Reading List.

[white_wolf]

This discussion thread is pinned.

Last edited Sat Dec 24, 2011, 02:47 PM - Edit history (4)

Hey, everyone. I thought I'd start this post to create a list of resources for people who wanted to learn more about socialism. Feel free to post leftist literature from anyone you want, from Marx to Chomsky. I'll start us off, feel free to discuss anything linked in this thread, but do keep it respectful even if you disagree or even dislike the person being linked. For instance if someone wants to post some works of Mao, that's fine, I think it would be useful to discuss his ideas and why I think they do not work,and if someone things they can work, I'd be happy to discuss that with them. Let's just keep all discussion respectful. I'm going to break my links down into categories by authors. Some of these are long, some are short. I don't expect anyone to read them all, I'm just listing them as resources.

Marx and Engels:

The Communist Manifesto- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
The Principles of Communism by Engels. This is a good resource, it's sort of an FAQ of Communism.- http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific-http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

Vladimir Lenin:
What is to be done: Burning Questions of Our Movement. One of Lenin's most important works. He lays out the ideas of a Vanguard Party.- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/
State and Revolution- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
April Thesis-http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. I really like this one as it seems to describe where we are as a country right now.- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/
Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm

Leon Trotsky:
The Transitional Program- http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm
Revolution Betrayed -http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/index.htm
If America Should Go Communist-http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/08/ame.htm
Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It-http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm

Albert Einstein:
Why Socialism: http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism

Eugene Debs:
Eugene Debs Internet Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/index.htm

Volarine De Cleyre
Anarchism and American Traditions - Volairine de Cleyre: http://www.praxeology.net/VC-AAT.htm

Industrial Workers of the World official website: http://www.iww.org/en

Daniel De Leon: http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/index.htm

Early American Marxism: http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html

Hal Draper:

Hal Draper Internet Archive: http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/index.htm

[daleanime]

1. Damnit, people keep doing this to me.....

more stuff for my reading list.....






Oh, well, no rest for the wicked.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. No rest for the wicked

And the righteous don't need it!



I, too, have a lengthy reading list. . . . . ... .

[TBF]

2. Great idea

The Origin of the Family: Private Property and the State (Engels) - http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/OFPS84.html
Anarchism and Other Essays (Goldman) - http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/goldman/toc.html

Resistence in general: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose (Amazon)

[readmoreoften]

6. For anarchism, I think the debate between Lucy Parsons and Emma Goldman is important reading.

Maybe there are some links on Marxists.orgs. I'll check later.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. That paper by Trotsky on a Soviet America was pretty interesting

I don't think that I've ever read it before. But it ties into his entire Marxist philosophy so well it FELT like I'd read it before.

[readmoreoften]

5. add to Trotsky: "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it"

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Glad you found us read

I think we're going to have a lot of fun here.

[white_wolf]

10. Just added it. Once again, PM me with additions and I'll add them to the OP

[white_wolf]

7. Two things.

First of all, could one of the hosts sticky this thread? Secondly, since DU has gotten rid of the time limits on editing, I was thinking about having people PM me their ideas for reading material and I'll edit my OP and add stuff to the list and that way we can save the rest of this post for discussion. What do you all think?

[socialist_n_TN]

8. I did. I hope nobody minds, but this can be a continuing resource

for the group and should deserve adherence. As in sticking. Plus, I need to practice my super powers.

[PivotalDude]

27. At the risk of being spammy...

My book Reality Check is about galvanizing the left so we can undo the status quo. Half of it is quotes from the likes of Chomsky, Carlin, Orwell, Goodall, Sagan, Soros, Marx, Asimov, Paine, William James, Sting and The Beatles.

It's available at sbpra.com/pivot but feel free to access the Word files from my aol account realitycheckread; PW: Milton1211
Only 2 emails in inbox.

