Reddit mentions: The best communism & socialism books

Below is my usual list of introductory material. It is not really what you want. I like your idea of a reading list which starts from the fundamentals, but I don't know of any. In your case I would recommend the first volume of Marx's Capital which is surprisingly accessible and still a very good description of capitalism. If you are unfamiliar with Marxist terminology, reading something like David Harvey's Reading Marx's Capital along with it could be useful.

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Online introductions:

• The Wikipedia entry for libertarian socialism actually gives a pretty good overview.
  
  
• An Anarchist FAQ is dense but has good material -- it is especially good at differentiating traditional anarchism from US-style libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. You will find many references to other works in the FAQ.
  
  Books:
  
  
• The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. It is old, a classic, but it provides examples rather than formal/philosophic arguments so it is still quite readable and relevant today. It will give you a good idea of where modern anarchist communists are coming from.
  
  
• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. It is long and sometimes repetitive, but each chapter can be read independently so you don't need to read it cover-to-cover. It provides a view of American history from a working-class perspective including the many contributions of anarchist and other socialist movements.
  
  
• A book like Paul Eltzbacher's The Great Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major Thinkers which provides an overview of the various anarchist founding philosophers is a good idea.
  
  
• I think Peter Gelderloos writes clear introductory material. I've not read his latest (The Failure of Nonviolence), but you can read Anarchy Works online.
  
  
• John Holloway's Crack Capitalism [pdf] is an introduction to a libertarian Marxist approach to resisting capitalism and the state. It might be too "lifestyle" for some people's tastes (he suggests reading a book in a park instead of going to work as an anti-capitalist action, for example).
  
  
• It's a bit outside the main thrust of the anarchist tradition (which is often focused on class struggle), but one of my favorite books is Crispin Sartwell's Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory which provides counter arguments to several justifications for states, especially the various contract theories.
  
  Other reading guides:
  
  
• Phoenix Class War Council's Recommended Reading
  
  
• Libcom.org's reading guide

I won't put too much in here because I have other stuff to do this morning, but you've got a lot more to cover if you want a well-rounded survey of anarchism. I tend to prefer economic/historical analyses myself so I'll leave a couple here:

AnCaps aren't anarchists but Market (aka Libertarian) Socialists are. Here's a good collection of essays available for free online from the publisher. It includes historical works by Proudhon and DeCleyre, moving forward with early 20th century thinkers like the American Benjamin Tucker, and culminates with some modern Market Anarchist essays on the origins of intellectual property, capitalism, and other modern forms of government enforced privilege.

Markets Not Capitalism

This next book is a meticulous and deeply methodological survey of a few classical anarchists according primarily to their economic philosophy. It's a great resource if you can handle the pedantic, almost-mathematical analysis it puts forth. It lays out some really semi-formal language at the beginning and proceeds to analyze the Anarchists in terms of this formality. In that regard it reminds me a bit of Marx's Capital, but we'll get back to him in a second.

The Great Anarchists

I'd suggest you take at least a couple of classes into analysis of figures and ideologies that are not traditionally thought of as anarchists but have a subversive and anti-authority message. There are TONS of these if you look around but the two I'd mention here are Karl Marx and Ted Kaczynski ("the UNABOMber"). I'll link the the Kaczynski overview here but his most famous publication was called "Industrial Society and its Future" (ostensibly written collaboratively with a whole group called FC or the Freedom Club).

Marx, theoretician of anarchism

What Marx Should Have Said To Kropotkin

Ted Kaczynski

Lastly you mentioned Catalonia, no reading on Anarchist Catalonia is complete without Sam Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939 which if I remember correctly contains at least one essay on the topic from the author Leval you cited.

The Anarchist Collectives

Cheers and have fun!

edit: ohgod where did my morning go

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Politics-Jinping-Era-Reassessing/dp/0815726929/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481368442&sr=8-1&keywords=cheng+li

Book.

Edit: Pretty good book. Level headed. Here's an excerpt.

