American? I haven't seen a bookstore selling a bible in ages, if ever
Sucker play, it's trivial to get a bible for free. For instance, one could find it on libgen or something idk
They're really lousy for critical reading, though. I like the ones from United Biblical Society, with maps and appendices. They're good for linguistic reference, and they add titles and illustrations.
Capital, clearly. Not a single anti communist has ever read it because they never once refute a single talking point from the actual book. But every anti communist acts like they totally understand what's in the book and some go so far as to lie about having read it. And then you ask them what it says or why they're anti communist and they just make shit up or parrot 1950s Nazi propaganda and pretend like that's what's in Capital or what communism is about.
It annoyed me the first few times it happened to me but now it just makes me laugh. Having a book on your shelf or knowing the title of it is not the same thing as reading it or understanding it
I, Dagoth Ur, believe that the entirety of his theory rests upon a grievous error. He, in his folly, regarded labor as the solitary font of worth and, in his ignorance, failed to grasp that capitalism thrives not solely by the exploitation of laborers but also through the ceaseless march of technological advancement. He dared to belittle the other wellsprings of wealth: innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and the unyielding progress of technology, all of which lie at the very core of his theory.
Curiously, passages within "Capital" and the "Communist Manifesto" speak of the global ascendancy of capitalism, prophesying the vanishing of all things traditional and the dissolution of feudal remnants. Therefore, I, Dagoth Ur, put forth the audacious proposition that we may indeed regard Karl Marx as the inaugural, true theorist of globalization.
Hey look someone who didn't read Capital talking about Capital.
Marx definitely wrote literally chapters about industrialization
not solely by the exploitation of laborers but also through the ceaseless march of technological advancement
interesting where does this technical advancement come from?
What a grand and intoxicating innocence to presume Marx did not consider these things
Marx talks about most of what you just mentioned in the first chapter of Capital. Socially productive labor transforming nature is the source of value in any society. He also mentions rarity as a source of value, like I remember him specifically mentioning pearls as an example a few times.
He included machinery and technology as what he called "constant capital," and the labor is the variable capital. To say Marx didn't consider technology would suggest he was unaware of what a factory was and that he didn't observe the industrial revolution as it was happening. He was born in 1818. He watched Germany in his childhood go from empty fields full of peasants to factories, railroads, and telegraph lines in his adulthood. You know what made that technology possible? Labor? And who operates that technology? Laborers. This is all cooked into his work.
I'd also like to point you over to the Grundrisse, the chapter called Fragment on Machines, where Marx even speculates on if machinery were all fully automated, saying laborers could move aside from production and just become just "watchmen." This part is good:
"Capital itself is the moving contradiction, in that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as the sole measure and source of wealth [...] On the one side [...] it calls to life all the powers of science and of nature [...] to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed on it [...] On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created"
He's saying capitalism would have a hard tike reducing labor time to zero through technological advancement, since it would defeat the concept of value itself. In simple terms, how would you even price anything if there was no labor cost involved? How would a capitalist sell their product or assign value to it? Who would they sell it to?
Capital, clearly. Not a single anti communist has ever read it because they never once refute a single talking point from the actual book
Almost no one has actually read capital it's like the Bible hugely influential but almost no one is willing to actually read the thing
Anything by Ayn Rand. She’s a terrible author and most people are more interested in showing that they could have read The Fountainhead than actually reading that unfun, meandering garbage.
Yeah. My grandpa made me read Atlas Shrugged when I was in HS and it was so dumb it made me a communist. I did like the scene with the fast train on the green rails. Literally the only scene in the whole book with imagery.
Nothing killed libertarianism for 19 year old me like reading that trash.
Can you blame them? Even South Park made fun of how bad Atlas Shrugged is.
Without a shadow of a doubt the Bible.
No, reading the Gospels, Paul's letters, Revelations, Genesis, Exodus, and selected Psalms doesn't count as reading the Bible. Do you count reading 10 chapters of a 60+ chapter book as reading the book? Of course not.
I was raised in a Christian household, and I was told that when I turned 12 I could be baptized. I looked forward to, and on the summer I was 10, I decided I wanted to be ready. I sat down and read the bible, front to back. I got to the end, and I paused: this was nothing like what they were telling me! I decided to read it again through, certainly I missed something? At the end, I decided to work through again, one more time, and then I was no longer Christian, at least not like these other ones. Now I'm not at all, but I love being able to source the bible more accurately than my Christian family members.
I grew up in an evangelical house and I constantly get to wield the line: “I guess I took the wrong lessons” as my comeback to literally any political dispute and it is wonderful having the ability to actually quote the Bible when arguing with my child relatives
The book gave me a roller coaster of emotions, I never knew what was coming next!
You joke but I read the dictionary as a kid (and not for the naughty words); helped me expand my vocabulary and gave me knowledge of stuff I wouldn't have known about at that age.
reading the bible is a horrible experience. there's paragraphs where the same story is being told in two different ways, things are repeated all the time. there's entire chapters that just go "x is the son of y is the son of z is the son of a who's the son of b and the son of c".
there's entire chapters that just go "x is the son of y is the son of z is the son of a who's the son of b and the son of c".
I can't speak to how relevant this is to history in most parts of the world, but interestingly in places like ancient Ireland, genealogy was an important part of identity. Among the questions a stranger would be asked would be who his father is, what his clan is and what his profession is. Obviously today we value different aspects of identity, but historically at least in some places (and at the point I'm mentioning in history, Ireland was Christian) bloodline was part of how people knew you; it's a fascinating look into historical mindsets.
Yeah except that it's a work of fiction. Even that part is just made up to gives some kind of authority to a character.
Sometimes yeah it's frustrating reading it because some parts assume cultural familiarity with very ancient names or places. I think I remember in the book of Genesis an ancient military leader is named and it's said he did some kind of trick to capture a town, but it doesn't explain what he did or why.
Storytelling has gone through a lot of development over the centuries
Any biography about some liberal political leader, like that Obama one. I think people buy them just because they trend on the top 10 books to read list. But everyone I've met who has it just keeps it on their coffee table to make it seem like they're into reading now. The only one I know who finishes those biographies is my grandpa who is a little senile and bored now.
Not as relevant as it used to be regarding this question, but...
War and Peace
I wonder whether it would have been as highly acclaimed had it been published under it's original name War: What is it good for??
I'm currently reading it. I can see why so many people just leave it in the bookshelf.
It's not a bad book, but God damn does it feel like running a marathon.
It frustrated me, I've been pretty depressed in the past and I felt like I detected all the same thought patterns in it. Not a badly written book but I didn't enjoy what felt like a book written as a sort of self-flagellation
I hate this like neckbeard pseudointellectual misogynistic popular opinion of this book, because it is truly a tender and empathetic and beautiful work
