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pattern-recognition · 1 month

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Good starting points for socialist reading? Detailed medium form summaries? Skeptic debate between various forms, and between other theoretical systems? Please do recommend

For introductory texts, start with the basics. That means starting with the foundation laid out by Marx and Engels themselves, not some abridged text or modern compilation that seeks to re-explain scientific socialism out of a lack of agency for the modern reader (though some of these type are good, but I digress.)

For this i’d recommend:

- Marx, Engels. The Communist Manifesto (obviously)

- Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

- Marx, Engels. Wage-Labour and Capital/Value, Price, and Profit

The above three are very short, succinct, and informative. The latter two are woefully unrecognized as ideal texts for introductory socialism, and they were written for that explicit purpose.

After that, move on to more wholistic works that flesh out and elaborate upon the historical, material, circumstances that gave rise to the capitalist epoch and how and why they furnish the future conditions for a socialist system.

- Engels. Origin of the Family, State, and Private Property (Whatever copy you’ll procure will probably include his complimentary essay, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, which isn’t hugely beneficial for most discursive purposes but interesting, nonetheless.)

- Lenin. The State and Revolution

- Bukharin. Historical Materialism - A System of Sociology

All of Engels’ work, from his introductions to Marx’s texts, his input on the former, and his original treatises, are a wealth of information.

After the structure of dialectical materialism and the capitalist system are understood, I’d recommend works on how the former can/should be implemented and the latter’s historical reign of misery, as well as works addressing the pressing contradiction of imperialism and core-periphery subjugation. (You won’t find vocabulary like core/periphery/semi periphery in texts like this though, that wouldn’t come about until Immanuel Wallerstein outlined the World Systems Theory in his eponymous book. It’s not strictly a historical materialist work, and made by a bourgeois academic (who was the sociology professor of my sociology professor, which is fun I suppose) but is formative for much of contemporary sociological discourse).

- Lenin. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

- Lenin. What is to Be Done?

- Galeano. Open Viens of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

- Said. Orientalism

Along the way, I strongly suggest you actually read Marx’s Capital in full, at least the first volume. It’s not as monolithic and inaccessible as some would lead you to believe, quite the opposite, and cannot be understated in its utility and insight.

- Marx. Capital: A Critique of the Political Economy, Volume I

Other recommendations:

- Marx. Critique of the Gotha Programme

- Marx. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

- Bevins. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

- Bevins. If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

- Lenin. Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913) (Also, can be found in the recent compilation of Lenin’s work on the subject called Imperialism and the National Question)

- Debord. The Society if the Spectacle

- Benjamin. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

- Mishra. From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia

Truth be told, I’m a grievously under-read marxist, and there are others on this site who could provide a more comprehensive syllabus. To half-assedly make up for it, here are some books i’ve been meaning to read/finish but haven’t gotten to it yet:

- Adorno, Horkheimer. Dialect of Enlightenment

- Marx. Capital, Volumes 2 and 3

- Strong. The Soviets Expected It

- Adorno, Bernstein. The Culture Industry

- Adorno. Minima Moralia

- Mao. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

- Mao. On Protracted War

All of the aforementioned reading can be found online, for free and readily accessible, on places like Marxists.org, or as downloads from places like Libgen. If you want to read on your phone, download the file as an epub and use your device’s proprietary Books app or similar. If you want to read on a PC, I’d recommend a PDF for easiest navigation. If you want to pursue the latter but can only procure the former, you can use a epub reading program like SumatraPDF. If you’re a person who values a physical copy highly enough to warrant a purchase, I’d recommend ThriftBooks, though do be attentive to buying the most suitable copy of whatever material. Also, I’d be happy to send my copies to you or anyone else, via a google drive or telegram, if you feel like coming off anon.

As for “skeptic debate between various forms, and between various systems,” I can’t think of a standalone work with the principle task of dissecting and contrasting various stripes of marxism, but you’ll find as such permeating throughout almost all of these texts. The thing is, the fundamental material conditions haven’t shifted substantially since these were written, wether it be in Marx’s 19th century, Lenin’s 20th, or Bevins’ 21st. The old enemies remain enemies, the old arguments remain true. Dialectical materialism, scientific socialism, is a malleable system. It is a scientific method by which one can analyze the world, understand it with rational clarity, and come to conclusions on how to react to it and make predictions as to how things may unfold. This is the task assigned to any student of marxism. It is not dogma or a ecclesiastical canon, it is a tool.

After you’ve garnered your bachelor’s degree in scientific socialism you can move on to the postgraduate courses, such as chainsmoking cigarettes, caffeine and amphetamine addiction, alcoholism, and playing Disco Elysium.

#anonymous #if anyone has further material they’d like to recommend or something they’d like to espouse upon #please feel free to add

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