>BROAD CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE XI LEADERSHIP
The tension between Xi’s concentration of individual power and China’s past practice of collective leadership has become especially significant at a time when the country is confronting many daunting challenges. Over the past several decades, China has been beset by growing wealth disparities, repeated industrial and environmental disasters, resource scarcity, public health and food safety crises, frequent instances of social unrest, and a manual labor shortage in some coastal cities, coinciding with high unemployment rates among college graduates. China’s economy faces serious and interrelated problems, including mounting local debt, the proliferation of shadow banking, overcapacity in certain industrial sectors, and a growing property bubble. The old development model, which relied on export-driven and cheap labor-oriented growth, has come to an end. Chinese labor costs have risen rapidly, and the country can no longer tolerate the previous growth model’s severe damage to the environment, including the pollution of air, water, and soil. But the new consumption-driven, innovation-led, and service sector–centric model has yet to fully take flight.

>Of course, Xi and his generation of leaders did not create these problems; they have largely inherited them from their predecessors. In fact, Xi’s bold economic reform agenda has sought to address many of these issues. Some argue that factional deadlock in collective leadership led to the Hu-Wen administration’s ineffectiveness during the so-called lost decade, when seemingly little could be done to counter rampant official corruption and the monopolization of SOEs. This rationale has apparently bolstered the case for Xi’s more forceful personal leadership.61 If a more balanced factional composition in the PSC leads to infighting, political fragmentation, and policy deadlock, why should China not organize leadership so that power is concentrated in the hands of Xi and his team? If collective leadership assigns each PSC member one functional area and thus leads to political fragmentation and poor coordination, why should more power not be given to the general secretary? If local governments have been the main source of resistance to reform initiatives, why should Zhongnanhai not establish the Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms at various levels of government to facilitate policy implementation? This line of thinking seems to explain the basis for the six-to-one split of the current PSC and Xi’s twelve top leadership posts.
But in consolidating power, Xi also runs a major political risk: If he cannot deliver what he has promised as part of his economic reform agenda, he will not have anyone else with whom to share the blame. The recent stock market crisis in China and the very strong government interference in order to “save the market” reflect Xi’s political vulnerability and his sense of urgency. Xi’s popularity among the general public, including the majority of the middle class, is always subject to change if China’s economic conditions deteriorate.

>Furthermore, Xi’s inclination for monopolizing power has alienated a large swath of China’s public intellectuals, especially liberal intellectuals. They were particularly dismayed in the early months of Xi’s tenure by orders instructing them not to speak about seven sensitive issues: universal values, freedom of the press, civil society, civil rights, past mistakes by the CCP, crony capitalism, and judicial independence.62 In public discourse, some of these topics remain very sensitive or even taboo. Media censorship has tightened under Xi’s leadership, as has the state monitoring and management of research institutes, universities, and NGOs.

>It should be noted that Xi’s politically conservative and economically liberal approach to governing mirrors the method preferred by his predecessors, who always seemed to take one step forward economically while taking a step backward politically. During his famous “Southern Tour” (南巡, nanxun) in 1992, Deng called for greater market reform and economic privatization, while continuing to crack down on political dissent. Jiang broadened the CCP’s power base by recruiting entrepreneurs and other new socioeconomic players, a formulation known as the “Three Represents” (三个代表, sange daibiao), while launching a harsh political campaign against the Falun Gong, an emerging religious group. Hu’s populist appeal for a “harmonious society” sought to reduce economic disparities and social tensions, all while tightening police control of society, especially in regions with a high proportion of ethnic minorities.

