Ok I almost caught up. Just finished reading Chapter 9. I’ll try to do Chapter 10 first sections with next weeks reading.

I had to reread a lot the Senior argument and Marx's answer regarding the last hour. At first I thought Marx was doing exactly the same as Senior in its argument (ie arbitrarily deciding the first hours pay the wage), but then I understood that whereas Marx was using it as a pedagogical tool to show more clearly that there is unpaid labor creating surplus value while still saying that actually every hour of labor actually is actually always fragments of c,v and p. Senior was actually fraudulently trying to assert that profit only actually occurs in the "last hour", thus removing this last hour would remove all the profit.

This is such a diabolical thing from Senior and I actually encounter this kind of argument frequently by capitalists and right wing politicians when arguing against lowering the work day or having a minimum wage, although now they usually present it in a bit of a different form.

When hearing this without thinking too much about it, I can see how you can easily start nodding along even though when prodding it, the argument disintegrates.

🤮

I still have not wrapped up my chapter 2 but thanks for organizing this reading it forces and motivate me to push through and its been really stimulating to dive deep in the text. I hope I'll be able to get back on track once I'm done with the more complex chapters.

I'm just making sure I m understanding well as they look like the foundations the rest of the book relies on.

Im currently reading it and participating in the annual reading club (join us!). So disclaimer I'm not an expert.

I would say it artificially lowers the value of labor power (it does not actually lower its value but masks its real value) as capitalists can get away with paying less than what's necessary for the social reproduction of labor power thus pocketing more of the plus-value while preventing an underconsumption crisis. And they also make money by lending you what you're borrowing through interests.

My understanding of this part is that in a given society at a given historical time the value of labor power is equal to the typical basket of goods a worker consumes to reproduce their labor power.

For example in 1850 in Europe it might have been food,cigarettes, rent. And in 2025 in Europe it would include among other things taking a 2day vacation semewhere.

The in-group must always get smaller.

Well said! I think you summarized how I feel about it.

I’m still a bit behind. I’m wrapping up Chapter 2 and have had to spend a lot of time in Chapter 1. I think I’m finally starting to get Chapter 1 but I feel like I’ll have to revisit it in a few months to really anchor what I learned.

One of the thing that jumped at me having read about diamat, was how I believe in Chapter 2. Value is approached from a dialectical perspective. The use value and the exchange value are contradictions contained in the commodity (unity of opposites). If I want to realize the exchange value I would have to "alienate" from my pov the use value and vice versa, making them clearly exclusion of one another. These contradictions forces the appearance of the exchange which brings selling/buying as the contradictions. The synthesis of it is money which creates new contradictions (C-M-C' vs M-C-M').

I was not even aware this is a trotskyist specific term, that was the first time I heard it. They are a trot though.

Yeah exactly who cares fascism is a process and the us is clearly moving in the direction of a by the book fascist state. Thankfully I'm not living there, but I know europe is headed in exactly the same direction.

I'm here watching another person getting executed by the Gestapo while having to hear a friend lecture me how I should not say the US is fascist but actually bonapartist/authoritarian because unions are still legal and he had some union guys 1 or 2 times behind him during his campaign.

Like what do you mean??

Sounds like the Revolutionary Communist International lmao. At least in my country the RCP (I think that's the name when translated to English) are well known in militant circle to only show up at protests with their flags and try to sell their journal.

We have stopped inviting them to coalitions and strike/protests organizing because when they showed up they never helped and were causing tensions arguing all the time.

Same in french, it is always masculine for ideology. At least I can't think of a single counterexample.

Thanks! I finally finished the article. It was a really educating and in depth article. It helped me organize my thoughts about imperialism and forced me to better understand how dollarization is such a huge tool in the US empire arsenal.

I don’t have this issue with books, but I know I find it hard to find well-researched articles on specific topics. I don't yet have a good knowledge of which groups have historically produced good analysis on various subjects. For example, the article you linked from the fleawar substack, had I found it by myself I would have had no idea how to assess whether they were just a random person talking out of their ass or a trustworthy source.

I also wish people would either take more time to "read theory/analysis" or admit they did not rather than lie about it. When organizing I frequently have people talk to me about a subject and recommending books to read. When I read them and push back or have question about something I am frequently answered "Oh I actually only read the passage I quoted to you" or "Oh I just watched a 15min video summarizing the book, I haven’t actually had time to read it".

Too many people are winging it. Just say you haven't read the book, nobody will chastise you for it. Just don't act as if you know the subject if you have done no serious investigation on the topic.

I have to say however that on here when I ask for clarifications or resources to dig at a subject, people usually provide me with great articles and books to further my understanding. I recently got linked with many great resources on Imperialism and on your end you provided me with a lot of great articles to better understand the iranian left historical context.

I've deleted my answer as I saw you edited your post to provide an explanation on Tudeh's irrelevance which answered my question. Thanks for the source, I'll read the whole thing as the quote is interesting.

I'll have to stop reading your posts because every time I read them I have 5more articles to read and my pile never diminishes. (This is of course a joke and I appreciate the time you put in your comments and the sources you provide)

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No worries that's why I asked for a tone clarification! Thanks for doing it!

Could I ask for a tone clarification? Not sure if it's an ironic "Right." or just an acknowledgment. If it's the first case I wouldn't mind getting further educated on the subject, that's one of the reason I'm trying to post more of my thoughts on issues to confront them and receive constructive criticism when necessary.

Yes the link takes me to their website. Maybe your DNS is blocking access to it?

Here is the direct link to the 9.01 statement in English https://www.tudehpartyiran.org/en/2026/01/11/statement-of-the-tudeh-party-of-iran-long-live-the-dynamic-encompassing-and-heroic-uprising-of-the-iranian-people-against-the-dictatorship-of-ali-khamenei/

The 12.01 has for now not been published as an English article on the website but I imagine it should be available in the next few days.

Edit: if you read Farsi you can read their issue 1251 which should contain the 12.01 statement in this pdf

Thanks for the analysis!