Marx Reading Notes- - February 2 and 4
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte I would like everyone to read until "Here is Rhodes! Jump Here!" on page 332. If this essay interests you, and if you know or can find out enough about French revolutionary history to help with background, go on reading. In particular, the section beginning on page 344 "On the threshold of the February revolution…" is good.
The German Ideology
I assigned this piece because it is one of the most important essays on Marx's conception of history, and of the relationship of thought to historical periodization and material life. There is also extremely useful material on the character of the state, and of political struggle within the context of the state, themes which we have discussed in On the Jewish Question. Marx's history is "materialist" history, by which is meant history as human beings actually live it. It is not a history of ideas (as in "Democracy Through the Ages) or of Great Figures. It is a history of social relations, of production, of groups of individuals, of classes. This essay is a scathing critique of German Hegelian philosophers (note: where Marx writes "ideology," think "way of thinking" rather than strictly in the Belsey sense). I do not believe it is necessary to know the names or positions of Marx's attackees (Saint Bruno is Bruno Bauer, though). Concentrate on Marx and Engels's own conception of history. Read it carefully; there are several very famous passages in this essay. An outline/summary of the argument follows.
German philosophers are too Ideal. They think that their abstractions are real, that everything people do is a product of "consciousness." The radical Hegelians, fighting such phantasms as Religion, are for Marx the most conservative of all, in that they fight Religion with another level of abstraction, rather than make a critique of the social forces that produced religion, a point also made in "On the Jewish Question." Marx and Engels's foundation: human beings have a character that is determined by their means of subsistence; their mode of life. The history of humanity is the history of productive activity-- i.e. the interaction of humans and the world. This history takes form in the history of divisions of labor-- each new productive force (for example-- agriculture; mining, etc.) causes further development in the division of labor. (p. 177 ff). The history of modes of production (tribal-communal-feudal) is the history of the division of labor. Consciousness-- human thought-- is determined by social life. There is no independent "history of consciousness" that is not also a history of social and material life.
Explain: "As soon as this active life-process is described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract) or an imagined activity with imagined subjects, as with the idealists." (p. 181)
History, as Marx and Engels have it, starts with: the need for subsistence, the means of acquiring subsistence, and the social relationship (the family) that reproduces the species. Production (of life) now appears as a natural and as a social thing. Humans are social. Consciousness appears in language, and language only arises as a function of the social (p. 183). Religion, a form of consciousness, is determined by the form of the society. There is no independent "religious history," or movement of absolute spirit.
Division of labor starts with gender, moves into natural disposition (strength, etc,) but only becomes significant with the division into mental and material labor (as in a priest/king/lord and peasants). It is only with this (primary) division of labor that THINKING (consciousness) can deceive itself that it exists in some independent sphere, a realm of "pure" theory uncontaminated by material and social relations. Division of labor has other consequences: private property, the contradiction between individual and communal interests, and ultimately the State (p. 185). The State is "illusory communal life," and conceals the real struggles of different classes with each other. The State is the natural political form of capitalism and capitalist division of labor. The way out is communism, but communism can only be achieved when there is a foundation of a great increase in wealth and productive power along with an immiseration of the masses of the population. Without the productive achievements of capitalism and the attendant abundance, there would be nothing for the proletarian to want.
The argument on pages 187-192 criticizes German thought, and argues against the de-materialized Hegelianists. One factor of the German philosophers' ignorance of the connection between thought and history is their failure to see certain of their preoccupations (like religion) as determined by a particularly German situation. And as radical as they might be, the Germans don't realize that "liberation" is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions.
Their idealism leads them to ignore the global character of history under capitalism, and to divide "nature" from "man" in artificial ways. On page 192, in true dialectical fashion, M and E historicize the German philosophers themselves, arguing that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas." This is one of their best-known phrases. Following page 192, M & E discuss the nature of productive forces and communism, arguing for the centrality of the working class to revolutionary change, in part in order to refute the claims of the idealists that "thinking" can accomplish the work of revolution.
In pp. 196-198 you see the outline of a theory of proletarian revolution, which leads us to denaturalize categories like the "individual." This is one of the many places where Marx claims for the proletariat the role of the negation of the negation, the only truly revolutionary class in world history. The individual is further denaturalized in the section "Egoism and Communism." The original text of The German Ideology -untranslated in its complete version-devotes hundreds of pages to a critique of Max Stirner, aka Sancho, author of The Ego and Its Own. Think about why Stirner was such an important enemy. You can skip the sections on "utilitarianism" and "artistic talent under communism." The last section, "The Free Development of Individuals in Communist Sociey," is a recapitulation of the relationship between communism and the regime of the division of labor. Read it carefully.