>And yet, Xi seems to face deeper and rougher political waters than any Chinese leader since Mao, with the very survival of the party-state resting in his hands. With the revolution in telecommunications and social media, the way China’s authorities manage domestic political issues—from human rights and religious freedom to ethnic tensions and media censorship—has increasingly caught the eye of the Chinese public and the international community. Xi’s decision to prioritize economic reforms may be strategically sound, but he may not be able to postpone much-needed political reform for too long. Xi must make bold, timely moves to implement political reforms—including increasing political openness and expanding the role of civil society—and address issues that are currently preventing China from blossoming into a true innovation-driven economy.
Likewise, Xi’s ambitious anticorruption campaign has not come without serious political risks. Though popular among the Chinese public, this ad hoc initiative may ultimately alienate the officialdom—the very group on which the system relies for steady governance. Ultimately, Xi’s limited crackdown on official corruption should not serve as a replacement for reinforcing the rule of law, adopting institutional mechanisms like official income disclosure and conflict of interest regulations, and, most important, taking concrete steps to establish an independent judicial system in China. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before a new wave of official corruption leaves the public cynical about Xi’s true intentions and the effectiveness of his signature campaign.
From an even broader standpoint, China’s history under Mao and Deng was one of arbitrary decisionmaking by one individual leader. This method is arguably unsuitable for governing a pluralistic society amid increasingly active interest group politics. Despite its deficiencies, collective leadership generally entails a more dynamic and pluralistic decisionmaking process through which political leaders can represent various socioeconomic and geographic constituencies. Bringing together leaders from contending political camps with different expertise, credentials, and experiences contributes to the development of more-effective governmental institutions. Common interests in domestic social stability and a shared aspiration to further China’s rise on the world stage may make collective leadership both feasible and sustainable. In this sense, Xi can modify and improve the system of collective leadership, which is still largely experimental. But it would be pretentious and detrimental to attempt to replace most of the rules and norms that have governed elite politics over the past two decades. One simply cannot turn the clock back to the old days of the Mao era, when China was far less pluralistic and far more isolated from the outside world.

I never said socialism was cancer or that I thought it was bad. I said that due to Communism in the past (and conseevative media + that book that "explains" why socialism works only to have pages saying that "it doesn't), socialism will always be a hard sell and is much better to rebrand and aim for the nordic economic system instead of trying to sell "democratic socialism". Hell, i have some outspoken conservatives hammer in the point to others that Socialism is literally communism(and i know that's not the case) and there's a good majority that support that belief (it's why Ontario has a Conservative goverment that is.... controversual). Hell, the Fightback Socialist club at our school gets roasted in the gossip pages daily and one year, my school had a pro-corpration political club at our club festival.

The book in question: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218 And I see that as an example of anti-socialist marketing being successful.

I know that capitalism is about the free market controlling the economy but we've known time and time that the free market could care less than the people that work and the people that buy goods (Fucking lootboxes). I know that Capitalism will always exist and be regulgated but people differ on the diffirent meanings of regulgation. I am sure that there are socialists who hate CEOs but companies will still be run by a board of people for top managment who take care of the long-run choices like a democracy. The people would be chosen by their merits and knowledge of the external and internal enviroment like any other company.

I hate that there's no clear black and white answer for politics and I want there to be. I want it to be one choice. That is, a system where one party rules all. If Tories win, they win all seats in the house. If Grits win, same story. I want there to be as little conflict as possible in politics so that I do not find myself at odds with others. I want there to be one outlet that I can listen to and not worry about being wrong. Democracy gives idiots a voice and that needs to change. I also want the goverment to have a plan for everyone that is best suited to people's capabilities so that I dont feel like I picked the wrong job or company or anything of that sort.

Lol, I totally understand. Still, I think there's considerable value in his works, particularly from the 80s. When he's working to synthesize the experience of socialism and advance its theory, it's pretty good stuff. When he's trying to convince people he's the only hope for the world, not so much.

Some other sources I've found useful:

A World to Win magazine had a number of important articles which are well worth digging into.

Corrigan, Philip, Harvie Ramsay, and Derek Sayer. 1979. For Mao: Essays on Historical Materialism. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.

Starr, John Bryan. 1979. Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

(These are from academics and focus more on the theoretical aspects. They're the best academic works I know of on Mao though and are very nice overviews.)

Another academic work which has an excellent chapter on Mao (though the bulk of it deals with other aspects) is Martin, Bill. 2008. Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. Open Court.

Badiou has a nice analysis of the GPCR in Badiou, Alain. 2008. The Communist Hypothesis. Verso.