Here's a review:

“Reality Check" is a thought-provoking, unconventional work…examining how we’ve taken Mother Earth to the breaking point. This sometimes-dark work, is also at the same time enlightening… filled with important insights into society’s imperfections. The author, going by the pen name of “Pivot”, examine’s
America’s shortcomings in a disturbing account of corporate greed and human selfishness. Pivot contends that America has a penchant for a “long and violent abuse of power....The cause of America, in great measure, is the cause of all mankind." (Paine)

Offering a dismal portrait of American society, “Reality Check” has been penned as a “wake-up” call for all thoughtful inhabitants of planet Earth. Indeed, a gut-check for all those willing to think hard, the book speaks to the frailty of the human condition. Pivot contends society is spinning out of control…. assails bad parenting…how we are failing the children. How, as trusted stewards of the planet, we have been negligent. How we allow the “prosperous few" to dominate and take advantage of the "restless many” (Chomsky). Filled with interesting quotes from A to Z…this book is different and unforgettable.

If you're looking for a light-hearted, quick read, then don’t buy "Reality Check." On the other hand, if you can stomach a sometimes-bitter pill, "Reality Check" can be food for the soul. This eye-opening account exposes injustices rife in America today…contending we must come to grips with our problems, in order to find solutions!

Here are some excerpts:

“Mr. Pivot,” said young Johnny Appleseed, “I think I understand what you’re saying. When people are ignorant and confused they make themselves scared; and vice versa; and so on. So now, us kids have to pay for all your fucked up shit. But there’s one thing that I still don’t get. I have an uncle who has a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend; the government says that they can’t get married and have the same rights as a couple of the opposite sex; plus, sometimes they get beat up because they can’t make babies. So, then, shouldn’t we be beating up old heterosexual couples, too?"
“Well, Johnny, everyone gets scared when they see someone living a different lifestyle because it could mean that their own way isn’t as good, or could even possibly be wrong. But their fear would vanish if they understood that a different way of living isn’t necessarily better or worse, but just weird, uhm, I mean, different.”
“But, Mr. Pivot,” queried some kid on the right side of the room, “why do you say that they should be allowed to get married and thus be entitled to all of the legal benefits that go along with that?"
“I should ask you why you say that they should be denied that, especially in light of the fourteenth amendment which says that ‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.’ What is it exactly that you hope to accomplish or avoid with that denial, anyway? Perhaps if you could provide some rationale for that, then we could come to a meeting of the minds on this.”
“Because it says in the Bible—”
“According to the first amendment it is unconstitutional to base legislation on the Bible. The government can only maintain laws pertaining to citizens between each other, not between citizens and God.”
“But, still, Mr. Pivot, you have to admit, it’s kind of disgusting behavior, ya know? Do you really think that society should formally condone such onerous behavior?”
“Just because the government doesn’t prohibit something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is condoning it. Besides, who are you or I to call it disgusting? ‘Disgusting’ is in the eye of the beholder. You may find some people’s styles of expressing love repulsive, or certain forms of entertainment infantile, crude, shocking and offensive, such as that Howard Stern fella, but, right or wrong, obnoxious or enlightening, people have a right to live according to their heart and conscience as long as they don’t undermine the happiness and long-term survival of others. Moreover, people have to make a living; and you can’t very well expect folks to voluntarily curtail less than noble standards as long as we’re living under the auspices of to-the-victor-goes-the-spoils/to-the-loser-goes-the-shaft capitalism.

EXCERPT BREAK

A current example of contention revolves around a Supreme Court ruling made in 1976 (Buckley vs. Valeo) in which the court struck down the limits on citizens’ expenditures towards politicians. They ruled that it would be an infringement on the first amendment to set such limits. But, by the very nature of what it means to achieve balance, it should be clear that a ruling that allows for unrestricted…expression must inherently be lopsided, and, therefore, not balanced, nor just. Because, again, by definition, balance requires restriction, or limitation. Yet Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics would have us believe that “Money enables free speech; and if you’re going to limit the ability of money to be spent to promote political speech, then you are necessarily limiting political speech.”
Actually, Sean, since it is called FREE speech one doesn’t need any money for one’s speech to be enabled. Hence, if we are going to limit the amount of money that can be spent on political speech, it does not necessarily limit political speech. It merely limits the medium by which (every)one can express it. Because if you really think about it, the right to not have our speech abridged refers to the content of our speech, not the medium by which we express it. And, if you think about it a little more, since Bill Gates et al. have no political spending limits on their speech the amount of speech that I have IS necessarily limited, by comparison. Moreover, thanks to highly duplicitous Supreme Court rulings, the right of so-called corporate personhoods to invoke Constitutional protections has lead to corporations overriding the protections that individuals are supposed to have. For example, although pleading guilty to causing deaths due to fraudulent marketing, Pfizer pharmaceuticals merely had to pay a steep fine—but nobody in the decision-making process actually had to go to jail the way normal citizens do when held accountable for murder, ironically.

