Why do they consider racism, orientalism and lies disputed long ago “valid criticism”. Not even mentioning the lack of humility or a will to learn, just constant snarkiness, smugness and an unrelenting feeling of superiority. Just please, engage with us on equal terms and don’t be dismissive.
Edit: Don’t go into the comments if you value your day…
I think too many people get caught up on a consumer-identity mode of relating to these things. It’s way more useful to have good fundamental understanding. For very early socialism, Engels provides an excellent summary in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, since the bulk of pre-Marxist philosophers were put by Marx and Engels in the “utopian” category. Text. Audiobook.
While I think Conquest of Bread is probably worth looking at for an economic skeptic of the idea of a classless, moneyless society, generally it seems to me to be the best strategy to prioritize looking at works that were associated with actual projects of socialist states, and the first person to lead such an endeavor that made it to the “actual nation-building” stage was Lenin.