(Some journalistic/historical accounts of Maoism in practice/development in China):

Belden, Jack. 1949. China Shakes the World. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Han Suyin. 1976. Wind in the Tower: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1948-1975. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Hinton, William. 1966. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. New York:
Vintage.

Horn, Joshua S. 1969. Away with All Pests: An English Surgeon in People’s China, 1954-1969. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Hunter, Iris. 1986. They Made Revolution Within the Revolution: The Story of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Chicago: RCP Publications.

Milton, David and Nancy Dall Milton. 1971. The Wind Will Not Subside. New York: Pantheon.

Myrdal, Jan. 1965. Report from a Chinese Village. New York: Signet.

Finally, Li Onesto has good book on the Nepalese revolution which unfortunately was betrayed by the leadership.

The first and hardest concept to grasp is that socialism is only an economic system. It is often conflated with the political system, communism, but both are very broad. Wikipedia's article is actually very good for an overview.

The question that neturally arises from an overview of socialism is, "well, how would we implement this so we can enjoy [insert level of quality of life]?" And that is a very involved discussion.

I've also found that Michael Harrington's Socialism: Past and Future to be a good read, but I'm sure there are others here that could recommend better books.

I don't know if you're still collecting, but I have a copy of Christianity and Communism Today, likely the 1960 revised edition. If it's of interest to you I'll send it along. Here's the Amazon link

http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Communism-Today-John-Bennett/dp/B002UQYG34

edit: to be clear - I'm talking about just sending this to you free. Like a good comrade would.

>The labor theory of value (upon which the notion of 'surplus labor' is based) fails because it treats economic value as mind-independent.

....

>But the fact is that a good only acquires economic value when people want that good. It has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of work that has to go into producing it - I could work really hard at coughing up a wad of phlegm.

Bad analogy and worse, you're intentionally associating a value and commodities with something bad with no intention of honest discourse.

Let's take a sword and use work and muscles to change raw iron into one. The work that goes into creating a cheaply made scimitar gives the iron a different value from one that gives us a stronger blade such as a Honzo. The way they are worked and created are also important to consider. What you're forgetting is that Marx was more interested in what happen during the work and how people were ripped off or exploited. You're more concerned about the end product and how it's shipped.

>The economic value of X is what you can get in exchange for X. And people will only give you something in exchange for your X if you can convince them that an X would be helpful in assisting them as a means to their ends.

Case in point. You focus more on the market after production has occurred and don't see what goes on in the enterprise. This hides you from the exploitation that Marx pointed out. If you don't see the exploitation and don't know it's occurring, how can you comment on it?

> "Marginal utilities" aren't some evil capitalist trick used to disguise exploitation, they're a fundamentally different way of looking at economics as a social science.

The person that rewrote and "disproved" the labor theory of value was

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

>Böhm-Bawerk was also one of the first economists to discuss Karl Marx’s views seriously. He argued that interest does not exist due to exploitation of workers. Workers would get the whole of what they helped produce only if production were instantaneous. But because production is roundabout, he wrote, some of the product that Marx attributed to workers must go to finance this roundaboutness, that is, must go to capital. Böhm-Bawerk noted that interest would have to be paid no matter who owned the capital. Mainstream economists still accept this argument.

He claims his theories close the book on Marxian economics

So what that allows everyone else to do is ignore any critical theories coming up against bourgeois economics and go in a different direction entirely. Eventually, that eliminates a generation of people from finding the very alternatives which Marx talked about.

So yes... The economics department has been hiding its criticisms for a while from looking to the alternative to capitalism.

Fun fact: Karl Marx's book, Capital, is shorter than the one he wrote about the Economic theory of Surplus Value where he wrote about each author that came before him.

Thats why democracy is bullshit at least in any form which we're likely to be exposed to.

For the United States there was never an intent to create a truly representational democracy. The goal was actually to protect the wealthy and powerful from the whims of the masses. This is why great disparities of wealth exist here even though these disparities are in fact detrimental to the majority of the population.