EXCERPT BREAK

I also pointed out that we need to examine where the line should be drawn between cost/profit and discretionary income; which you do by categorizing professions/salaries in a hierarchy of the most productive at the top, and the least productive at the bottom; a.k.a. prioritizing. For example, presently, C.E.O.s of major banks and insurance companies, and folks such as Wolf Blitzer and Matt Laur and Brian Williams and Drew Carey and Al Roker and Piers Morgan and Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper and Glenn Fucking Beck and John Paulson and the Koch brothers are paid obscenely exorbitant salaries, yet their occupations add no actual value to the universe. Teachers, however, are obscenely underpaid, yet they’re the most valuable resource that a society has.
To wit: “In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people ‘earned,’ we could have hired 658,000 entry-level teachers. Those educators could have brought along over 13 million young people, assuming a class size of 20. That's some value. …The wealthy will have placed an estimated $2 trillion into hedge funds by the end of this year.” Not to mention that in 2010 Goldman Sachs bankers received $15.3 billion in bonuses alone.

“waste”: any human activity which absorbs resources, but creates no value ~Taiichi Ohno

“What we want and what we need has been confused.” ~Michael Stipe

“We can have a democratic society or we can have a great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.”
~Justice Louis Brandeis

“Every empirical study of both historic and contemporary cultures finds that the ‘leisure time’ state of ‘freedom’ is enjoyed by only a very small class of people within the city/state: its economic and political rulers.
~from Thom Hartmann’s The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight

“Free enterprise and the market economy mean war; socialism and planned economy mean peace. We must plan our civilization or we must perish.” ~Harold Laski

“Capitalism….is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous—and it doesn’t deliver the goods.”
~John Maynard Keynes


EXCERPT BREAK

I’ll spare you any details from David C. Korten’s “devastating” book, When Corporations Rule the World. Suffice it to say, such a book exists. However, I can’t afford to leave out a portion of John Ralston Saul’s international bestseller The Unconscious Civilization, copyright 1995: “The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good. Corporatism is an ideology which claims rationality as its central quality. The overall effects on the individual are passivity and conformity in those areas which matter and non-conformism in those which don’t.
“Economics as a prescriptive science is actually a minor area of speculative investigation. Econometrics, the statistical, narrow, unthinking, lower form of economics, is passive tinkering, less reliable and less useful than car mechanics. The only part of this domain which has some reliable utility is economic history, and it is being downgraded in most universities, even eliminated because, tied as it is to events, it is an unfortunate reminder of reality.
“Over the last quarter-century economics has raised itself to the level of a scientific profession and more or less foisted a Nobel Prize in its own honor onto the Nobel committee thanks to annual financing from a bank. Yet, over the same 25 years, economics has been spectacularly unsuccessful in its attempt to apply its models and theories to the reality of our civilization. It’s not that the economists’ advice hasn’t been taken. It has, in great detail, with great reverence. And, in general, it has failed. [(“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.” --Alan Greenspan/FAILURE)]
“A ‘profession’ implies both real parameters and professionals who bear some responsibility for the effects of their advice. If economists were doctors, they would, today, be mired in malpractice suits.
“Many are surprised that this management elite continues to expand and prosper at a time when society as a whole is clearly blocked by a long-term economic crisis. There is no reason to be surprised. The reaction of sophisticated elites, when confronted by their own failure to lead society, is almost invariably the same.
“To be precise: we live in a corporatist society with soft pretensions to democracy.
“A simple test of our situation would involve examining the health of the public good. For example, there has never been so much money—actual money—disposable cash—in circulation as there is today. I am measuring this quantity both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. Look at the growth of the banking industry and the even more explosive growth of the money markets.
“There has never been so much disposable money, yet there is no money for the public good. In a democracy this would not be the case, because the society would be centered, by general agreement, on disinterest. In a corporatist system there is never any money for the public good because the society is reduced to the sum of the interests. It is therefore limited to measurable self-interest.
“I would argue that confronting reality—no matter how negative and depressing the process—is the first step towards coming to terms with it.
“[It is] my right as a citizen—my Socratic right—to criticize, to reject conformity, passivity and inevitability.
“It is worth trying to do better.”