The Communist Manifesto
This recapitulates much of the material on history and revolution in The German Ideology. It is also a call to the struggle.
Section I gives a history of society as class society since the Middle Ages. The modern age is distinct in that class relations are simplified: bourgeoisie/proletariat. The bourgeoisie, triumphing over the feudal system, was productive and far-reaching: its mode of production, social relations, and ideas have now spread all over the globe. But as the commodity system grows in scope and in reach, that commodity which is the proletarian class also grows in number and in power. The proletarian class is the class that has the means to obliterate class and labor itself. One part of this section that might be counter-intuitive is the idea of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class. It's important to recognize the connection between this idea and Marx's view of history.
Section II raises the question of the relationship of the communists to proletarians as a whole. Communists' distinctive characteristics are that they: 1.) are international; 2.) they understand the significance of the proletarian movement. Their ideas are not abstract philosophy, but come out of actual social relations in an ongoing class struggle. Their message: abolish private property and the division of labor. This means also abolition of the family (the bourgeois family) and nationalities. There is a brief section on the political program within the state. Section III (not assigned for reading) is a critique of three other types of socialism. Section IV summarizes the position of communists in several contemporary political situations.
On Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy
Marx's irritation with the father of anarchism: Bakunin doesn't understand, Marx says, that a government run by the proletariat, a class whose rule is predicated on its self-abolition, could not be just another government.
Preface to A Critique of Political Economy
Pay special attention to the long paragraph from 425-426, which reviews much of the material discussed to date. The whole piece is a good concise intellectual autobiography.
*******
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is an important essay for understanding Marx's view of history, and especially the character of "false revolutions." In the first few pages are some passages that are among the most quoted from Marx's writings. That's why I assign them.
I will not lecture extensively on this text.
Capital- Reading Notes
This is the first chapter of Marx's magnum opus, and it is tough going. It is worth your attention, though, and it is especially worth relating the rest of your reading in Marx to what you find here. To avoid these notes functioning as a substitute for the text itself, I include less summary and more strategy this time. The ideas in this chapter of Capital have spawned countless books, articles, and disputes among Marxist economists and others. There are certain technical questions which we will not be able to answer. For terms like exchange value, use value, abstract labor, labor power, and commodity fetishism, consult the generally excellent entries in the Dictionary of Marxist Thought in the reference section of McHenry This is the most appropriate time to use that source. The Encyclopedia of Marxism on the web, at http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm
is pretty good too, though it consists mostly of quotations. Not always as explanatory as Bottomore, but with many good passages.
Writing the Book
"It became possible to get to the essence of value, to define this concept adequately only in the conditions of capitalist production, where the equality and equivalence of all forms of labour was revealed, when the predominant social relationship betweeen people became their relationship as commodity owners, when the producers were finally separated from the means of production and labor power itself became a commodity." The question of value was waiting to be answered by capitalism. Marx needed capitalism to think this question. Before capitalism there was a more "transparent" quality to social relations-- think of master-slave, an extreme and typical example. The loss of transparency is marked by advent of commodity production. Only under conditions of capitalism do people's economic relations appear to them in the shape of things. So this form of "false consciousness" is unique to commodity capitalist production.
His original (1857) plan for Capital. Six parts:
1. The book on Capital
2. The book on landed property
3. The book on wage labor
4. The book on the state
5. The book on foreign trade
6. The book on world market and crises
Starting points are important. Chapter One is " Commodities." Why? He starts with "use value" rather than "value." Why? Don't answer these questions now, but think about them as you read the book.
Reading the Book
But wait. Before we go any further, there are some things to unlearn.
Common sense, of course. By which I mean NOT thinking in the categories already dictated by capitalism. NOT allowing capitalism to naturalize and eternalize itself in your own minds. Our conditioned minds might think of
labor as time spent by an INDIVIDUAL
value as money (and not as a social thing)
money as central, as a "natural" expression of value
Marx is interested in money, but note the care with which he draws you away from money as some kind of foundation.