These are small books by Joseph Stalin on Marxist philosophy.

Dialectical and Historical Materialism

[Marxism and the National Question] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/149059065X/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_sims_2)

It's a popular argument on the internet that "communism has never been tried."

This is wrong. Communism has been attempted. Clearly, the largest attempt was not successful. Still, emerging governments all over the world attempt to create communist governments. In many cases, despite its failures, the theoretical outline of a communist government allows for the strongest case of independence from the largest ruling/imperial/colonial powers on earth (IE the united states). For this reason, people will continue to attempt to create communist influenced governments.

Edit: You don't seem to understand that I'm giving you an out here. I'm basically making every argument for you that you can still hold right political beliefs and not be default a nazi. I'm even fucking pointing out the history of anti-semitism in the communist party. I'm pointing out problems that communist governments have caused.

I'm not even trying to justify people like Chavez. I'm not bringing up that health care was universal under the soviets. I'm not talking about how Chavez oversaw the development of the best AIDS treatment program in the developing world. I'm not bringing up that his model was adopted practically all over the planet as the most affordable and effective plan for AIDS treatment.

All I'm trying to do is get you to understand that the Nazis were on the right. I'm not saying you're a Nazi. I've made the case for you to still hate progressives and communists and Marxists. All I'm trying to do is to get you to understand how the political compass is laid out. That's it.

Can't tell if this is a joke post, but in case you are serious, there's this website called Amazon, and on it you can buy pretty much every book ever published, including the collected speeches of our revered leader, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping ALL HAIL http://www.amazon.com/XI-JINPING-GOVERNANCE-English-Version/dp/7119090577/ If you are in China, you can find the English edition at any branch of Xinhua, and it's also all over Taobao for various prices (and various states of authenticity). After you've read Xi's "Little White Book" and contemplated his sacrosanct quotations and speeches, please do report back here with a review and interpretive analysis.

Well yeah, but that's pretty common knowledge (it should be, at least). China's party has been "communist" in name only since Xiaoping's reforms which hugely downgraded communitarian values. Russia's capitalism began with Yeltsin after the fall of the USSR, but their economy continues to stay a very managed capitalist economy under Putin today.

In fact, many would argue that the USSR was technically "State Capitalism" since Stalin, but that's a bit outside this scope.

Michael Harrington's Socialism: Past and Future is an excellent primer (though it assumes some familiarity with the topic and players at hand). I don't know that there can be a "best" book on socialism, but that's generally what I recommend to friends.

Harrington isn't primarily concerned with picking apart capitalism here, and it won't serve as a refutation of Friedman if that's what you're looking for -- it stays basically within the bounds of what the title suggests -- but it's a well-written, valuable read nevertheless.

Fascism is economically left, Third Position generally refers to right wing socially, left wing economically minded people that are anti-liberal democracy for various reasons. If you still want liberal democracy but support these ideas you're kinda at a dead end, old school (anti-war, anti-immigration, pro-worker, pro-family etc) leftists are either fascists or sell outs to poz now.

Some books to check out right wing socialist economics:

• Strasserism
  
  
• Corporatism
  
  
• Guild Socialism
  
  
• Distributism
  
  
• Syndicalism by Sorel, although I'm not sure which books it's best described in. I've seen Reflections on Violence recommended a lot.
  
  
• Juche, this is pretty much NazBol. You can find pdfs and stuff of his work online but I can't seem to find the link to this particular book, maybe it's under a different name or something.
  
  I recommend checking out Cultured Thug's youtube channel. Ba'athism is another interesting Third Position ideology you might like.
  
  >We must take from the right nationalism without capitalism and from the left socialism without internationalism.
  
