Any DUers well-versed in Karl Marx's writings? ...... Which book would you recommend as an intro?

[marmar]

I've only read the odd excerpt, but I'm very intrigued by his theories. Not that I'm trying to delve into Marxism, but quite a bit of the few Marx writings I've read make a lot of sense.
Anyway, just looking for a book rec for intro to Karl Marx.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. When it comes to Marxism...

I have always been a Groucho man, myself.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Read Engels instead. He actually writes with humor at times. nt

[Duer 157099]

3. Good question! I just today got an audiobook called

"Marx in 90 Minutes"

http://www.amazon.com/Marx-90-Minutes-Philosophers/dp/1566633559/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236224712&sr=8-1

Haven't listened to it yet, so can't advise yet.

The weird thing, though, is the audio is 1 hour and 42 minutes. I guess those extra 12 minutes are .... ? can't come up with a good punchline, but I bet there's one out there

edit to say: hah, the jokes is on dyslexic me! the audio length is actually 1 hour and *24* minutes -- but again I ask - where are those extra minutes????

[marmar]

5. Sounds cool.....Thx for the link.

n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

26. extra 12 minutes........ shared by the masses ? belong to the state ?

The silence between sentences ?

[deaniac21]

4. Duck Soup is great.

[BuyingThyme]

6. The Audacity of Hope.

Just kidding.

Hey, I said I was just kidding!

Get off it; it was just a little joke!

I hate you guys.

[Duer 157099]

7. LOL, I laughed n/t

[tavalon]

24. Once again, the axiom "Never drink water while reading DU"

comes in handy. You would have owed me a keyboard, you rascal!

[Jack Rabbit]

8. I'd start with the Communist Manifesto

Some other economic pamphlets, like Wage-Labour and Capital can be recommended.

I'd also get into the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. That shows the humanist side of Marx. I like the idealistic young man better than the stodgy old analyst of Capital.

To better understand the philosophical underpinnings of Marx, I suggest Reason and Revovultion by the late Herbert Marcuse.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Along Marx's works you should dable in EP Thomson's critique of it

he is a british neo marxist and updated a lot of it, to about the 1960s and 70s

His work is brilliant when it comes to colonialism and the critique off

Now if you really want to start in an ordered fashion, before you read Marx read Hegel. The Dialectic comes straight from Hegel's dialectic

By the way, neither Marx, Engels or Hegel are easy readying, but EP Thomson is

Now on the pure propaganda level... IV Lenin... he was a master...

Many a times I have wondered whether we should have informal graduate level discussions on this site... serious

(And yes, I took a class on colonialism so got to do a lot of this work)

Sartre, though very different in the way he understood it is also interesting

And of course don't forget our own US Socialists... like oh Upton Sinclair

[Captain Hilts]

13. Reading Thomson is good advice, reading Hegel isn't! Man, Hegel is tough going....nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I know hegel is a pain to read

reality is Das Kapital is just as much a pain

I HATED having to do that... truly hated it

Why I'd start with Thomson

[Captain Hilts]

20. What do you think of Polanyi's Great Transformation?

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Not much something new to add to the readying list...

Thanks

[Bjorn Against]

10. Read the Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto should be required reading for everyone, agree with it or not it really is a very well written book and it explains the ideas behind Communism in a way that is very easy to understand. There is a reason that the book still frightens the right-wing so much to this day a century and a half after its publication, and when you read it you will quickly figure out what that reason is.

[Captain Hilts]

15. That's actually an easy read. nt

[napoleon_in_rags]

11. There's the historical and modern perspectives.

From a historical view, the Communist Manifesto is a must read. From a modern perspective, many of the most relevant Marxists...well, aren't Marx, but their work can be found online as a sort of evolving thing. For sort of a bridge in between, I really liked reading Trotsky, and here is a broad selection from old to modern:

http://marxists.org/archive/selected-marxists.htm

Anyway, the stuff I find really interesting is viewing it in terms of the peak resource crises we face. In Rush's speech, he identified part of the conservative agenda as focusing on the "elevation" of the poor rather than "bringing down" the rich. What's interesting about this thinking is that it has a lot of validity in a time of expansion and vast resources: You get 10 otherwise idle people to dig gold from the ground, and they still get richer even if the capitalist takes half of it from each of them. In comparison, the "zero sum game" of class dialectics as presented by Marx could be viewed as less productive. However, all this changes when sustainability, rather than expansion, becomes the fundamental mode of existence in a civilization. Marxist ideas become a lot more relevant, and I'm not talking about class conflict over resources, I'm talking about ALL of it. Read it with this in mind for a very fresh and relevant perspective, you won't regret it. :)

[marmar]

12. JackRabbit, NadinBz, Bjorn, Napoleon.......Thank you for the recs.....

Next stop, the Shaman Drum bookstore in Ann Arbor.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. SOme of these you may be able to find on the puter

search the gutemberg project, for example

[Captain Hilts]

14. Ya know, reading Habermas's most accessible - and shortest - book, "Legitimation Crisis,"

wouldn't be a bad place to start, actually. What he says relates to the collapse of the Soviet state as well as some problems in the West. It was written in the early '70s. He's a Marxist.

You might also want to look at Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation. It's about efforts to resist the industrialization of Britain. He's also a Marxist.

[marmar]

17. Claro que si.......I'll check those out as well.

More importantly, it gives me an excuse to spend most of Saturday at the bookstore with a latte. :)

[Captain Hilts]

19. It's amazing how much I enjoy sitting and reading in coffee shops. I'm so easily entertained.

[marmar]

21. Same here brother........

A book, an iPod and a hot cup of java are quite the combo.

[Davis_X_Machina]

22. "Karl Marx, Poet of Commodities"...

...the chapter on Marx in Robert Heilbronner's The Worldly Philosophers.

[Captain Hilts]

23. You know, that's a terrific book. Particularly about some of the lesser known economic -

philosophers. Like the guy named F... who said that kids would love to work in slaughter houses!

[OutNow]

27. If you can find it - Lenin on Marxism

I used "Lenin on Marxism" several times in my Economic Systems class about 30 years ago. It is easy to read and understand, but may be out of print. Back then, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, you could buy all the books by Marx, Engels, etc. for a very low price from Moscow. Today, even books on Marxism have to make a profit I suppose.

[ddeclue]

28. Perhaps you should be looking for socialistunderground.com ?

instead of democraticunderground.com?

:rofl: