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Oct 13, 2026 56 min

Class 3: Capital Chapter 1: The Commodity, part 3

from YaleCourses Hosted by YaleCourses

How does value arise in exchange? What is labor in the capital system? Some simple forms of value. Uploaded 25-03-26A chapter by chapter study of Marx’s powerful analysis in Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. This book from 1872 is still the best guide to the predatory economic and social system within which we live. The book solves five basic mysteries in our social world. The mysteries are: why social classes struggle against one another, why human beings are in the thrall of things, how a quantity of money turns into more money without seeming to add anything, why some people are forced to work and the more they work the less they make proportional to their effort, and finally, and why it is so hard to transform the system for the better. This course is taught by Paul North, Maurice Natanson Professor of German, Yale University. Prof. North is co-editor of the new English translation and critical edition of Capital Volume 1 by Karl Marx published in 2024 by Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190075/capitalTo view other videos in this course, visit this link.

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Class 3: Capital Chapter 1: The Commodity, part 3

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