  - Gregor Strasser

Schweikart's "After Capitalism" offers a critique of capitalism, arguments why socialism would do better, and a practical vision of how we might take concrete steps toward socialism. It is written with activists in mind and doesn't require alot of background knowledge.

http://www.amazon.com/After-Capitalism-New-Critical-Theory/dp/0742513009

Harrington's "Socialism Past and Future" is an outstanding historical and theoretical discussion of how socialists have interpreted 'socialism' and what the future of 'socialism' might be.

http://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Past-Future-Michael-Harrington/dp/1611453356

This piece by Bakunin is a pretty good introduction to what the First International socialists believed in and were trying to bring into fruition. This was the ideology of the Commanards, prior to the division of socialism into anarchist and state socialist camps. Other pieces by Bakunin, including "God and the State", are classics and can be found in the archive below.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1866/catechism.htm

A great intro to Communism is Philip Sharnoff's Principles of Scientific Socialism: A Primer on Marxism-Leninism. It presents all the main ideas of Marxism in a straight-forward and easily accesible manner.

I also recommend Political Economy: A Marxist Textbook by John Eaton for a more focused look at Marxist economics.

Both books are great for beginners. And I have the same problem with online material, so these books really helped me out.

Pat Sloan has a book called "Soviet Democracy" which talks about how unions and managers functioned in the 30's in the USSR, should offer a good model to help imagine what that could look like going further.

Paperback/Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1092297391/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_tYMUCbD9FD8BD

Free scanned PDF of the original text:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.261348

I agree some of your points but really want to save my keyboard, which is mechanical and quite extensive.

In terms of socialist, here is another book

https://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Road-Slavery-John-Coleman/dp/B003FXR43A

If some day there is a war between China and USA, and government wants to put me in a camp, I hope you will be against that. This is my only request for a socialist/liberal/progressive/social engineer/whatever...

It is an interesting experience to discuss with you. Thank you very much for your time.

Hello OP, I too am looking for a community that engaged in discussions revolving around Chinese politics. I don't think this one, or Sino are good at that. This one seems to be more complaining about living in China with the occasional politics topic, and Sino seems like it is run by Chinese bots praising everything China does. Anyways PM me if you find a community that discusses politics. In terms of getting a better understanding; I think you should read this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Politics-Jinping-Era-Reassessing/dp/0815726929/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

"Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein is an editorial that is a good (and short) read.

Jacobin Magazine has an "ABCs of Socialism" primer that is also fairly short and accessible.

Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread" is another good one -- and there is a version of it available for free on Amazon if you have a Kindle or the phone app. It has a handful of weird formatting/editing errors, like page numbers still being present in there.

There's a "crash course" essay on GitHub that is community-maintained; I haven't read through it, so I can't really speak for it, but the authors have a shitload of sources listed in there. Based on the stuff in the parent directory, I'm guessing the content is more SocDem-focused.

Marxists.org has a large library of Marx and Engels works in eBook formats if you're feeling ready for the harder stuff. Capital and ye olde Manifesto are the main highlights.

Black Socialists of America maintains another resource guide, but their site seems to be down at the moment. Edit: BSA's site is back up. Looks like they redesigned since the last time I looked at it, too.

Maybe not vital, I think you could get by with this if you don't have the time or enthusiasm for theory to read Capital. But it's an important book, and if you have any interest in being a well read Marxist, you might as well read what is essentially his magnum opus because you're going to end up reading 1000 plus pages of Marx anyway.

they took inspiration from the actual revolution that brought mao to power. if you are interested in that, this is the first political book i ever read and covers it extensively. but i dont think it has implications for the us, which lacks the population density and social structures present in 1940s chinese villages. (it is still a great fucking book).

Value, Price, and Profit + Wage-Labor and Capital are a great introduction to Marx's critique of political economy. You can find both on marxists.org or in print for only 8$ US (both pieces in one book) https://www.amazon.ca/Wage-Labour-Capital-Value-Price-Profit/dp/0717804704

David McLellan's commentary/anthology, The Thought of Karl Marx is arguably the best short one volume approach to Marx.

> This text provides the basic elements necessary for a grasp of the range and complexity of Marx's ideas. The first half of the book is a chronological account of Marx's ideas with a miniumum of biographical and historical detail. The second half is thematic and provides a concise summary of Marx's position, and extracts from his key texts on alienation, historical materialism, labour, class, the party, the state, revolution and future Communist society.

