What are some good books about socialism or communism?

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marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/index.htm

Thr Communist Manifesto isn't worth reading at all [its just a propaganda polemic] and there's no way someone without any background in classical political economy will get anything out of Das Kapital

Fail. Too much "postmodernist" wankery.

Too narrow. Marx overload.

Much better. Nice balance.

Here's a nice mix: listmuse.com/best-anarchist-communist-socialist-books.php

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>"
>,so, it's

Well good. I never said anything about whether or not I agreed with it; I was merely suggesting that people shouldn't throw the term around as something synonymous with "bad dictatorship."

too much zizek, too little lukacs, no post-left on anarchism

this one is better but I still think people like castoriadis or pannekoek deserve a spot

First you should try to understand dialectic, especially materialist dialectic, and "linear history". Most socialists&communists (Marxists) base their opinion on this concept.

Anything by Lenin, look into his complete works

What is it then

Like this Seriously.
You millennial fucks read too much late 20th/early 21st century structuralist crap instead of the real thing.

DELETE THIS THREAD said the faggot. They did.

Start with the Greeks.

Who do you suggest reading for that?

inb4 "b-b-b-buh that wasn't really communism"

Are you autistic?

user meant that you showed so little understanding of fascism in your post that you proved your own point by falling into the category of people that know nothing about fascism

What book do I get which will teach me about the greeks?

Absolutely essential

LEOPOLD II WAS NOT A DICTATOR REEEEEEEEEE

He was a businessman who exploited the local people which resulted in many deaths, but he wasn't a dictator

>local monopoly on the use of force
>even literally called the congolese free STATE
Ok

Leopold makes especially plain the inherent nature of capitalism as a death march towards cronyism and accumulation of centralized state power to protect and advance private interests of the power elite.
He was the 19th century version of the drug cartel, even down to the same hollow, consumerist idolatry

When I said people don't bother to understand it I was just making a statement. I don't see why I should feel the need to explain fascism when that was never my goal.

To put it is broad terms, it's a type of government very much based around nationalism and a country becoming an independent unite. People can have businesses like in capitalism but the government has the ability to shut any down if they decide that the business is bad for the country. Nazi Germany's desire to become completely reliant on their own produced good is part of the reason they invaded other countries; they lacked the recourse to become completely self-sufficient and so had to get more land to get more resources. There is also only one party in charge with absolute control. They uses this control to better their country and work on becoming independent and self-sufficient. Any person or organization that stands in the way of that goal will be shut down immediately.

It wasn't communism, even by the standards of the Leninist regimes, who considered communism was at least a few hundred years away.

In the end, it's sort of a red herring. Both Stalinist state socialism and global capitalism have been tried and found lacking. Both systems are alike in their top down authoritarian nature. The market can be as dehumanizing and destructive as the worst totalitarian regimes. Libertarians end up sounding like autistic right-wing Marxists, ie. Real Capitalism™ has never been tried and all its perceived flaws are actually the State's fault.

Let's do the litmus test:
Stateless?
>n-no, force was monopolized by a central government, but-
Classless?
>no, it was administered by a clique of professional bureaucrats who leeched off the labor of others, but-
Ok
>but they CALLED it communist! They CLAIMED to represent and advance the interests of the proletariat! Refute that!

w-well fuck me

>tomorrow
>liberal democracy cancelled as Robespierre proved it could never work
>hereditary monarchy declared "the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
>Fukuyama hails the "end of history," suggests sanctioning and invading remaining democracies

Reactionary Monarchism is unironically the most patrician system of governance.

soviet propaganda: "were communist"
us propaganda: "theyre communist"
so dont even try to fight 50 + years of communism. dumb people wont budge

>US and Israeli propaganda both state Israel is doing nothing but justifiable self-defense in the west bank and Gaza
Gee, guess the /pol/tards have to close up shop then huh
It couldn't possibly be that a particular soundbite coming from two different governments with very strong though different incentives to sell it could ever be wrong, misleading or malformed.

You have exactly the sort of comically poor reasoning we are trying to get away from by coming here.

Ahhh none of those in anyway went anywhere near approaching communism but those 20th century states were socialist, maybe not a desirable form of socialism but state socialism none the less, and showed the limitations and strengths of state directed development. Quick rapid modernization and growth then slow stagnation and disillusionment followed by capitalist reforms.

Cool picture. I can do this too

wtf orwell was never an anarchist

Well, because you didn't minimize Hitler further, it kind of shows that you aren't understanding the chart.