Our common sense might even allow ourselves to think that something like the "law of supply and demand" is a basic law, and that it determines value. Why does Marx NOT start with supply and demand?
Back to value.
Value is not price. What is it? (If you think value MUST be price, then keep thinking.) Where is it? How is it?
Try to think of unfamiliar concepts here in terms of some real or imagined opposite. Yes, that's right: think dialectically.
Ideas like the FORM of value are difficult. In reading this chapter, you have to keep track of when you are reading about forms, abstractions, generalizations, and when you are not. You have to get your "inners" and "outers" straight.
Another beginning: Marx's thinking changes. The early Marx grasped that social relations of production stood behind the material categories of the economy. We learned in the 1844 Manuscripts that the worker pro-duces her/his own alienation. In that book Marx did not ask, in "scientif-ic" terms, about the NECESSITY of the concealment of social relations be-hind the "economic." Capital finds the answer: commodity fetishism. Many scholars think that commodity fetishism is the key to all of Capital. For revolutionaries, it is important that Marx's analysis sees social rela-tions MATERIALIZED in commodities (rather than simply as a process of illusion or mystification). Can you imagine why this is important?
So begin with commodity fetishism. Think historically and dialectically about it. Read the material through. Concentrate on commodity fetishism. Understand it. Then go back and re-read the earlier material to see what is necessary there for an understanding of the necessity of commodity fetishism.
I hope you're sufficiently experienced in the dialectic-Marx, Hegel, and my lectures-- to make dialectic sense out of all the TWOFOLD CHARACTERS in this chapter.
For your close reading:
From the Prefaces: i. 1867
commodity-form, value-form, etc. (453) Wait on this. You don't have to understand it now, so go on reading.
ii. 1872
457: the part that begins with "My dialectical method..." emphasizes:
1. movement. transient nature and momentary existence. Doesn't fix or impose.
2. Marx's relation to Hegel. Turning Hegel on his feet. Discovering "the rational kernel within the mystical shell."
Commodities: Use-Value and Exchange-Value
p. 437 A definition of a commodity. "A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another..." The word -outside- is important here. Why?
Use value: the utility of a thing. "Use-values become a reality only by use or comsumption..." Treat this phrase seriously. Use-values are neither real nor abstract values which somehow inhere in an object (these boots are made for walking...). Use-values are real when the object's in use: this road's a road as we walk on it.
Exchange value: a reference of the thing to something that is not in the thing. A level of abstraction.
Get the difference straight: use value, exchange value, and Value. And the labor theory of value.
p. 460 Why do we need to move to "human labor in the abstract"?
p. 461- "The labor, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labor, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total labor power of society... (and following).
"The total labor power of society" might seem strange and unnatural. Let's analyze that strangeness. From the point of view of the INDIVIDUAL, it is strange. From the point of view of the human collectivity, the species being (denied in capitalism), individual labor is strange. Marx holds that the INDIVIDUAL is produced socially, remember.
What is the relationship between an individual and the "total labor power of society"? It will help if you can think of this in a dynamic way. That the ability to define value according to the "total labor power of society" says something about how society works relations between parts and wholes. Think about how and why the "total labor power of society" is invisible, or unthinkable.
p. 466- "Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, etc. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical form and a value-form."
You should understand the two forms-- what social character is in these two forms, and what is the social situation that brings them together in the commodity? A SOCIAL SYSTEM IS CONTAINED WITHIN A COMMODITY.
Read the section from pp. 472-480, on the fetishism of commodities, as often as it takes to make sense to you:
"A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses."
The material in the next two parts,"Exchange and Money" and "The General Formula for Capital," (with the equations M-C-M and C-M-C) reveals some of its importance in the next section, "The Sale of Labor Power," where labour power (NOT labour, but labour power-- this is an important distinction and you should know why), is considered as a commodity. You should understand why labor power counts as a commodity. Think about the relationships between the laborer, h/er labor power, and the social whole.
While you're slogging through Capital, and asking yourself what is it doing in a lit class, think of the economy's Other Scene: social life, humanity, unalienated humanity... Economics-- a veil of mystification that first of all conceals its concealing function. For Marx, a thinking through the economic was possible and necessary-- with the aim of thinking through it to something else. Think of your work with this economic material as illustrating something important about what Theory and Interpretation are all about.
Sections of the reading to read more than once:
458-471; 472-480; 488-492. Twenty-five pages. You can do it.
