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u/_lochland · 2 pointsr/Marxism

There are a couple of 'strands' of Marx's thought which you might investigate. I can't comment too much on shorter introductions to the philosophical side, as I'm more familiar with (and interested in, for the moment) works the economic side. For this, I can recommend the following:

  • A Short History of Socialist Economic Thought by Gerd Hardack, Dieter Karras, Ben Fine. It's all in the title :)
  • David Harvey's excellent A Companion to Marx's Capital. This certainly isn't a short book, but Harvey is a terrific writer, and so the time flies. I would also point to and highly recommend the series of lectures on which this book is based. Of course, the lectures are hardly an exercise in brevity, but they are very good and worthwhile.
  • Ernest Mandel's An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory is good. Read it online here. Any Mandel is very good. He is an incredible clear author, and he really knows Marxist thought inside out. For instance, I would also recommend Ernest Mandel's introduction to the Penguin edition of Capital (the introduction is a bit shorter than the whole book of Mandels that I've mentioned above) very nicely summarises the context of his economic thought, and gives an overview thereof.
  • Yannis Varoufakis (the former finance minister of Greece) wrote a fantastic, more general introduction to economics and economic theory called Foundations of Economics: A beginner’s companion. While Varoufakis deals with economics as a whole, and discusses, for instance, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, this serves to very well position Marx within the economic milieu of his time. This is a recurring theme for a reason: to understand Marx, I believe that it's imperative to understand what drove Marx to ruthlessly critique capitalism.
  • Finally, I'm not trying to be glib or conceited by suggesting The Marx-Engles Reader (2nd ed.), edited by Robert C. Tucker. This is the book that I used to start studying seriously the thought of Marx and Engels, after reading Singer's introduction. I recommend the book because it has (again) a wonderful introduction, the works that are presented are quite short, and each work has a solid introduction. This is a very good volume for seeing the trajectory and evolution of Marx and Engels's economic thought without having to dive into the larger works. The book even has a very heavily reduced version of Capital vol. I. This book also deals with the philosophy of Marx more heavily than the other works I've recommended here, as it contains a number of earlier philosophical works (including the Grundisse, which is practically the philosophical sister to Capital).

    I hope these will be useful, even if they aren't necessarily the aspect of Marx that you are most interested in.

    Edit: I should state that I am a philosopher of language, and so one doesn't need any especial economics expertise to dive into the texts that I've recommended! I certainly knew very little about the field before I read these texts.
u/PseudoTone · 1 pointr/Marxism

First. I think we are in a similar boat! I research literature and cultural studies but have become much more interested in Marxism lately, since that's where my personal politics fall (in fact, Raymond Williams specifically sent me toward Marxism). I have had to do a lot of background research and I have a few things to mention. I've done a lot of reading of Marx, Engels and Lenin. I do a lot of work in postcolonial theory, and there are some good texts that criticize postcolonialism from a materialist perspective I found specifically helpful. (LMK if that is something that interests you and I can name a few, but they're pretty specific).

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First, I think this might be a good book for what you're looking for, though I haven't read it yet:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141983485/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=A3MLGQ1VC2HHW2&psc=1

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Second, I'd suggest a few podcasts:

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Proles of the Round Table and Revolutionary Left Radio both have a TON of excellent episodes that look at different historical events and schools of thought (Rev Left is especially good for this, and is possibly my favorite podcast going rn).

Also, Dead Pundits Society is another decent podcast and is more theory focused. This one, as I recall, went through state theory quite closely and in the process ends up giving a wide breadth of names and schools:

https://soundcloud.com/deadpundits/ep-31-part-1-make-state-theory-great-again-w-rafael-khachaturian

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u/spryformyage · 1 pointr/Marxism

David Harvey's notes on capital are really helpful and provide references to relevant texts by Marx and other theorists for understanding Capital. When I last checked, Harvey's notes were available for Capital vols. 1 and 2. The lectures are available via podcast (I like listening while I'm on the move) or they can be viewed on YouTube. These are free lectures so can't do much better for understanding Capital apart from the lack of interaction.

A copy of the book based on the lectures is also helpful. And there are also various sources other than Amazon for this (and other books)...

Besides Harvey, I find Prof. Ha-Joon Chang to be a great source of introductions to "other" schools of thought. The recent Economics User's Guide is a decent place to start for basic economics, but Bad Samaritans is great for challenging the hegemony of neoliberal approaches to developmental economics. These are both available in audiobook form so the information can be received as if by lecture.

u/uniliederene · 1 pointr/Marxism

No offense, but you seem to have a knowledge of communism that does not go beyond the level of a youtube video or Wikipedia entry (maybe not even that).

For a better understanding of what Marx means by "value", I think you should check out the relevant chapters of Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically while with re-reading Das Kapital:

https://libcom.org/library/reading-capital-politically-cleaver

You seem to be hinting at Commons and Common-pool resources, so maybe you should take a look at the book:

Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism by Massimo de Angelis:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=961FEA9AF31094CA0280E0F92B353AF7


Since you're posting in Marxist sub, I'm going to give you a take Marx's Communism leaving (Peter Kropotkin's and the anarchists' communism aside):


Marx doesn't thinks of communism in terms of ownership form of the means of production but in terms of the (social) relations of production.

This is one of many of the difference he has with the latter Leninist bullshit.

Paresh Chattopadhyay talks about this at length in his work:

https://libcom.org/library/socialism-marx-early-bolshevism-chattopadhyay


Marx's Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism:

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=D06B95D8E25C74E8B16BEFB5C4B9C165


He talks about about "associated mode of production".


Speaking of wikipedia entries, here's one on that subject:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_%28communism_and_anarchism%29


I think you should also look into the concept of "demand-sharing", Thomas Widlok explain this concept in detail in his book "Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing":

https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Economy-Sharing-Thomas-Widlok/dp/1138945552


What anthropologists call "demand-sharing" is a kind of an open-ended agreement between two groups, or even two individuals, to provide for the other; within which, even access to one another’s possessions followed the principle of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’.

(‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’, the old communist formula, basically means if you have a need and I have the ability to meet that need, I do it.

Keeping count or reciprocating is very frowned upon in these sort of situations.

This sort of communism is quite common (even under capitalism), in families, between friends and there's a little of it in every non-hostile relationship.)





u/Dialectical_Dribbles · 2 pointsr/Marxism

Debates on justice really took over much of political theory in the 1980s, and the question of how, if at all, justice played a role in Marx's thought was rather fraught.

Some popular work from Allen Buchanan, Richard Miller and Allen Wood (amongst many) argued that justice was not central to Marx's thought (for various reasons). Generally speaking, many in this camp take some sort of stance that Marx was doing social science so he didn't bother with moral/ethical argumentation against capitalism.

One response to the "anti-justice" camp is Geras' piece available online here.

A young Cornel West wrote (and published much later) an interesting work on ethics in Marx and Marxist thought: The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought.

This article from Monthly Review might be of interest per the example in your post.

I would encourage you to keep digging through Nancy Fraser's work - she's incredible and you'll find class analysis. Following Rawls, justice was all but exclusively thought of in distributive terms for liberals, and Fraser has been a key voice in criticizing distributive justice.

I'm struggling to find more right now (can't find my external hard drive), my apologies, but there's at least a little here to check out.

u/veldurak · 1 pointr/Marxism

>We need to be educated on the problems before we can revolt.

How do you feel we can accomplish this? Capitalism has debased our culture into one of the consumer. The most profit goes to what appeals to the greatest number of people, and what enters the public consciousness is largely watered down spectacle, rather then substance. Does the average four hour-a-day TV watcher even read, let alone read Marx? The public is more disinterested in politics then ever - why care about something largely regarded as a spectator sport, where different wings of the oligarchy present false dichotomies to create the illusion of "choice"?

The most compelling argument against anarchism, for me at least, is socialism will provide the break needed for society can recognize the alienation, and create the necessary culture for communism to someday arise. An Off button, if you will, from the white noise drowning out all else in the present day.

u/MicrowaveCola · 7 pointsr/Marxism

I think the single best introduction to Marx's philosophy is Marx's Concept of Man by Erich Fromm.

Here's the Amazon link if you're looking to buy it.

