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

  • Mouhamed_McYggdrasil [they/them,any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    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

    • PsychedelicPill [he/him,any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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.

        • PsychedelicPill [he/him,any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          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/

    • Spinoza [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      i know this is y i k e s but i'd say that marx's capital is incomplete without the debt book

      • Mouhamed_McYggdrasil [they/them,any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        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

        • Spinoza [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          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

          • snott_morrison [comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            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

            • Spinoza [any]
              ·
              4 years ago

              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

              • snott_morrison [comrade/them]
                ·
                4 years ago

                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

                • Spinoza [any]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  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