The German Ideology
I assigned this piece because it is one of the most important essays on Marx's conception of history, and of the relationship of thought to historical periodization and material life. There is also extremely useful material on the character of the state, and of political struggle within the context of the state, themes which we have discussed in On the Jewish Question. Marx's history is "materialist" history, by which is meant history as human beings actually live it. It is not a history of ideas (as in "Democracy Through the Ages) or of Great Figures. It is a history of social relations, of production, of groups of individuals, of classes. This essay is a scathing critique of German Hegelian philosophers (note: where Marx writes "ideology," think "way of thinking" rather than strictly in the Belsey sense). I do not believe it is necessary to know the names or positions of Marx's attackees (Saint Bruno is Bruno Bauer, though). Concentrate on Marx and Engels's own conception of history. Read it carefully; there are several very famous passages in this essay. An outline/summary of the argument follows.
German philosophers are too Ideal. They think that their abstractions are real, that everything people do is a product of "consciousness." The radical Hegelians, fighting such phantasms as Religion, are for Marx the most conservative of all, in that they fight Religion with another level of abstraction, rather than make a critique of the social forces that produced religion, a point also made in "On the Jewish Question." Marx and Engels's foundation: human beings have a character that is determined by their means of subsistence; their mode of life. The history of humanity is the history of productive activity-- i.e. the interaction of humans and the world. This history takes form in the history of divisions of labor-- each new productive force (for example-- agriculture; mining, etc.) causes further development in the division of labor. (p. 177 ff). The history of modes of production (tribal-communal-feudal) is the history of the division of labor. Consciousness-- human thought-- is determined by social life. There is no independent "history of consciousness" that is not also a history of social and material life.
Explain: "As soon as this active life-process is described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract) or an imagined activity with imagined subjects, as with the idealists." (p. 181)
History, as Marx and Engels have it, starts with: the need for subsistence, the means of acquiring subsistence, and the social relationship (the family) that reproduces the species. Production (of life) now appears as a natural and as a social thing. Humans are social. Consciousness appears in language, and language only arises as a function of the social (p. 183). Religion, a form of consciousness, is determined by the form of the society. There is no independent "religious history," or movement of absolute spirit.
Division of labor starts with gender, moves into natural disposition (strength, etc,) but only becomes significant with the division into mental and material labor (as in a priest/king/lord and peasants). It is only with this (primary) division of labor that THINKING (consciousness) can deceive itself that it exists in some independent sphere, a realm of "pure" theory uncontaminated by material and social relations. Division of labor has other consequences: private property, the contradiction between individual and communal interests, and ultimately the State (p. 185). The State is "illusory communal life," and conceals the real struggles of different classes with each other. The State is the natural political form of capitalism and capitalist division of labor. The way out is communism, but communism can only be achieved when there is a foundation of a great increase in wealth and productive power along with an immiseration of the masses of the population. Without the productive achievements of capitalism and the attendant abundance, there would be nothing for the proletarian to want.
The argument on pages 187-192 criticizes German thought, and argues against the de-materialized Hegelianists. One factor of the German philosophers' ignorance of the connection between thought and history is their failure to see certain of their preoccupations (like religion) as determined by a particularly German situation. And as radical as they might be, the Germans don't realize that "liberation" is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions.
Their idealism leads them to ignore the global character of history under capitalism, and to divide "nature" from "man" in artificial ways. On page 192, in true dialectical fashion, M and E historicize the German philosophers themselves, arguing that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas." This is one of their best-known phrases. Following page 192, M & E discuss the nature of productive forces and communism, arguing for the centrality of the working class to revolutionary change, in part in order to refute the claims of the idealists that "thinking" can accomplish the work of revolution.
In pp. 196-198 you see the outline of a theory of proletarian revolution, which leads us to denaturalize categories like the "individual." This is one of the many places where Marx claims for the proletariat the role of the negation of the negation, the only truly revolutionary class in world history. The individual is further denaturalized in the section "Egoism and Communism." The original text of The German Ideology -untranslated in its complete version-devotes hundreds of pages to a critique of Max Stirner, aka Sancho, author of The Ego and Its Own. Think about why Stirner was such an important enemy. You can skip the sections on "utilitarianism" and "artistic talent under communism." The last section, "The Free Development of Individuals in Communist Sociey," is a recapitulation of the relationship between communism and the regime of the division of labor. Read it carefully.