McLellan also wrote the most widely read biography of Karl Marx, and an all-you-need anthology.

When you feel ready to start reading about Marxism (as opposed to the works and ideas of Karl Marx), McLellan has a good overview in Marxism after Marx.

Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit is a very short booklet which covers basic Marxist economics. Das Kapital is Marx's Magnum Opus, so if you want to really get into the weeds, that is what you should read.

Professor Wolffs books are all very good, Democracy at Work as well as Capitalism's Crisis Deepens are both good and straightforward to read.

Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent is necessary reading to understand how the media has crucified leftist theory and pushed an anti-communist, anti-socialist message for decades.

>It always seemed like a purely emotional rather than logical anger toward the communists which annoyed me.

Of course it is entirely natural and understandable that innocents would be angry about the deportations, but that doesn't mean they weren't necessary

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marxism-National-Question-Joseph-Stalin/dp/149059065X

This is the translation I have and it's pretty good

It's an anthology of essays by quite a few different writers: Amazon.

The book on the left is How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America by Manning Marable.

Since you're interested, to the left there is also:
Reform or Revolution (Luxemburg), The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism (also Luxemburg), The April Theses (Lenin), History of the Russian Revolution, The Transitional Program, The General Strike (all Trotsky), Divide and Rule (Peter Hadden), Strike! How the Furniture Workers Strike of 1911 Changed Grand Rapids (Jeffrey Kleiman), Third Worldism: Marxist Critique of Imperialist Political Economy (Nikolai Brown), Democracy for the Few (Michael Parenti), and The Decay of Capitalist Civilization (Webb).

To the right, there's:
Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (Wolff), Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky), America's Road to Socialism (James Cannon), A Marxist Looks at Jesus (Milan Machovec), 1926 General Strike (Peter Taaffe), and The Masses Arise: The Great French Revolution (also Taaffe).

And at the top of the shelf I keep this little guy: Cover | Inside

Socialism/Communism

A People's History of the World

Main Currents of Marxism

The Socialist System

The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)

Marx for our Times

Essential Works of Socialism

Soviet Century

Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)

The Meaning of Marxism

The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)

Of the People, by the People

Why Not Socialism

Socialism Betrayed

Democracy at Work

Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)

The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)

The American Socialist Movement

Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)

It Didn't Happen Here

Eugene V. Debs

The Enigma of Capital

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)

After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action

Capitalism

The Conservative Nanny State

The United States Since 1980

The End of Loser Liberalism

Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)

Economics: A New Introduction (must read)

U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)

Kicking Away the Ladder

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Traders, Guns and Money

Corporation Nation

Debunking Economics

How Rich Countries Got Rich

Super Imperialism

The Bubble and Beyond

Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents

Trade, Development and Foreign Debt

America's Protectionist Takeoff

How the Economy was Lost

Labor and Monopoly Capital

We Are Better Than This

Ancap/Libertarian

Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)

Man, State and Economy

The Machinery of Freedom

Currently Reading

This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)

Is this a Warren Meme? It's pretty clever, tbh. Reminds me of this book on socialism.

I've read many books on socialism.

The evidence is very clear. I highly recommend read this book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=socialism&qid=1555585874&s=gateway&sr=8-5

To me, the best was "why socialism works" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218

Stalinism (an authoritarian form of socialism) is the most well known, and reviled, because of Cold War propaganda, but it worked pretty well. It's really the only form of socialism people know to have been fully implemented (Mao too but I don't know enough to comment on that) and since it was pretty evil in the beginning, people assume every form of socialism is inherently evil. Cuba has done pretty damn well despite being under intense embargos. Give Michael Harrington's book a read for a good recap of the history of socialism.

Then there's capitialism, which is a precursor to socialism, as it was a necessary evil (Industrial Revolution, for instance) to get us to be able to produce goods at a massive clip. I think in the beginning capitalism was fine for what needed to be done but it always ends in monopoly and incredible disparity because it relies on wealthy people being "well meaning" and "good" when we know they're not. Capitalism keeps people ruled by elites and allows us to...elect fascists like we have now. Nothing is perfect but I'm just asking you to challenge your preconceived notions of capitalism.

