“The result is that Smith‘s confusion persists to this day, and his dogma forms an article of orthodox belief in political economy.”
#Adventathon Day 6

“The narrowness of this conception lies in Smith‘s failure to see what Quesnay had already seen, namely the reappearance of the value of constant capital in a renewed form.”
Read a bit more than a chapter tonight for #Adventathon because April was being extra snuggly (and when your cat is being so warm and snuggly, there is no good reason to put down your book!)

“Here we have disregarded the vicissitudes of circulation, in which one capitalist seizes for himself a piece of another‘s surplus-value, and even of his capital, and there is therefore a one-sided accumulation and centralization of both money capital and productive capital. A part of the extorted surplus-value that A stores up as money capital may thus be a fragment of B‘s surplus-value that has failed to return to him.” #Adventathon Day 4

“...in relation to the actual circulating capital applied (both variable and constant), the length of the turnover period, in so far as it derives from the length of the working period, leads to the distinction that, with a greater number of turnovers in the course of a year, an element of the variable or constant circulating capital can be supplied by way of its own product, as with the production of coal...” #Adventathon Day 3 - reading by the🎄

“Alternatively, the price rise might be only transitory. What one capitalist then needs as extra capital is precipitated out elsewhere to the extent that his product forms an element of production for other branches of business. What the one lost, the other has gained.” #Adventathon day 2 - I definitely spaced for a chunk of this, but don‘t feel that bad because there is a big note from Engels like Marx made this more complicated than necessary😆

“It should generally be noted, however, that the economists are much inclined to forget not only that a part of the capital needed in a business is constantly passing alternately through the three forms of money capital, productive capital and commodity capital, but that it is always different portions of this that possess these forms alongside each other, even if the relative magnitude of these portions are in constant flux.” #Adventathon Day 1

In keeping with the spirit of and advent calendar that has a little story or treat each day, I though I would read (at least) a chapter a day for the #Adventathon from @ozma.of.oz

“The methods that shorten the working period differ greatly in the extent to which they can be applied in different branches of industry, and they do not cancel out the differences in length of the different working periods. To stick to our example, the application of new machine-tools may, in absolute terms, shorten the working period necessary for the production of a locomotive...”

I‘ve stuffed my #CreepyChristmas package to the brim and will send it out after work tomorrow 🎄💀👻

@teebe

“Poor food choices have contributed to the rising rate of nutrition-related diseases.”

“Because Adam Smith fixed in this way upon the characteristic of circulating capital as the decisive one for capital value laid out on labour-power - the Physiocratic definition without the premises of the Physiocrats - he managed to make it impossible for his successors to perceive that the part of capital laid out on labour-power was variable capital. The profound and correct explanation that he himself offered elsewhere did not prevail...”

@MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm had such an interesting list for #nywd22
Probably going to start with Scythe cause it has been on my radar awhile and I‘m taking a YA class for my MLIS program and need some YA on deck for book reports!
Also very excited about Three Bags Full because who doesn‘t need a murder mystery from the viewpoint of sheep?!? 🐑

Thanks again to @monalyisha for her organizing and matchmaking skills! #NewYearWhoDis

“‘Oh, I don‘t think you can possibly be too pessimistic. I can‘t think why you all seem so surprised at Omega. After all, of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don‘t know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids...‘”

“Breakfast at home
A cup of coffee with whole milk and sugar and a cup of whole grain cereal with low-fat milk and a half a banana would cost about $1.00 and provide about 350 kcalories.

Breakfast out
A 16-ounce caramel mocha and a blueberry muffin at Dunkin‘ Donuts or the corner coffee bar would cost about $4 and provide about 770 kcalories.”

One more swap - a book and some chocolate to enjoy on Christmas Eve #jolabokaflodswap from @MaleficentBookDragon

Decided to sign up for one more swap. Super low key (a book and a treat) and opening in January (when I certainly need a pick me up!)

Only a couple days left to sign up. See @bookish_wookish for info. #LittleChristmasSwap

Signed up for this event for the first time! Super excited to see my match‘s picks. Also, I know I put Capital by Marx as my first book on the list; I don‘t actually expect my match to read it 😆 but it was one of my two five star books this year (other is tagged).

See @monalyisha to sign up

Attending another conference, and of course I had to visit the book vendor (not the least cause it was run by the bookstore at the college I work at). Tagged book was discussed in the first session I went to. Also picked up some earrings for my mom for Christmas 🎄 and some cookies from a spot near the conference center. #bookhaul

This package from @Scochrane26 for #HHS #HauntedHallowSwap is just delightful! I‘m so looking forward to reading Jesmyn Ward‘s memoir and glad to hear that it was one of your favorites this year! Children of Men looks super suspenseful. The tea will be perfect to have while curled up with a book and the tea towel is adorable. I love the smell of the goat milk soap and know my skin can use the sugar cube scrub. So cool that they are local goodies!

OMG @guinsgirlreads totally spoiled me for #AllHallowsReadSwap
The books all looks perfect and spooky (creepy imaginary friends! plagues! vampires!). The Edgar Allen Poe candle smells so good and is going on my fireplace mantel with the gnome. I‘m looking forward to using the bath salts and vampire blood room spray. Plus so many little goodies and a cute card!

Thank you! And thank you @MaleficentBookDragon for organizing this swap!

Thank you @guinsgirlreads 🎃 my #allhallowsreadswap package arrived today!

It was a nice day, and I finished my homework early, so I took a walk and did a little shopping #bookhaul

Just got home from the post office and found my #HHS package waiting for me 📦 April had to do an I N S P E C T

#HauntedHallowSwap #CatsofLitsy

@wanderinglynn

This box will be heading to New York tomorrow! #allhallowsreadswap @MaleficentBookDragon

This box of goodies will be heading out to California tomorrow! #hhs21 #hauntedhallowswap @wanderinglynn

“We have ignored credit here, and it pertains to credit if the capitalist deposits the money that he accumulates in a bank, for example, on current account bearing interest.”

Yes! 👻 🎄 💀
All signed up for #CreepyChristmas swap
More info @teebe

Currently at the Iowa Library Association conference for a couple days. Won these Playaway audiobooks and iris bulbs in the silent auction!

“In both cases, the persistence of money capital in its money state appears as the result of interrupted movement, whether this is expedient or inexpedient, voluntary or involuntary, functional or dysfunctional.”

“Hence the capitalist production process is the basic pre-condition, it is prior to all else, if not within the first circuit of the money capital of a newly invested industrial capitalist, then outside it; the continued existence of this production process assumes the constantly repeated circuit of P...P...It presupposes, therefore, that C‘ is commodity capital, and therefore that the commodity itself is the result of capitalist production...”

Because swaps are fun and spooky season is fun and spooky season swaps seem like the best, I signed up for another 🎃 👻 #allhallowsreadswap last day to sign up! More info from @MaleficentBookDragon

#HHS @wanderinglynn
Treat
Witches
Pumpkin
Scary Movie
Carmel Apple
Frankenstein
Costume Party
Chocolate
Skeleton
Pumpkin Spice
Black cats

Spent the afternoon doing some of my favorite things: having coffee and a sandwich outside while reading and doing a bit of shopping at some local small business - including getting a couple #bookerlonglist titles
#bookhaul

1. I don‘t usually carve a pumpkin anymore, but I will decorate one with paint
2. Yes! Shoe size is 5.5, so usually whatever the smallest available adult women‘s size in socks 😆
3. Peacock colors, blush pink
4. Scarves
5. Bookmarks. A mug of tea, if that counts
6. As an adult, my AHS: Coven-sequel witch; as a kid, my grandma sewed me a prairie girl costume (was obsessed with the Oregon trail)
7. Yay! No strong preference #HHS #HauntedHallowSwap

#spookyaesthetic for #HauntedHallowSwap #HHS

There‘s definitely a range from the cute (Great Pumpkin, Kiki‘s Delivery Service) to the gruesome (Cujo).

