Bonus points if it's not just multiple books by people with basically the same ideology.
"Wow, you've read Marx and Engels? That must mean you have a thorough understanding on all things political!" /s
Good sir or madam, you are mistaken, for I have also read Lenin.
Let us not speak of the time I read Chomsky, for I was quite confused by the open disdain for autocracy.
Ok, well I didn't actually read all of it, just the excerpts on Marxists.org.
How does one make a point using an example they know nothing about? To be clear, I agree with you, but as someone who has read a fair amount of M&E and know a ton of people who have read M&E, they are among the top 1% of readers in terms of sheer volume, but also curiosity and intellectual honesty.
Combined with the fact that the vast majority of Marx and Engels was social science, not ideological polemic, I get the impression that you are giving advice that you haven't actually taken. Which would be fine, we are all contradictory beings to some extent. But it does beg the question.
And if you had read them, then I would want to know your insights on what you had read
That's a lot of conclusions you jump to there, buddy.
I simply got the feeling that I got to a real Marx-head, when mentioning him and Engels in passing gets that reaction. Since I don't particularly enjoy these kinds of conversations, I backed off.
I've read a bit of both Marx and Engels and watched a lecture on Marxism. I enjoy parts of Marx and don't really like what I've read of Engel's original work., is that enough?
What have you read of Engels? Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is one of my favorites. Other than some of his letters, forewords, and some essays, I've been really wanting to read The Conditions of the Working Class in England, since it's referenced in Capital; and I think I have something else saved by him on my Kobo, can't think of it ATM. I think Engels is really easy to grasp; Marx is a phenomenal writer but unless you're in the mood to read about 1. Economics 2. Dense academic history or 3. A blistering criticism of some "Young Hegelian" scholar like Feuerbach or Bruno Bauer its hard to find something of his to just easy-read. The Manifesto is pretty accessible but it was mostly written by Engels, the two men were really one author most of the time, and I've read the manifesto several times and while its good its not my favorite work.
Sorry for coming off confrontational, but you picked two very good and influential thinkers to target. You could have said "don't just read Malcolm Gladwell and Sam Harris" or "Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro," who are all hacks, but very popular authors; whereas Marx and Engels have fallen out of fashion. It's conspicuous, is all.
Geez the downvote brigade is out in full force
Dude, I told you that I'm not into that kind of discussion. And it turned out exactly the way I was afraid it would. I think that's why you got downvoted, btw.
Also, you sound like the kind of guy I was making fun of in my first comment.
Nonsense! Only the parallel experience will fully submerge you into the lore! /j
Edit: Also: woosh
Only the parallel experience will fully submerge you into the lore!
That's what David Lynch said
Getting an EReader has increased the rate at which I read drastically. Reading becomes less of a task and more of a convenient way to spend time.
Reading Marx and Engels is also a great primer for anyone getting into Leftist theory.
Not yet, getting an EReader has really accelerated my reading, but I really want to hammer in the basics before moving on to the likes of Parenti and Losurdo. Plus, I have queer theory like Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink and Blue as well as Fanon's works on colonialism I want to visit before then.
Man seconding this. My reading goal was 20 books and I have smashed it before half of the year was over. Few years ago I couldn't even read got in a year
Yep, same! Not quite at that pace but it totally reversed my years-long spell of not being able to finish a single book in a year
The noun doesn't matter after an adjective like 'multiple.' Nothing good ever follows 'multiple.'
-Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
I've uploaded a few read by tts at https://pca.st/podcast/3af50c70-30cd-013c-f68a-0acc26574db2
Not too proud of it, but might still be useful.
There's also audioteca critica, with actual people reading the books, https://pca.st/podcast/5a409f90-829a-013a-d7e9-0acc26574db2, in Brazilian Portuguese.
In spirit of the post, Wage Labor and Capital, Value, Price and Profit, and Critique of the Gotha Programme are the easiest to digest works by Marx, and the most applicable to general leftism. All are short reads too, each can be completed in around an hour.
Engels has some great works too, and his works are generally grouped in with Marx's because they worked together closely, but I kept it to strictly Marx.
People should read Value Price and Profit because Marx proved that inflation is just companies raising prices, thoroughly debunks all the lies about causes of inflation that economists have been using to protect profits since before even his time.
All solid suggestions.
Wrt critique of the Gotha programme, it's interesting to me that Marx was such a critic of Lassalle, so much so that Engels actually apologized for Marx's harsh criticisms of the social democrat. Marx had called Lassalle a would be petty dictator or something like that. Except he was right, Lassalle was secretly plotting with von Bismarck on a plan to unify Germany under a bourgeois led social democracy, which von Bismarck could later seize absolute control over. Marx didn't know about this conspiracy, he just reasoned it out.