To simplify: we’ve designed a system which allows inordinate amounts of wealth to be held in the private sector while the government is left with its hands tied to actually effect noticeable change because they’ve got hardly any money to pay for anything.
The point: THE HOARDING OF WEALTH DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTES TO THE DECAY OF SOCIETY. Anyone with the slightest understanding of economics knows that the foremost rule to a healthy economy, society, is CIRCULATION. We all “know” this, yet those of you at the top 2 percent with all of the money and control seem to think that the rules of cause and effect don’t apply to you.
But instant karma IS going to get you, eventually.

“Property is theft. Nobody owns anything. When you die, it stays here. I read about these billionaires: Sam Walton, 20 billion; Daniel Ludwig, 15 billion. They’re both dead. They’re gone, and the money is still here. It wasn’t their money to begin with. Property is theft.”
~George Carlin

“He who dies with the most toys still dies.”

“During the fifty years preceding 1914 a host of brilliant, eloquent, and desperate artists sought to wake the ruling European bourgeoisie out of its deadly lethargy. The bourgeoisie did not at first believe it was lethargic, because it was so busy making money. ‘Making money is not heroic action!’ cried the artists. ‘Making money is boring you to death!’”
~Charles Van Doren

“It was the end of the fifties, and most young people were disillusioned with what was called the Establishment. There seemed nothing to look forward to but affluence and more affluence. The Conservatives had just won their third election victory with the slogan, ‘You’ve never had it so good.’ I and most of my contemporaries were bored with life.”
~Stephen Hawking

“They debated the NAFTA trade bill for a long time; should we sign it or not? Either way, the people get fucked. Trade always exists for the traders. Anytime you hear businessmen debating ‘which policy is better for America,’ don’t bend over.”
~George Carlin

[Starry Messenger]

11. Could we add this one to Lenin?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm "Karl Marx A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism" It's nice and short, a good overview of the basics. Nice thread white_wolf.

[white_wolf]

12. Added it.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Erich Fromm

Marx's Concept of Man

online at

http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/index.htm

It is one of the peculiar ironies of history that there are no limits to the misunderstanding and distortion of theories, even in an age when there is unlimited access to the sources; there is no more drastic example of this phenomenon than what has happened to the theory of Karl Marx in the last few decades. There is continuous reference to Marx and to Marxism in the press, in the speeches of politicians, in books and articles written by respectable social scientists and philosophers; yet with few exceptions, it seems that the politicians and newspapermen have never as much as glanced at a line written by Marx, and that the social scientists are satisfied with a minimal knowledge of Marx. Apparently they feel safe in acting as experts in this field, since nobody with power and status in the social-research empire challenges their ignorant statements.[1]

Among all the misunderstandings there is probably none more widespread than the idea of Marx's "materialism." Marx is supposed to have believed that the paramount psychological motive in man is his wish for monetary gain and comfort, and that this striving for maximum profit constitutes the main incentive in his personal life and in the life of the human race. Complementary to this idea is the equally widespread assumption that Marx neglected the importance of the individual; that he had neither respect nor understanding for the spiritual needs of man, and that his "ideal" was the well-fed and wellclad, but "soulless" person. Marx's criticism of religion was held to be identical with the denial of all spiritual values, and this seemed all the more apparent to those who assume that belief in God is the condition for a spiritual orientation.

