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
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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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.
You can hardly be taken serious if you haven't read Stalin, too, you know. /s
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I'm reading all six Dune books at once and I'm hella confused
It might be helpful if you finished one book first before you start another.
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
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Choose your own adventure.
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.
Have you read any Domenico Losurdo? I want to, but am afraid it will be a dense read.
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!
Including fornication capable products derived from wood cellulose.
So, besides the Kama Sutra, what else would you recommend?
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.
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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).
I do recommend audiobooks! If you haven't tried one yet, please do so.
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!
those are my favourite kinds of books!
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?
are the books fucking or are they about fucking? are pictures included?
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