Thanks
I’m going to take a different tack than some others are here. Instead of giving you classics, I’m going to recommend mostly things from the “other” direction, mostly critiques of our current world written by leftists, or histories of leftist ideas. These will probably be more familiar to you, but will introduce you to new ideas as you go, which you can dig into as you get deeper.
I don’t know what kind of interests you have, but here’s a few:
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Utopia of Rules: A collection of 3-4 essays about bureaucracy. Everyone hates bureaucracy, but somehow the right has monopolized hating bureaucracy in American politics. A nice place to start that will resonate with most people.
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The People’s Republic of Walmart: A relatively concise history of socialist planning (as opposed to market economies), which includes the simple yet no less profound insight that megafirms like walmart already do major economic planning on the scale of countries, and it works. A nice book, though fair warning, the prose can be a bit tedious sometimes. Not too technical, but technical enough that it could pique your interest if you are inclined towards those kinds of things as I am.
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Cybernetic Revolutionaries: If you like history, this one might be for you. It’s the story of Allende’s government’s Cybersyn project. Eden Medina did a wonderful job interweaving the concepts of cybernetics, politics, and the history in a really important way, and one that contradicts the trend in our world to separate “politics” from everything.
Happy to recommend something else if none of these are to your liking.
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There is this book called “why Marx was right” wrtten by Terry Eagleton. He is a professor of economics from uk. It is an easy to follow explanation of Marxism in general and quite simple to understand. I definitely recommend it.
Marxism only one specific type of socialism though.
Either the Communist Manifesto or Engel’s Principles of Communism are pretty good. It depends exactly on what you might be interested into. In my opinion one of the most important things is to learn the material dialectical method of thinking, since this allows you to see the world through this lenses, and therefore some Engel or Stalin’s texts on the subject are better, although maybe harder to understand. For example, Engel’s The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man is a book that talks about how labour played an important part in the evolution of the human, and how for example Darwin’s evolution fits perfectly with the dialectical method proposed by Marx.
Thanks for the recommendations. I did read the Communist manifesto but still struggled a bit with it, despite it being the more basic entry point. Would Engels be too advanced for me? My basis of knowledge is just what I’ve learned from YouTube channels like Second Thought & prof. Richard Wolff
I wouldn’t say the Communist Manifesto is the most basic entry point. It was written in a different time for an audience who would have understood a lot more of the references than we do today. It also applies dialectical and historical materialism without really addressing what that means, which can create a bit of a sticking point.
I didn’t fully understand it until I’d read a lot of other Marxist texts. The first time I read it (when I wasn’t a Marxist), I just thought it was a bit shit. The second time I read it (when I was becoming a Marxist), I thought that it ignored the crucial information that I was looking for. It was during the third read-through (after becoming a Marxist) that I got the most out of it.
These readings were years apart, btw. And my earlier issues with it were down to having certain expectations of what I would find. I’m only saying this so that you don’t lose heart – texts that should be easy to read or which seem easy to some people aren’t always easy to others.
Now, I’m with Soviet Snake and I do recommend it as an early text. But it’s a starting point, to get a flavour of Marxism. If you don’t/didn’t get on with it, there are other texts.
Engels is a better writer than Marx. He usually gets to the point a little quicker. Not to say I dislike Marx’s style; but Engels is more direct. Give his sole-authored works a try.
In light of your OP question, I suggest Socialism: Utopian and Scientific: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm.
If you struggled with the Manifesto then Principles of Communism will be a lot easier. It actually is a draft of the Manifesto written using the catechism convention, so it’s one question, one answer, and it goes really in a simple way about what are the social classes, the relationship that distinguishes for example the serf and the feudal lord from the proletarian and the bourgeois and so on. It’s actual a really good idea to read it before the Manifesto and a lot of editions include it as a preface. Don’t worry about not understanding everything, though, the Manifesto is a work that simple and profound, short but dense, and that you should read multiple times throughout your life to get the most of it, it condenses some really insightful thoughts in a way that’s accessible but that will also reveal more of what it has to offer the more you read Marxist literature.
How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century by Erik Olin Wright might be a good start.
Thank you, I’ll look it up
I’m a sucker for the classics but I wouldn’t recommend the Communist Manifesto.
For me personally the first book that really made me understand things was “State and Revolution”
It explains a lot about class society, the role of the state, socialism and communism, and worker’s democracy. It’s written in a clear way and answers many questions.
“The principles of communism” as well as “Value, price, and profit” are good reads iirc. For more long form text, I’d recommend the series "ABC of Social and Political Knowledge (scans here, it’s a textbook-style series on Marxism-Leninism published by the soviets in plain-enough English). Honestly though, you can learn a lot of the basics from other forms of media like videos (shoutout to Second Thought and Hakim) and podcasts (like RevLeft Radio). This might be controversial, but I’d recommend you read the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc after you have the basics down from other sources that are already familiar in the theory.
