Goals
The goal of this assignment is to practice writing your thoughts, reactions, observations, questions, and overall analysis of our weekly readings in Capital. Think of this as a place to make sense, in your own words, of the concepts covered this week. You can also write down ideas or insights that you can use when writing your longer essays.
Instructions
Respond to the prompt below. Your journal response should be
Written by you (and not a chat bot or other person)
Submitted as a link to a properly shared Google Doc (Please note: there will be a half point deduction if your document isn’t shared properly)
A minimum of 300 words (roughly one full page, not including heading, title, etc.)
MLA Formatted (12pt, Times New Roman, Double Spaced, and include in-text citations)
Prompt for Journal 11
Chapter 25, “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation,” is in many ways the culmination of Marx’s argument in Volume One of Capital. Here, he examines what happens when, as the classical political economists of his day and ours are constantly demanding, we “let the free market decide.” What he discovers are two tendencies: on the one hand, the tendency of capital to “grow into powerful masses [held] in single [a] hand” (779), i.e. monopolies, and on the other hand, “a surplus population of workers… a disposable reserve army of labor” (784), or precarious workers who are subject to cycles of unemployment based on capital’s needs. In other words, capital tends to concentrate social power (money) in the hands of a few, while keeping a large part of society poor and powerless.
How does Marx’s analysis in this chapter hold up in the 21st century? Is the systemic economic inequality he describes in this chapter, and which he claims is a necessary function of capitalism, still a problem?
Support your answer with properly cited, direct evidence from Chapter 25. Any examples drawn from contemporary issues should also be supported by evidence, so you’ll need to utilize the library and other resources, and include the relevant citations. This journal response may be used as a part of your final argumentative essay, so try to do a good job of laying the foundations for that paper in this journal response.
