example, what is the difference between a commodity in form A where two commodities are compared vs in form C/D where all commodities are compared.