WLaC is also good, because it describes the role of Capital itself within Capitalism as it relates to Workers, and thus allows Capitalists to exploit them.
CotGP is added because it clears up a ton of misconceptions people who have not read Marx yet consider themselves leftists have about Marx and what he advocated for, practically. He essentially dismantles a weak Socialist/Social Democrat plan and explains the transition to Communism. He even adds on just how lengthy a process reaching higher-stage Communism will be.
Edit for your edit:
Yep, it's always cool to see logical analysis lead to correct conclusions that later make themselves apparent. It's funny how often Marx ended up being correct even on limited information simply due to strong analysis.
Yeah I read WL&C after a failed attempt at reading Capital (I had never read much Marx other than the manifesto at that point) and realized I needed to understand his economics first, as I felt completely out of my depth. Turns out reading Capital v1, the first few chapters are just like that! But I'm glad I read WL&C, like you said its short and gave me something to chew on for a year or so before diving back into the big book.
I edited my comment above about CotGP. All solid recommendations, for exactly the reasons you state.
Does multiple research papers count? All of them related to the Relational Model, the foundation for relational database management systems. I'm also currently digging through the Postgres manual (only 3000 pages short).
If you want to read more, don't listen to others with recommendations. Find something that you like and find books about it. Don't like it, find another and sell or giveaway your first one. Everyone can read, but not everyone is made to read heavy tomes and they also don't need too!
I've just remembered that like 10 years ago my go-to answer for people bothering me at work with my headphones on just to ask me what Im listening to (wtf??), was just that - "To the Communist Manifesto ofc!"
Sometimes I would spice it up with like a Communist Manifesto - Mein Campf remix or last Sundays black mass I missed, praised be Lucy, the bringer of light.
I've def trained people not to ask me stupid or personal questions unless they actually mean it.
I don't understand nor know how to do small talk, ok?
Highly recommend:
Crucible of War
Einstein's Telescope.
1176 BC
The other side of history: daily life in the Ancient world
Audiobooks take away the imaginative ideas of the readers experience of the tales. I like to imagine for myself the feelings of the characters in their given situations.
I disagree. While books might be more imaginative, as you can read the lines the way you like, most of the times, at least in fiction, the emotions are written out. Oftentimes, because of that I need to go back because I read the paragraph "wrong". And that's just one part of the imaginative experience. While listening to an audiobook the way you see the setting, the characters and their actions is still entirely up to you. It's fine that you, personally, prefer books. But that doesn't make audiobooks bad.
Audiobooks are also passive listening which is not cognitively absorbed as thoroughly as active reading. IMO you have not "read" a book if you just listened to someone read it to you. Reading with your own eyes engages more thinking processes, forcing the reader to think more about what they've read.
1984 is still a work of fiction, and one that is not really making suggestions on how to combat dystopia. It's a warning, sure, but reading leftist theory that actually makes analysis and provides suggestions on what to practically do is more useful.
1984 doesn't have a happy ending, unless your idea of a happy ending is a man going insane. Oceania was always a lost cause. The point of warnings is that you're supposed to avoid the thing they're warning you against.
The Oceania itself could not be reformed from the inside, it had to be dismantled, and ultimately isn't by the end of the book, yes. Orwell never tries to show how to fix the problem, nor does he explain the mechanisms or forces that led to Oceania. Thus, 1984 is a depiction of what could be, in order to say "avoid this," without recommending a course of action.
Leftist theory on the other hand does focus on mechanisms, existing material conditions, frames of analysis, and propositions to enact change and what change to enact.
1984 is a fine book to read for enjoyment, but not for changing society.
The only rebellion shown in the book is Goldstein's manifesto and even that turns out to be a lie. The State invented Goldstein's rebellion to weed out Thought criminals. And Winston fell for it.
Yep, it does a great job of just being doomer and fun to engage with on the basis of story, but not applicable to reality.
The point (which I guess I needed to point out) is that this isn't a work of fiction, anymore. Government has been granted unprecedented power to conduct surveillance on innocent people with no warrants or accountability. Companies carry out data harvesting and location tracking in nearly every consumer product connected to the Internet. Microsoft has literally incorporated spyware into Windows 11 (CoPilot / Recall). We are living in a real life surveillance state right NOW and our government and corporations are clearly fine with it. And that's where the "how-to" guide comes into it. That's the BAD THING. I really didn't think I needed to spell it out, but damn.
Yes, we already live in a dystopia, reading 1984 does not tell people how to escape that in any capacity nor does it suggest how to prevent it.
Orwell literally fought on the side of anarcho-communists in the Spanish civil war though. Doesn't that tell you a bit about what type of system he was criticising with the book?