The Communist Manifesto
This recapitulates much of the material on history and revolution in The German Ideology. It is also a call to the struggle.
Section I gives a history of society as class society since the Middle Ages. The modern age is distinct in that class relations are simplified: bourgeoisie/proletariat. The bourgeoisie, triumphing over the feudal system, was productive and far-reaching: its mode of production, social relations, and ideas have now spread all over the globe. But as the commodity system grows in scope and in reach, that commodity which is the proletarian class also grows in number and in power. The proletarian class is the class that has the means to obliterate class and labor itself. One part of this section that might be counter-intuitive is the idea of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class. It's important to recognize the connection between this idea and Marx's view of history.
Section II raises the question of the relationship of the communists to proletarians as a whole. Communists' distinctive characteristics are that they: 1.) are international; 2.) they understand the significance of the proletarian movement. Their ideas are not abstract philosophy, but come out of actual social relations in an ongoing class struggle. Their message: abolish private property and the division of labor. This means also abolition of the family (the bourgeois family) and nationalities. There is a brief section on the political program within the state. Section III (not assigned for reading) is a critique of three other types of socialism. Section IV summarizes the position of communists in several contemporary political situations.
On Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy
Marx's irritation with the father of anarchism: Bakunin doesn't understand, Marx says, that a government run by the proletariat, a class whose rule is predicated on its self-abolition, could not be just another government.
Preface to A Critique of Political Economy
Pay special attention to the long paragraph from 425-426, which reviews much of the material discussed to date. The whole piece is a good concise intellectual autobiography.
*******
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is an important essay for understanding Marx's view of history, and especially the character of "false revolutions." In the first few pages are some passages that are among the most quoted from Marx's writings. That's why I assign them.
I will not lecture extensively on this text.
Capital- Reading Notes
This is the first chapter of Marx's magnum opus, and it is tough going. It is worth your attention, though, and it is especially worth relating the rest of your reading in Marx to what you find here. To avoid these notes functioning as a substitute for the text itself, I include less summary and more strategy this time. The ideas in this chapter of Capital have spawned countless books, articles, and disputes among Marxist economists and others. There are certain technical questions which we will not be able to answer. For terms like exchange value, use value, abstract labor, labor power, and commodity fetishism, consult the generally excellent entries in the Dictionary of Marxist Thought in the reference section of McHenry This is the most appropriate time to use that source. The Encyclopedia of Marxism on the web, at http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm
is pretty good too, though it consists mostly of quotations. Not always as explanatory as Bottomore, but with many good passages.
Writing the Book
"It became possible to get to the essence of value, to define this concept adequately only in the conditions of capitalist production, where the equality and equivalence of all forms of labour was revealed, when the predominant social relationship betweeen people became their relationship as commodity owners, when the producers were finally separated from the means of production and labor power itself became a commodity." The question of value was waiting to be answered by capitalism. Marx needed capitalism to think this question. Before capitalism there was a more "transparent" quality to social relations-- think of master-slave, an extreme and typical example. The loss of transparency is marked by advent of commodity production. Only under conditions of capitalism do people's economic relations appear to them in the shape of things. So this form of "false consciousness" is unique to commodity capitalist production.
His original (1857) plan for Capital. Six parts:
1. The book on Capital
2. The book on landed property
3. The book on wage labor
4. The book on the state
5. The book on foreign trade
6. The book on world market and crises
Starting points are important. Chapter One is " Commodities." Why? He starts with "use value" rather than "value." Why? Don't answer these questions now, but think about them as you read the book.
Reading the Book
But wait. Before we go any further, there are some things to unlearn.
Common sense, of course. By which I mean NOT thinking in the categories already dictated by capitalism. NOT allowing capitalism to naturalize and eternalize itself in your own minds. Our conditioned minds might think of
labor as time spent by an INDIVIDUAL
value as money (and not as a social thing)
money as central, as a "natural" expression of value
Marx is interested in money, but note the care with which he draws you away from money as some kind of foundation.
Our common sense might even allow ourselves to think that something like the "law of supply and demand" is a basic law, and that it determines value. Why does Marx NOT start with supply and demand?
Back to value.
Value is not price. What is it? (If you think value MUST be price, then keep thinking.) Where is it? How is it?
Try to think of unfamiliar concepts here in terms of some real or imagined opposite. Yes, that's right: think dialectically.
