I want to understand leftist philosophy/political thought. Where should I start? What's worth reading and what isn't...

I want to understand leftist philosophy/political thought. Where should I start? What's worth reading and what isn't? Should I read Capital, or will secondary literature suffice?

>philosophy/political thought
what did he mean by that?

Leftist is a bit to broad of a term to undertake. What do you mean by leftist? Do you mean the ideology of the political parties around the globe that are often considered left-wing? Because they have no real common coherent ideology, only similar qualities.
Now, if you want to understand MARX, you absolutely have to read Marx himself (and Engels). And Capital is a quite poor starting point, and so is the communist manifesto. If you want a philosophical introduction, start with Thesis on Feuerbach and continue with Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith and The Principles of Communism. For a more practical angle into his economics, start with Value, Price and Profit and follow up with Wage labour and capital. All these texts are very short and you can download them as PDFs.

Okay, thank you for the info. Yeah, I mostly mean Marx and offshoots of Marx (as I understand it, the Frankfurt School is an example). Is Hegel necessary?

I also want to understand. How is the Frankfurt School an offshoot of Marx?

"Although sometimes only loosely affiliated, with some authors preferring the term "Frankfurt circle" rather than reference the school,[2] these theorists spoke with a common paradigm in mind; they shared the Marxist Hegelian premises and were preoccupied with similar questions.[3] To fill in the perceived omissions of classical Marxism, they sought to draw answers from other schools of thought, hence using the insights of antipositivist sociology, psychoanalysis, existential philosophy, and other disciplines.[4] The school's main figures sought to learn from and synthesize the works of such varied thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber, Simmel, and Lukács.[5][6]


Following Marx, they were concerned with the conditions that allow for social change and the establishment of rational institutions.[7] Their emphasis on the "critical" component of theory was derived significantly from their attempt to overcome the limits of positivism, materialism, and determinism by returning to Kant's critical philosophy and its successors in German idealism, principally Hegel's philosophy, with its emphasis on dialectic and contradiction as inherent properties of human reality."

I agree with this.

I don't think it is necessary. Better to read other marxists and just get involved in reading leftist thinkers then and now. Hegel is deep shit and not leftist in the same sense of others, it's more broad philosophy than that, you can read him later.

I think the capital is pretty long and mostly concerned of the economic aspect of communism.

I suggest the Communist Manifesto, The Soul of Man under Socialism and Why Socialism?

And two smaller works that inspired the Capital: Value, Price and Profit and Wage Labour and Capital.

If you want to get an idea on what the Capital is about without reading all the volumes, i suggest reading Otto Ruhle's abridgment.

Read the communist manifesto, then read Socialism by Mises. Everything else is a giant waste of time desu

...

>Where should I start?
With the New Testament.

Thanks. Where are these from?

*tips feudalism*

t. brianlet marxist

Wikipedia

t. ancap who's ideology was never implemented anywhere

>ancap
lol no. Youre just a brainlet lashing out at boogeymen. Anarchism of any kind if fucking retarded, even more so than marxism. It amazes me how Marxist insulate themselves within echo chambers and NEVER actually question their dogmatic adherence to such a failed ideology by doing nothing but engaging in sophistry

>wanting to understand jewish subversion of european civilization
Don't bother, read CofC.

If you are against communism as an economic mode of production then you are probably a capitalist. The argument about eco chambers can be applied to every single ideology that exists. What type of ideology or economic policy do you believe could be the best for the world?

>If you are against communism as an economic mode of production then you are probably a capitalist.
yeah, no shit. Why would you assume that ancaps are the ONLY capitalist that exist? Especially when you said yourself that ancap has never been implemented?

>The argument about eco chambers can be applied to every single ideology that exists.
yeah, including marxism. How does this in any way refute what I said? how is this not a classic case of soviet whataboutism?

Marxist get mad at reality for proving that command economies suck shit

Not much to understand.

>Erase or minimize tradition. Socially engineer through mass propaganda and control of institutions. Reform. Tax. Centralize. Redistribute.
>Sympathize with the criminal, the druggy, the prostitute, the pathetic. Do everything you can to help those who don't care to help themselves... through govt action. Have a contempt for the rich and successful, the well-established, propertied, and families that have played it smart through generations.

Don't read Hegel if you want to remain a leftist. He's literally a Christian mystic singing the heavenly crucible.

I made that assumption because you referenced Mises and he seems to be popular with ancaps. I didn't refute your argument, on the contrary as I said, I believe it can be applied to every ideology.

I don't understand the idea that if a text gets misinterpreted by some later person of power and said person of power uses their misinterpretation to perpetrate something idiotic, then it's the text's fault. This happens to Marx and Nietzsche the most from what I've seen

You need to know your Hegel, if you want to understand Adorno's project with negative dialectics, desu. In more than at a superficial level, that is.

>t. posting from the wealthiest economy ever, also a command economy

You can't be a Christian if you identify Absolute Knowing with its object; the Creator is not His creation.

The issue, in my opinion, is that the core tenets of tenets of communism have value exclusively as a critique of capitalism and not as a coherent ideology in the sense that a political unit can be constructed around it. It's an oft-quoted fact by both Marxists and anti-Marcists, depending on the situation, that Marx never described the functioning of a communist state, outside of a few basic observations which included the eventual dissolution of the state. So I don't think it's a misinterpretation so much as it is a purposeful perversion of his work. Lenin for instance was extremely well read in Marx, as was Trotsky.

That being said, communism as a political ideology seems to always have the exact same problems (inefficient distribution, corruption, etc.) and that seems endemic to any political manifestation of an otherwise purely critical doctrine.

>This happens to Marx and Nietzsche the most from what I've seen
It's also the whole basis of fedora atheism - the American Bible Belt is unpleasant, therefore the Bible itself must be wrong

The obvious figure is Marx. Marx comes out as a fusion of German Philosophy and English political economy, so I’d consider Kant-Hegel and Smith-Ricardo to be helpful background. Before approaching Marx I’d recommend reading

The Worldly Philosopher by Robert Heilbronner, this is just a basic ‘history of economics’ and while there is just one chapter on Marx, it does a great job contextualizing him and giving a basic account which is both sympathetic and critical. Also Hegel by Fredrick Beiser is you aren’t versed in philosophy, by Charles Taylor if you are. I know there is an audiobook of Worldly Philosophers on pirate bay. Even people not interested in Marx should check that out.

As for secondary lit on Marx, Marx’s Capital by Ben Fine is a good intro and summary of Capital. Brunhoff’s Marx on Money, and Rubin’s Essays on the Labour Theory of Value are excellent explications for two particularly difficult parts of his economics.

I’ll also point to;

Hobson’s Imperialism

Luxemburg - Accumulation of Capital

Henry Braverman’s Monopol Capital and the Labour Process

Harvey - Limits of Capital

As books which made important elaborations on Marx.

Optional: [The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx by E. Mandel is an important piece of Marxology, as is The Making of Marx’s Capital by R. Rosdolsky. Another important work of interpretation is An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx’s Capital by Michael Heinrich, despite being called an introduction this is truely closer to a work of commentary, and presenting a particular viewpoint]

As for Marx himself, if you are interested more in his historical/political/philosophical side I’d refer to The Thesis on Feuerbach, The German Ideology Pt.1, the Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Poltical Economy, and his historical pieces like Civil War in France and 18th Brumaire.

For his economic side I’d start with Value, Price and Profit, then proceed to Capital. It’s not nearly as difficult as people say it is, just long, and definitely requires careful attention and focus. I’d diswade the use of Harvey’s book as a Companion because some transcription errors have come to light, but the YouTube lectures are decent.

In all honesty, Capital Vol 1 is absolutely worth reading first hand. It reads like a work which was consciously intended as World Literature. It is absolutely loaded with irony, sarcasm, and allusions to great works of literature. There have been entire monographs written on the literary quality of Capital, with all it’s references to Shakespeare and Balzac, apart from its politics it’s worth reading as literature. The other two volumes were never finished, and they don’t have this polished quality that the first has, so I wouldn’t fault you for just trying to get the gist from secondary sources, if you aren’t invested in the whole picture by the end of vol 1, that’s a totally fair thing to do.

Marxism after Marx by McLellan and Understanding Marx by Geoff Boucher are great for getting a broad strokes outline of the various trends of Marxism. Also The Main Currents of Marxism (3 vols) by Leszek Kołakowski is widely seen as authoritative, even by Marxists despite being explicitly anti-Marxist. From Marxism to Post-Marxism by Therborn covers more recent developments. A number of books by Perry Anderson; Considerations on Western Marxism, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism, Debates Within Historical Materialism, are all useful but deeper cuts. Twentieth-Century Marxism: A Global Introduction is an essential work if you want to understand Marxism not as a western academic trend but as a worldwide political movement, this is a survey level look at various Marxist movements in Asia, Africa, and South America mostly.

On liberal feminism;
Vindication of the Rights of Women by Wollstonecraft,
The Subjection of Women by JS Mill,
Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedman

Class conscious feminism starts with Engels in ‘Origin of the Family, State, and Private Property’. The writing of Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai are important in this early development.

It really enters its own with Lise Vogel’s Marxism and the Oppression of Women. Marla Mises, and Sliva Federici are two other really important figures here.


On race issues, it can be interesting to start with Fredrick Douglas, but I’d say the first major analytic works are from WEB du Bois. His Souls of Black Folks is essential, but he has a load of important writings. In this same time period Marcus Garvey represents the other main school of black liberation writings.
In the following generation of course the speaches and writings of Martin Luther King, with Letter from a Birmingham Jail being very very important. The Autobioography of Malcolm X also.

Angela Davis - Women, Race and Class

Huey Newton - Revolutionary Suicide

CLR James - Black Jacobins

Cedric Robinson - Black Marxism

Frantz Fanon - Wretched of the Earth

These are works Id consider important

part of the point I'd say is that the process of "reaching" communism is advanced by relentless criticism and action against capitalism. Or more broadly that the project should entail a superation of the current order of things, and marxist critique provides a theoretical basis for enacting that and understanding what's at stake

Google "bloodyshovel biological leninism". You're welcome.

not the guy you're responding too, but even if he isn't really a Christian, he is a Christian mystic. Also if you agree with Hegel you think the nuclear family is the best thing since sliced bread, and constitutional monarchies make your dick hard.

>ant to understand leftist philosophy/political thought.
>REEEEEEEEE FUCK SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
you're welcome

this post reeks of USA

Article started off rough, and I wish he had talked more about the actual structure of those governments. His point about loyalty among the low-status is good though.

The Bible :^)

No I’m pretty sure the absence of evidence for any specific religious belief is the foundation for atheism. Fedora atheism is a backlash against dominating institutions telling them what to do on the basis of misguided belief.

what is this /pol/ garbage