The Struggle for the Working Day: Class Conflict and Reform

Focusing on chapter 10, our sixth episode locates class struggle as the motor of capitalism and as that which determines the rate of exploitation and the value of labor power. By examining how the “normal working day” is established--in theory and in historical practice--Marx emphasizes how the command over time is central to the class struggle. We spend some time on his theorization of the state in this chapter, which takes on the dual function of managing inter- and intra-class conflict, which introduces the contradiction between individual and collective capitalists and the role of reform in the class struggle. We also broach the fundamental role that slavery and colonialism played in the development of capitalism, and how the latter transformed the former.

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