My little cousin is a pretty good kid who really loves history and is broadly familiar with US imperialism. He starts university this fall and is majoring in Mathematics and Economics -which is a cesspool of capitalist indoctrination. Are there any books that you'd recommend to send him that would push him to think more critically of the neoliberal indoctrination that he is likely to receive? I could obviously just give him Marx or Lenin but I was looking for something a little more subtle.
When I was that age A People's History by Howard Zinn had a big influence on me. The part that really stuck though was the Vietnam war stuff, so a book about the actual history of those things might be better.
Also recently read The Politics of Heroin by Alfred McCoy, which isn't very political but it's about drugs, spies, and war, which seems like it would be good for a 17 year old.
What about left philosophers who aren't as infamous as Marx, like Fannon or Foucault?
I got a finance degree and econ classes were part of the curriculum. the best recommendation i could possibly give you is graeber's debt: the first 5000 years. a good chunk of that book is dismantling the "before capitalism was barter" lie, which is taught in every econ 101 class. i think being exposed to the fact that the field of economics can get something so terribly wrong (or at least is ignorantly accepting of this naiive narrative) will help develop a healthy skepticism as he takes econ classes. its also just a good book. blends history and economics very well, but is still approachable and not too dry
also, i thought foucault was helpful in understanding the big picture that like, the institutions you've interacted your entire life serve to perpetuate the dominant ideology. in my opinion its a more approachable primer to marx's base & superstructure or gramsci's cultural hegemony (although tbf i havent read gramsci)
Though there were many many books in between, the key works of my radicalization were likely:
- Zinn's A People's History of the US
- Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me
- Frank's Listen, Liberal
- Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds
- Bevin's Jakarta Method
First two are excellent introductions to becoming much more discerning of propaganda, how the news operates, how much is omitted from official state education textbooks and the idea of American Exceptionalism.
Yeah, the list is basically:
-
things you weren't taught about us history
-
how the system is built to teach you lies
-
lies you were taught about the Democratic party
-
lies you were taught about the USSR and communism
-
lies you were taught about American foreign policy and communism
-
Definitely this, let him know that the CIA actually read this book and had him come in to interview him because they thought it was a better explanation of things than they had internally, even as a critical document.
If he's going in on Economics, Graeber's Debt is a must-read because it completely dismantles the foundational myth of western economic theory.
Especially for someone getting into economics, Shock Doctrine in particular seems like it would be a very effective choice
Hitchhikers Guide through the Galaxy
It's not like explicitly leftist leftist but Douglas Adams writing was pretty okay and I think it'd to a good job of introducing teens to question shit which is what you want.
Disciplined Minds by Jeffrey Schmidt so he knows how his professors were chosen.
Point out to him that while modern economics tries to position itself as a hard mathematical/statistical field of study, they conveniently ignore Marxist theory at every turn. His indoctrination is likely to not even come from a class on Marxist theory that "debunks" it; there won't even be such a class! But rather, they'll simply never academically discuss it at all besides "capitalism is freedom. Communism is state oppression".
Mathematics would never do that. If something is flawed, then people try to logically reason and show why. Instead, his economics classes will all start from the premise that capitalism is the best system as if it's an axiom.
Michael Hudson. They should easily bond since he’s also an economist.