Just signed up for the #HauntedHallowSwap #HHS21 One more day to sign up! See @wanderinglynn for the full details.

Today is a big day in my library career - the first book selections I‘ve made for my library have arrived! 🎉 I completed a project for my collection management class analyzing the collection of personal finance books at the library where I work. I showed my boss the project when I was done, and he said I could make the recommended purchases! It‘s almost like I‘m a real librarian 😆

A low pick. I enjoyed the first 3/5ths of the book better than the ending. The first section of the book had some good characters development and world building, but with some action mixed in. The final battle scene felt more predictable, but I‘m giving this the benefit of the doubt (and a pick rather than a so-so) because my listening experience for the ending was hindered by scratched CDs.

A #bookhaul from the free book table at work. Someone was cleaning out their collection of books about the Holocaust.

“References and notes dating from the end of March 1877, taken from the above four manuscripts, form the basis for a new version of Volume 2, begun in Manuscript V (fifty-six folio pages). This covers the first four chapters...”

“Discontinuous renewal of fixed capital is, therefore, one of the key determinants of the trade cycle. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the productive capacity of the sub-branch of department I which produces means of production for the production of means of production, must normally be geared to the general demand for the renewal of fixed capital (at least in its social average).”

Although originally published in the 1867, this is still a timely analysis of the development of capitalism and what capitalism has become. While the overthrow of that system has not (yet) come to pass, that is not a reason to discount this book. I kept finding myself reading a section and being like “oh, today that looks like [fill in contemporary capitalist horror here]” - different names for the same thing, basically. A super necessary read.

Sidewalk sale days at Newbo/Czech Village of Cedar Rapids and actually nice weather meant there was plenty of reason to do a bit of shopping. A couple books from Next Page Books (the bookseller and I talked about how we had both seen the movie Hidden Figures but not read the book yet), a mug and sticker from Raygun, a couple tops from a consignment store, and a cute bowl from an antique store. April needs to investigate everything new that enters.

A mini #bookhaul waiting in my mailbox when I got home. A reward for finishing another grad school class (woo!) and nice to have a package waiting after a very busy work day (though let‘s be honest - I‘ll probably just eat cheese, snuggle my cat, and watch All American on Netflix tonight because my brain is fried after my long day).

“The definition of productive labour (and hence of its opposite, unproductive labour) is based on the fact that the production of capital is the production of surplus-value and the labour it employs is labour that produces surplus-value.”

“Should the worker prove more or less incapable of this versatility, he still regards it as open to the next generation, and the new generation of workers is infinitely distributable among, and adaptable to, new or expanding branches of industry. We can see this versatility, this perfect indifference towards the particular content of work and the free transition from one branch of industry to the next, most obviously in North America...”

“One further point remains to be made about value or money as the objectification of an average measure of general social labour. If we take spinning, for example, we see that it may be performed at a rate that either falls below or rises above the social average. That is to say, a certain quantity of spinning may be equal to, greater or less than the same quantity of the average...”

“Tantae molis erat [so great was the effort] to unleash the ‘eternal natural laws‘ of the capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of separation between the workers and the conditions of their labour, to transform, at one pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, and at the opposite pole, the mass of the population into wage-labourers, into the free ‘labouring poor‘, that artificial product...”

“In the United States, seasonal fruits and vegetables are available all year long because they can be stored and shipped from around the globe.”

“[The gang-system] exists for the enrichment of the large-scale farmers and indirectly for the landowners. For the farmer, there is no more ingenious method of keeping his labourers well below the normal level, and yet of always having an extra hand ready for extra work, of extracting the greatest possible amount of labour with the least possible expenditure of money, and of making adult male labour ‘redundant.‘”