ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory
Part I: Canonical theory
    Sep. 12: READ: Marx, Karl (2010 [1867]) Read Chapter 4 “The general formula for capital”; Chapter 6 “The buying and selling of labour power”;  And Chapter 26 “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation”, Capital Volume 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf

The following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make sense of this, and other, theories. In addition, we will apply the theory to the video shown in the first day of class.

How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created?

What questions does this theory ask?

What information does this theory see as important?

What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?

How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?


Key concepts related to Marxism

• Capital: Capitalism
• Use value
• Exchange value
• Labour power
• Importance of production
• Production is a social activity
• Production is integrally linked to consumption, distribution and exchange
• Value
• Alienation
• Commodity/commodification
• Primitive accumulation (recently reframed by David Harvey as “accumulation by dispossession”)
• Mode of production:
•     Forces of production
•     Means of production
• Relations of production
• Reproduction
• Class and class formation
• Class struggle
• How history happens
• Relationship between ideology and material conditions

Some ways of applying Marxist theory to the video:
    What is the social and productive organization of this society that leads to the production/display of the video, or the circumstances being described in the video?
    Whose labour is required for the party to happen/be cleaned up after; or for the video? How is that organized and on what cultural bases is it decided who cleans, who parties, etc.?
    For whom (in class terms) is the video intended?
    Who gains from this system? Who is exploited by it?

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