Here's the link to it on marxists.com.

And finally, here's a link to a PDF on bookzz.

Happy reading.

u/Qwill2 · 1 pointr/Marxism

David McLellan's commentary/anthology, The Thought of Karl Marx is arguably the best short one volume approach to Marx.

> This text provides the basic elements necessary for a grasp of the range and complexity of Marx's ideas. The first half of the book is a chronological account of Marx's ideas with a miniumum of biographical and historical detail. The second half is thematic and provides a concise summary of Marx's position, and extracts from his key texts on alienation, historical materialism, labour, class, the party, the state, revolution and future Communist society.

McLellan also wrote the most widely read biography of Karl Marx, and an all-you-need anthology.

When you feel ready to start reading about Marxism (as opposed to the works and ideas of Karl Marx), McLellan has a good overview in Marxism after Marx.

u/senor_benzo · 2 pointsr/Marxism

This book -- Geopolitical Economy, by Radhika Desai -- is the best treatment of the subject you are asking about. She was my graduate supervisor and I helped in a small way editing the manuscript. Well worth the read.

https://www.amazon.com/Geopolitical-Economy-Hegemony-Globalization-Capitalism/dp/0745329926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487460747&sr=8-1&keywords=radhika+desai

u/RedAsFolk · 14 pointsr/Marxism

Black Reconstruction in America by WEB Dubois is, hands down, the best book about this period in American history from a Marxist perspective.

u/Malthus0 · 1 pointr/Marxism

>No it was aimed at petite bourgeois idiots in America the biggest market for books written in English.

I don't know why you feel the need to contradict me on this. The quotes below prove it.

Below is excerpted from the Foreword to the American Paperback Edition 1956 The Road to Serfdom After 12 Years. It is Chapter 15, p216 in the collection Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics

>"This book might in some respects have been different if I had written it in the first instance with American readers primarily in mind. It has by now made for itself too definite, if unexpected, a place in this country to make any rewriting advisable."

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>"The book was written in England during the war years and was designed almost exclusively for English readers. Indeed, it was addressed mainly to a very special class of reader in England. It was in no spirit of mockery that I dedicated it 'To the socialists of All Parties'. It has it's origin in many discussion which, during the preceding ten years, I had with friends and colleagues whose sympathies had been inclined towards the left, and it was in continuation of those arguments that I wrote The Road to Serfdom".

As for Orwell, he wrote a positive review of The Road to Serfdom, agreeing with Hayek on his diagnosis, but disagreeing with him on his cure..

>.In the negative part of Professor Hayek’s thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.

u/arjun1967 · 3 pointsr/Marxism

Some books on Marxism and technology that I really like:

u/YoungModern · 2 pointsr/Marxism

> Surely you aren't suggesting his entire bibliography is rotten through and through and nothing of use can be salvaged?

No, but it is so riddled with corrosive antirealism, subjectivism, and Nietzsche's aristocratic power plays that salvaging it involves amputating the rotten arms and legs in order to save the productive fingers and toes.

Catherine MacKinnon put it best:

>"The postmodern version of the relation between theory and practice is discourse unto death. Theory begets no practice, only more text. It proceeds as if you can deconstruct power relations by shifting their markers around in your head. Like all formal idealism, this approach to theory tends unselfconsciously to reproduce existing relations of dominance, in part because it is an utterly removed elite activity. On this level, all theory is a form of practice, because it either subverts or shores up existing deployments of power, in their martial metaphor. As an approach to change, it is the same as the conventional approach to the theory/practice relation: head driven, not world driven. Social change is first thought about, then acted out. Books relate to books, heads talk to heads. Bodies do not crunch bodies or people move people. As theory, it is the de-realization of the world.

It's not an accident that Foucault overtly embraced neoliberlism, or that his epigones are typically utterly removed elites who are hostile to the working class -it is the cultural logic of late-capitalism and trapped in a prison-house of language as far past its expiration date as a linguistic and semantic theory date as hylomorphism is as a theory of matter.

While Foucault asked some interesting questions we might be able to salvage by providing better answers, his own answers and framework ("discourse") has been a cancer on the left which needs to go.