Ideas like the FORM of value are difficult. In reading this chapter, you have to keep track of when you are reading about forms, abstractions, generalizations, and when you are not. You have to get your "inners" and "outers" straight.
Another beginning: Marx's thinking changes. The early Marx grasped that social relations of production stood behind the material categories of the economy. We learned in the 1844 Manuscripts that the worker pro-duces her/his own alienation. In that book Marx did not ask, in "scientif-ic" terms, about the NECESSITY of the concealment of social relations be-hind the "economic." Capital finds the answer: commodity fetishism. Many scholars think that commodity fetishism is the key to all of Capital. For revolutionaries, it is important that Marx's analysis sees social rela-tions MATERIALIZED in commodities (rather than simply as a process of illusion or mystification). Can you imagine why this is important?
So begin with commodity fetishism. Think historically and dialectically about it. Read the material through. Concentrate on commodity fetishism. Understand it. Then go back and re-read the earlier material to see what is necessary there for an understanding of the necessity of commodity fetishism.
I hope you're sufficiently experienced in the dialectic-Marx, Hegel, and my lectures-- to make dialectic sense out of all the TWOFOLD CHARACTERS in this chapter.
For your close reading:
From the Prefaces: i. 1867
commodity-form, value-form, etc. (453) Wait on this. You don't have to understand it now, so go on reading.
ii. 1872
457: the part that begins with "My dialectical method..." emphasizes:
1. movement. transient nature and momentary existence. Doesn't fix or impose.
2. Marx's relation to Hegel. Turning Hegel on his feet. Discovering "the rational kernel within the mystical shell."
Commodities: Use-Value and Exchange-Value
p. 437 A definition of a commodity. "A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another..." The word -outside- is important here. Why?
Use value: the utility of a thing. "Use-values become a reality only by use or comsumption..." Treat this phrase seriously. Use-values are neither real nor abstract values which somehow inhere in an object (these boots are made for walking...). Use-values are real when the object's in use: this road's a road as we walk on it.
Exchange value: a reference of the thing to something that is not in the thing. A level of abstraction.
Get the difference straight: use value, exchange value, and Value. And the labor theory of value.
p. 460 Why do we need to move to "human labor in the abstract"?
p. 461- "The labor, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labor, expenditure of one uniform labour-power. The total labor power of society... (and following).
"The total labor power of society" might seem strange and unnatural. Let's analyze that strangeness. From the point of view of the INDIVIDUAL, it is strange. From the point of view of the human collectivity, the species being (denied in capitalism), individual labor is strange. Marx holds that the INDIVIDUAL is produced socially, remember.
What is the relationship between an individual and the "total labor power of society"? It will help if you can think of this in a dynamic way. That the ability to define value according to the "total labor power of society" says something about how society works relations between parts and wholes. Think about how and why the "total labor power of society" is invisible, or unthinkable.
p. 466- "Commodities come into the world in the shape of use-values, articles, or goods, such as iron, linen, corn, etc. This is their plain, homely, bodily form. They are, however, commodities only because they are something two-fold, both objects of utility, and, at the same time, depositories of value. They manifest themselves therefore as commodities, or have the form of commodities, only in so far as they have two forms, a physical form and a value-form."
You should understand the two forms-- what social character is in these two forms, and what is the social situation that brings them together in the commodity? A SOCIAL SYSTEM IS CONTAINED WITHIN A COMMODITY.
Read the section from pp. 472-480, on the fetishism of commodities, as often as it takes to make sense to you:
"A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses."
The material in the next two parts,"Exchange and Money" and "The General Formula for Capital," (with the equations M-C-M and C-M-C) reveals some of its importance in the next section, "The Sale of Labor Power," where labour power (NOT labour, but labour power-- this is an important distinction and you should know why), is considered as a commodity. You should understand why labor power counts as a commodity. Think about the relationships between the laborer, h/er labor power, and the social whole.
While you're slogging through Capital, and asking yourself what is it doing in a lit class, think of the economy's Other Scene: social life, humanity, unalienated humanity... Economics-- a veil of mystification that first of all conceals its concealing function. For Marx, a thinking through the economic was possible and necessary-- with the aim of thinking through it to something else. Think of your work with this economic material as illustrating something important about what Theory and Interpretation are all about.
Sections of the reading to read more than once:
458-471; 472-480; 488-492. Twenty-five pages. You can do it.