I’ve read Manufacturing Consent (as well as a lot of Chomsky shit) , Conquest of bread, Pedagogy of the Opressed.
What are some books that aren’t too theory laden (can’t do it right now) that you recommend every leftist read
Right now I’m reading something called live work work die by Cory Pein basically about how reactionary Silicon Valley actually is.
I’ll need something new soon though
Thanks people
The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin is science fiction and not theory, but especially if you lean towards anarchism it's an incredible book. It's considered one of the all-time great sci-fi works.
My main takeaway from this book was that anarchism is about being gay with your homies. JK, it's actually great.
Came here to say that, I just listened to the audiobook and it was great, thinking about giving copies to friends.
I guess if I had to pick a "Every Leftist Must Read This" list, minus the copious volumes Capital, I'd go with these:
- The Manifesto
- What Is To Be Done? (Lenin)
- State and Revolution (Lenin)
- Open Veins of Latin America (Eduardo Galleano)
- The Communist Necessity (J Moufawad Paul)
Never heard of that last one. Care to tell me why I should read it?
It was one of the most influential works in my transition to Marxism-Leninism. Its basically a vicious denunciation of the decentralized, disorganized tactics of the modern Western left. It advocates a rehabilitation of more traditional methods of Marxist-Leninist organizing, anti-imperialist struggle, and unconditional support for communist movements overseas. And it outlines that we must make the case, in the face of looming climate catastrophe, that a transition to communism is a necessity and not some mere alternative.
JMP is good in general, I have three other of his works and of them have read The Austerity Apparatus. He's a Maoist and frequent guest on Reflections Radio
Jakarta Method is pretty good and not very dense. Good stuff about how the USA manages anti-communism, but it is a pretty grim read given the subject matter.
Was just gonna suggest this, this is one of my go-to's when trying to convince my lib friends that the US isn't some force for good.
a lot of people have a significant amount of beef for some reason with him, but David Graeber's "Debt" is fantastic IMHO and upturns quite a lot of classical economics
Matt Christman praised the book in one of his streams, but also acknowledged Graeber isn't a historian but rather an anthropologist. I just finished Bullshit Jobs and I'm thinking Debt should be next.
It was this reddit post that clipped it, I didn't watch the full stream, I've been meaning to check out more of his streams but I've only done a few of them so far https://www.reddit.com/r/AcidMarxism/comments/kafz1z/reflecting_on_debt_by_david_graeber/
i know this is y i k e s but i'd say that marx's capital is incomplete without the debt book
It also explains and further exposes the fundamental flaw with cryptocurrency, like how it requires so much energy its responsible for 1-3% of global warming
because capital has an incredibly crude and limited anthropology, and i haven't finished but marx's monetary theory of value is quite a bit thinner than i expected and falls into some of the same traps that the classical economists did
true, the anthropology, especially about Indigenous peoples, is a massive disservice to what those socieites actually were.
Can you expand a bit on what traps you think Marx fell in in terms of the monetary theory of value, am interested
mainly that money is a purely natural phenomena arising from exchange. i think the real story is much more complicated than that, and graeber's work points to the state being involved much earlier in money's development
Yea definitely. Not sure if he did in any other writings but would have been interesting to see Graeber grapple with more of what Marx wrote.
Have you read “Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value”? was thinking of having a look at it
i have, but not for a while, and i've read all his books so they blend together a bit in my head. it's good though
Blackshirts and Reds by Parenti — it’s short, he’s a great writer, and incredibly powerful
It's also not rude to or dismissive of anarchists, but the way it describes seige socialism and the USSR might make OP reassess some of his anarchist leanings. Anarchism and anarchists are cool, but everyone can benefit from reading different ideas occasionally.
Debt: the first 5000 years by David Graeber is very good and theres a free audiobook on Youtube. Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos and Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman are both pretty essential anarchist texts that I liked. Reform or Revolution by Rosa is also very good.
To be centrist for a second and share not just anarchist texts that are really good I really liked in addition to state and rev is Blackshirts and Reds is a must.
I'm currently reading The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, and it's a great analysis of colonialism and anti-colonial struggle, I can't recommend it enough!
Friederich Engels On Authority is a must read to challenge preconceptions and advance politically.
It is only a short work. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
noami klein disaster capitalism is super easy to read conventionally but the content makes it gruesome
manufacturing consent gave me a framework to view liberal fact check and other counter narratives to socialist ones. also lets me critically support and analyze AES like bolivia and venezuela
I feel like at least one book by William Blum. It may not help you be more knowledgeable in your leftism, but I have to imagine it will make you more committed to it
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
America's Deadliest Export: Democracy
There are links in his wiki page to the second two books
