Hello. I have been hearing a lot of proponents of hard left policies talk about the inherent problems with the State and with capitalism (and connections between the two things).
I want to know more about those two things specifically. I want to know the arguments that support those ideas, which are based on evidence and clear, honest reasoning. I want a book (or books) or a series of articles or w/e that explains, in the most unbiased, most intellectually honest way what the problem (or problems) is/are with the State and with capitalism.
It might seem like a very redundant request, and it's possibly better to make it in the lit. thread than it is to make a new one, but I wanted to make sure I get the specific requirement of clean analysis and proof across.
It's very important to me that my "introduction" to an ideology be made in a rigorous, no-bullshit kind of way.
This is the next best thing after primary literature; the creator, Brendan McCooney, does a great job of explaining the essential concepts.
The primary literature I recommend would be The German Ideology, chapter 1 (only relevant chapter) -→ Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 -→ Wage Labour and Capital. After these you can start tackling the first volume of Capital. I repeat: nothing beats primary sources for the most accurate representations.
What a coincidence to see this post after I said nothing beats primary sources, because there are a few problems and inaccuracies with this work of Heinrich, notably that he makes the mistake of making a distinction between value and exchange-value and conflates exchange-value with price, see this passage from p. 42: This work by Mark Worrell goes into detail about why this is misleading and probIematic for a work that attempts to clarify Marx's Capital: web.cortland.edu/worrellm/Papers_files/A Faint Rattling.pdf.
On top of this, in Heinrich's intro, the heading of chapter 3 as "Use value, exchange value, and value" is a bit of a red flag too (no pun intended).
Thanks based Leftcom. Out of interest, are there any online spaces where Leftcoms are active? I know of /r/ultraleft, /r/marxism_101 and /r/leftcommunism but those are not really active by my standards.
Brody Davis
any short reads by marx that actually discuss theory?
so not the commiefesto or capital
Chase Hill
Wage Labour and Capital
Jace Turner
That is a good text, but for Engels I am more likely to recommend Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Origin treats a much more anthropological surface which, while definitely useful, I would not say is good general introductory material.
That's about it. There was once a big presence of left communists on RevLeft, but there were two great purges by the administration that, when coupled with the general disdain of left communists on reddit, has killed off a lot of left communist activity on the web. There's still a minority of leftcoms there and there are some on the libcom.org forums, but that along with the subs you listed is basically it.
An IRC exists with a couple hundred users but it is not going to be public for the time being at risk of getting targeted by retards (there was another public IRC before that and a Discord after that; the second a link was handed out, things turned to shit because of infiltrators from the r/shitliberalssay and r/fullcommunism clique having their groups start drama)
The Manifesto is not useful and you will ultimately want to read Capital for a thorough understanding, but the ones I posted here are all very short and include WLaC which mentions.
Landon Sanders
...
Austin Morgan
Yeah, and its badly outdated, too. Relates neatly to OP, tho.
Noah Gutierrez
There's some on the libcom boards if that counts.
Kevin Russell
I mentioned that, see:
Anthony Hernandez
oops
Ryder Reyes
I've gotta stop posting when tired…
Asher Howard
Honest question, why is this? Is it just because they're tankies? If MLs and Trots can tolerate eachother then why is even mentioning r/ultraleft a bannable offense? They don't even seem to ban people for being openly anti-communist sometimes, what gives?
Kevin Young
When you talk about German Ideology chapter 1, are you referring to the entirety of Part I, or the section A. Idealism and Materialism?
Ethan Smith
Graeber - gugu gaga
no thanks
Charles Baker
I'd actually be very interested if you elaborated further on this post? Why is Kropotkin a Utopian? Was mutualism attempted in Southern Europe? There are examples of mutualist communities that turned Capitalist? And as for Graeber, I've seen ancoms and Marxists dismiss him, but I don't know exactly why.