This view of Marx then goes on to discuss his socialist paradise as one of millions of people who submit to an all-powerful state bureaucracy, people who have surrendered their freedom, even though they might have achieved equality; these materially satisfied "individuals" have lost their individuality and have been successfully transformed into millions of uniform robots and automatons, led by a small elite of better-fed leaders.

Suffice it to say at the outset that this popular picture of Marx's "materialism" -- his anti-spiritual tendency, his wish for uniformity and subordination -- is utterly false. Marx's aim was that of the spiritual emancipation of man, of his liberation from the chains of economic determination, of restituting him in his human wholeness, of enabling him to find unity and harmony with his fellow man and with nature. Marx's philosophy was, in secular, nontheistic language, a new and radical step forward in the tradition of prophetic Messianism; it was aimed at the full realization of individualism, the very aim which has guided Western thinking from the Renaissance and the Reformation far into the nineteenth century.

Also from Fromm, The Sane Society

http://www.amazon.com/Sane-Society-International-Library-Sociology/dp/0415605865/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324048972&sr=8-1

First published in 1956, "The Sane Society" is widely recognized as being one of the most powerful and eloquent explorations of the human condition in modern society. Fromm argues that modern society subjects humans to continuous disenchantment from the world which they created. People in modern society are estranged from other people, from the objects which they produce and consume, from their government and from themselves. Capitalism has produced "the manipulated personality". To allow present trends to continue unchecked will result, Fromm contends, in an insane society in which alienation is the order of the day. Rejecting the options of both capitalism and communism, Fromm discusses a third way of exploring things. He writes of a form of organization in which no individual is a means towards another's ends, where the well-being of individuals is the focus of society, and where personal growth complements economic growth. Fromm presents a complete outline of the concept of humanistic psychoanalysis, and charts the paths which can divert us from the tendency to robotism. He looks forward to "the sane society" in which individuals are productive, healthy and responsible. This book should be of interest to students of sociology and psychology.

[TBF]

14. Frederick Engels on the Theoretical Development of Modern Socialism

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/frederick-engels-on-the-theoretical-development-of-modern-socialism/

(see thread by Starry Messenger also)

[Fantastic Anarchist]

15. Anarchism and American Traditions - Volairine de Cleyre

Words written by the famous "anarchist without adjectives," Volairine de Cleyre. These words can be found in her essay, "Anarchism & American Traditions," in which her mastery of language luminates the deep chasm separating the principles of our American Revolution from the practices of American policy.

To whit, you'll find a similar theme among today's "Tea Partiers" or American Libertarians, however, as she touches upon in the essay, their rhetoric may be just cheap patriatism or an ignorance of what transpired in 1776.

As an anarchist and socialist, she revered liberty to the point where she crucially examined the folly in what was taken for granted as "Government at best is a necessary evil, at worst an intolerable one." She never ceased being an advocate of individualism, of community (she admired the anarchist-communists), of sense of togetherness in which we should ever be able to use the land for our own use, and to use it freely, without interference from those that made themselves fortunes through enterprise or through government.

She was so unselfish, when the anarchists were blamed for the Haymarket Square fire (what the rest of the world celebrates as May Day - a genuine celebration of Labor), she wanted them hanged, but upon further examination, those words were an albatross to her until the day she died:

Reaction from repression and the cruel discipline of the Catholic Church helped to develop Voltairine's inherent tendency toward free thought; the five-fold murder of the labor leaders in Chicago in 1887 shocked her mind so deeply that from that moment dates her development toward Anarchism. When in 1886 the bomb fell in the Haymarket Square, and the Anarchists were arrested, Voltairine de Cleyre, who at that time was a free thought lecturer, shouted: "They ought to be hanged!" They were hanged, and now her body rests in Waldheim Cemetery, near the grave of those martyrs. Speaking at a memorial meeting in honor of those comrades, in 1901, she said: "For that ignorant, outrageous, blood-thirsty sentence I shall never forgive myself, though I know the dead men would have forgiven me, though I know those who loved them forgive me But my own voice, as it sounded that night, will sound so in my ears till I die--a bitter reproach and a shame I have only one word of extenuation for myself and the millions of others who did as I did that night-- ignorance."