Apologize if this was hastily written, I'm about to drive somewhere.

Just order off of Amazon. Here's a good book. Why Socialism Works https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521531218/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_3VKYAbCJQKFAK

The wikipedia page gives a good idea what Marxism actually is: A specific way to analyse societies, originally developed by Marx. Usually, the SEP is a much better resource for philosophical topics, but it's rather brief on Marx himself.
From there you can go into as much detail as you want, but as with any philosophical school of thought, it gets deep (and complicated) very quickly. You could just read an introductory text, his actual works with some companion pieces, or even go back to the philosophers that he drew from in developing his ideas.

Free for your kindle:

https://smile.amazon.com/Conquest-Bread-Alekseevich-kniaz-Kropotkin-ebook/dp/B002RKSJ04/

There are a lot but you could start with The Case for Socialism by Alan Maass who points out that the term "left" in the context of political philosophy has its roots in the French Revolution and that later it was applied to socialism, communism, and anarchism.

It was in the late 19th Century when Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto that the terms "left wing" and "right wing" were established with "right wing" refering to capitalism, monarchism, and the general idea that social hierarchies are natural and inevitable.

You're downvoted because the labor theory of value was debunked over 100 years ago by Bohm-Bawerk.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Karl-Marx-Close-His-System/dp/1466347686/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bohm+bawerk&qid=1562712831&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Here's the link to the book if anyone is interested.

Most of the suggestions in this thread are specifically socialism from a marxist perspective. I think you might find Socialism: Past and Future by Michael Harrington an engaging and insightful read on socialism from another perspective.

For those curious: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218

Someone's basically already done that.

He sold a book entitled "why socialism works" and every page just reads "it doesn't". Check out the triggered customer reviews.

For all those on the left I have the "Perfect" book for you, it's #1 in the Political Ideologies section of Amazon! Why Socialism Works

An important book everyone thinking about joining these groups should read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218

I see you have never owned the libs by selling a book on Amazon called "Why Socialism Works" that actually only has the words "It doesn't" on every page

Relevant book:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218

That book got great reviews.

And you should read this: (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218)

Why Socialism Works https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521531218/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_MRaRBbEVFXRBD

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218

Why Socialism Works by Harrison Lievesley

Maybe read this book if you're having issues with defining socialism:

http://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Past-Future-Michael-Harrington/dp/1611453356

Check out The Governance of China by Xi Jinping.

https://www.amazon.com/China-Shakes-World-Jack-Belden/dp/0853451591

Archives for the links in comments:

• By hga_another (status451.com): http://archive.is/ow4sj
  
• By Gorgatron1968 (nydailynews.com): http://archive.is/K9jET
  
• By Gorgatron1968 (abc11.com): http://archive.is/B4fnX
  
• By Gorgatron1968 (abc11.com): http://archive.is/B4fnX
  
• By scsimodem (amazon.com): http://archive.is/KGSmr
  
• By A_Real_OG_Readmore (news.bbc.co.uk): http://archive.is/Krn94
  
• By finalremix (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov): http://archive.is/xhSR5
  
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Sim. Um óbvio plágio deste livro.
E provavelmente foi inspirado [neste] (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504059913&sr=8-1&keywords=why+socialism+works).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498567671&sr=1-1&keywords=why+socialism+works

>. Clinton could have just written fuck trump for 500 pages and I'd probably find a way to justify it being my favorite book of the year.

reminds me of this

It isn't just right-wing talking heads, though. In the book "Socialism: Past and Future," by Michael Harrington, there is an extensive analysis of all the different kinds of Socialism, and Michael Harrington himself acknowledges that even Socialists have difficulty defining exactly what Socialism is, and he was a Socialist.

http://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Past-Future-Michael-Harrington/dp/1611453356

This one actually exists.

At risk of copyright infringement, I will print here the entire text of the book here.

>It doesn't.