Yes he was. Did you even read 'Homage to Catalonia'?

of course i fucking did
if you read it and thought he was advocating anarchism, go back and read it again

oh, and read what he wrote next, too

pic unrelated

The Road to Serfdom

>In England the real power belongs to unprepossessing men in bowler hats: the creature who rides in a gilded coach behind soldiers in steel breastplates is really a waxwork. It is at any rate possible that while this division of function exists a Hitler or a Stalin cannot come to power.

On the whole the European countries which have most successfully avoided fascism have been constitutional monarchies. The conditions seemingly are that the royal family shall be long-established and taken for granted, shall understand its own position and shall not produce strong characters with political ambitions. These have been fulfilled in Britain, the Low Countries and Scandinavia, but not in, say, Spain or Rumania.

If you point these facts out to the average left-winger he gets very angry, but only because he has not examined the nature of his own feelings toward Stalin. I do not defend the institution of Monarchy in an absolute sense, but I think that in an age like our own it may have an innoculating effect and certainly it does far less harm than the existence of our so-called aristocracy.

Orwell said that

Are you American? If so, that is probably the root cause of your confusion. To a large number of Americans, "socialism" and "communism" are synonyms. it would not be surprising to discover that you equate "anarchism" with the other terms too.

He literally wrote "As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists" on page 116.

Unless the autocrats are bad; why should they be any better than any other ruler?

What? The book discusses the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists at length.

That's the problem with all dictatorships. I was never trying to make an argument for fascism; just explaining what it is and why using it as a catchall term for any bad dictatorship would not be correct.

The Spanish anarchists i.e. the CNT weren't really anarchists though. they were more like Orwell's model socialists.
And, in the end, he didn't join them, nor did he join any anarchist group after that.

The reality is that Orwell was a complex person whose beliefs don't really fit standard definitions.

>anarcho-syndicalists
>anarchists

Do please be consistent in your terms

Praise be to Lord Milton.

Who is this woman?

The only good Austrian, not for his economics of course, but for his political theory. Except for Schumpeter of course.

>The reality is that Orwell was a complex person whose beliefs don't really fit standard definitions.

No one is claiming he wasn't a "complex person". The point is that "Homage to Catalonia" is a relevant book for those interested in anarchism. That's why it's on the list.

>anarcho-syndicalists
>anarchists
>Do please be consistent in your terms

What? Anarcho-syndicalism is a subset of anarchism.

A Road to Serfdom is essential.

Totally wrong Marx continually references the economists he is critiquing. It is perfectly understandable without reading smith or Ricardo

Probably some libertarian fuck who thought Orwell was the liberator of ancaps or some shit and found out he was an actual anarchist, prompting to go full damage control mode when he realizes any of the "serious" authors (what he had to read for high school) weren't full DONT TRED ON MEH retards like himself.

This. Orwell was redder than Brecht.

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bailey helen

Thanks

>Helen
>The face that launched a thousand ships

If a text is 1) of any interest to a reader, 2) historically consequential (to the point that it is regularly referenced in discussions, yes, even among potentially know-nothing teenagers) and 3) short, then the reader should read it.

Because a) the reader will then be able to (begin to) form his own informed opinion of the text, /having actually read it and all/, b) he will actually understand, or at a bare minimum have certain context when others again discuss the text or related items, and c) even if the reader ultimately forms a negative opinion of the work (as you have), his short amount of reading time is totally recouped in that /he has produced useful personal knowledge at the expense of an afternoon/, as in the above. He has spent his short amount of time in a productive manner in that he can now participate in a discussion about the short text itself, and ask meaningful questions on related topics. He can demonstrate his knowledge and/or opinion to others.

That other guy is quite right to suggest reading a historically important, short text as one starting point. Also, consider what you're doing. You're on Veeky Forums, telling people not to read [something]. This should automatically ping anyone's bullshit meter.

Now for a long work, one of course has to do a bit more research. You don't want to be a third of the way through [insert interminable, long meme text here: the fountainhead?] and only then think to yourself Why The Fuck Am I Doing This.

marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1968/reading-capital/

>fascism
>radical right

Thanks mang, I've been feeling like I've become too ideologically biased towards conservatism lately and have been looking to give lefties a fair shake. I'mma try and read all of these so I can objectively know the whole truth and either convert to being a leftist, or have ammunition for arguing with leftists

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I plan on giving this leftist chick (Lukács spouter) a dicking this weekend.

Recommendations for political statements between grunts?

>Fascism is probably the most misunderstood political system.

Literally the "pick up that can" system

Legalism deserves a second chance.

fiction - Darkness at Noon

Other user's answer is retarded. Fascism (bound fascii) is the binding together of labor, production and governance, a totalitarian state. A more appropriate word is corporatism.