Anarchism and American Traditions (1908)

by Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912)

[Fantastic Anarchist]

16. Thanks for posting, white_wolf!

There's a lot to read here (and I'm glad it's consolidated in one place). I like the fact that there are numerous sources from both the Marxist and anarchist perspective!

[amyrose2712]

17. Awesome. Thanks!

[Fantastic Anarchist]

18. Hello White_wolf ...

Can you add the following to the list (along with the essay from Voltairine de Cleyre upthread)?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1024453 (Information on the IWW).

Edit to add thank you.

[dcsmart]

19. here are a few more suggestions:

Eugene V. Debs Internet Archive
http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/index.htm

Early American Marxism
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/index.html

Daniel De Leon
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/pdf/index.htm

Hal Draper
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/index.htm

[white_wolf]

20. Damn it. I should have reserved a few posts.

I forget each post has a limit and Debs was the last thing that got posted.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

21. It would be nice ...

If we had the capability to edit your post to add links piece-meal. Or, is that possible?

[white_wolf]

22. Since I can't add anymore to the OP and didn't reserve any posts, we have a couple of options.

1. I can copy and paste all of this into a new thread and reserve the first 3 posts for more reading material or 2. You all can just add your suggestions to your own post. I think the first option would be better since it would be easier for people to find, but it's up to you all.

[liberalmike27]

23. Zinn's Best Book

A People's History of the United States is a good read.

[socialist_n_TN]

24. Yes it is. My brother turned me on to that one........

Glad to see you here Mike!

[NGNM85]

25. Intro to Anarchism

I'd recommend that any beginner start with Kropotkin's article for the Encyclopedia Britannica;

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html

and Emma Goldman's; Anarchism: What it Really Stands For;

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/aando/anarchism.html

Next, I'd recommend the Anarchist FAQ;

http://eng.anarchopedia.org/An_Anarchist_FAQ

and Alexander Berkman's What is Anarchism?;

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html

Finally, for the completist, I would recommend Peter Marshall's; Demanding the Impossible. It's not perfect, but it is most definitely the most exhaustive single volume on the subject.

[tama]

26. CrimethInk

http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/selected/

[jtuck004]

28. "Bill Haywood's Book". Copyright 1929, last printing in 1966, I think.

In a university library, couple other places.

Makes Occupy look like a cakewalk.

[Xipe Totec]

29. Rius - Marx for Beginners

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28012909/Marx-for-beginners-by-RIUS

[BOG PERSON]

30. what about

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois

[BOG PERSON]

31. The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James

http://www.scribd.com/doc/146557087/52495567-James-the-Black-Jacobins-Toussant-L-Ouverture

[Manifestor_of_Light]

32. Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross.

Published in 1980, before the Reagan years, very predictive of what's gotten worse in the last 30 years but was already well established: machinery of polls and manufactured assent (like Chomsky), advertising, total surveillance of citizens and so forth.

I got it from my deceased uncle's library in Akron after his widow told me I could take whatever books I wanted. He was a lifelong Socialist and more particularly a Technocrat. A cool dude.
My dad, his older brother, voted for Norman Thomas in '32 and was an OCAW organizer back in the bad old days even before FDR passed wage and hour laws. Uncle never mellowed into a liberal Democrat.
=============
Karl Marx A Nineteenth Century Life, by Jonathan Sperber (March 2013)

A new biography. A heavy read but interesting. I have not read Marx other than some parts of Das Kapital that are in the Great Books.

[MyNameGoesHere]

33. My Latin American heroes are sorely underrepresented.

Jose Marti Selected writings or Revolution, Politics, and Letters: Volume I: Cuban Independence

El Libertador: Writings of Simon Bolivar

Relacion historica de los sucesos de la rebelion de Jose Gabriel Tupac-Amaru en las provincias del Peru (Only available in Spanish as far as I know)

I think the European model gets old, and considering the next wave of socialism is just South of us, maybe these would be of some importance. I know I find a stark difference in the progression of socialism in the Southern America's then the European struggle.

[TBF]

34. Thank you for these additions -

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was one of my favorite books in Grad school. It is not often that a writer so influenced by Marx becomes such a hit in the US.

[Unca Adverse]

35. A slight addendum . . .

Das Kapital, _ 3 vol., 1867, 1885, 1894 _ Marx & Engels

KARK MARX A Life, by Francis Wheen _ (perhaps the best I have ever read)

[IrishAyes]

36. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Trotsky.

Especially after I found a hidden copy of his autobiography when I was a child. He got a raw deal.

[arely staircase]

37. Stalin specialized in raw deals. nt

[IrishAyes]

38. That he did.

Nobody could convince me in a million years that he was in it for anything but his own aggrandizement. We'll never know the true depths of his depravity. And I'm not sure I could take knowing.

[rhett o rick]

39. I am looking for a good book on the end of capitalism. I am curious how

far we think people will go before they revolt. We have some pretty good examples around the world where people are living in poverty but not revolting. Or maybe they are revolting against the wrong thing in those countries that undergo so many regime changes.

[RoccoR5955]

40. You might want to give Rick Wolff's latest book a look

Richard Wolff's latest book, "Capitalism's Crisis Deepens," doesn't go into everything that you are looking for, but it goes into the Economic Crisis after 2008 looks at what is happening, and looks to alternatives to capitalism.

[rhett o rick]

42. Thanks, I just put it on hold at the library. I don't see how this will turn around without

violence. I don't want violence because that will give the Powers That Be the justification to kill more of us and take away our remaining rights.

[RoccoR5955]

43. Not going to happen violently.

The 21st century version of Socialism, according to Wolff, is worker owned cooperative businesses.
You might also want to check out http://democracyatwork.info, a great website. Most of Wolff's economic updates, and other talks are there. It is certainly a plethora of resources.

[rhett o rick]

44. But the capitalists can step on local businesses and farmers.

[RoccoR5955]

45. Not if they are owned by the workers.

It's a different paradigm.

[rhett o rick]

46. They just pass laws to outlaw whatever we are doing. Monsanto wants control of all the seeds.

Nestles wants control of all the water. Whatever you do they can buy you out.

[RoccoR5955]

47. Not if you do an end run.

There are always ways to go against them. You just have to act before they do.

[RoccoR5955]

41. Might I add a book to the list?

The S word: A Short History of an American Tradition... Socialism, by John Nichols.
Here's the blurb from Amazon:
A few months before the 2010 midterms, Newt Gingrich described the socialist infiltration of American government and media as “even more disturbing than the threats from foreign terrorists.” John Nichols offers an unapologetic retort to the return of red-baiting in American political life—arguing that socialism has a long, proud, American history. Tom Paine was enamored of early socialists, Horace Greeley employed Karl Marx as a correspondent, and Helen Keller was an avowed socialist. The “S” Word gives Americans back a crucial aspect of their past and makes a forthright case for socialist ideas today.

[Ladyhawke1]

48. Books to read.

" History is crucial to organizing, you have to be informed." Sorry, I cannot recall who said this.

Books I have just read:

The People's Advocate - by Daniel Sheehan

How to Hide an Empire - by Daniel Immerwahr

[George Paine]

49. Antipropaganda tools

The following was originally posted on the Activism>Propaganda Debunking forum, but I think it belongs here as well.

You can't fight propaganda unless you recognize it at the moment it occurs.

The website "Principles of Propaganda" has a lot of antipropaganda tools. For example:

Pocket-sized lists of principles of propaganda and counterpropaganda, criteria of psychopathy (the best propagandists), concise recommendations for dealing with misinformation. Plus a two-page Presidential Psychological Assessment, and the 40 most common logical fallacies: Link

Propaganda quotes: Link

Death by Propaganda: The history of the Right's propaganda war against Hillary Clinton: Link

Blog series on propaganda principles: Link

Blog series on counterpropaganda principles: Link

Presidential Psychological Assessment - Know the details of the psychological forces behind Trump's behavior and you'll know why he behaves as he does and how he's likely to behave in the future: Link

The Forty most common logical fallacies: Link

Propaganda techniques: Link

[RFCalifornia]

50. A great modern book is "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber

Very Anarcho-Syndicalist in nature