This whole system is purely designed to keep a few people in power and it is fucking insane. We wouldn’t even have the internet if a governmental institution hadn’t created it, because the free market deemed it unprofitable. How can we as a society achieve progress like that?
I am constantly surrounded by people that defend free market capitalism without questioning it nor having independent thoughts about it, even though they are not stupid. I feel constantly alienated because I have to discuss the most ridiculous thing with me peers when I try to show them the massive amount contradictions of this system, and they just reply that it does not work. Without having a single grasp of how politics work. I don’t mean to say that the general population is stupid, but it feels like they are constantly influenced by pro-capitalist information sources. I don’t know, I regularly question my beliefs and apply constructive criticism to my thoughts, but I always come to the same conclusion. Am I getting insane, or am I just to alienated?
yeah, I used to find it weird how socialists would always blame capitalism for issues in society (crime, healthcare, mental issues, prisons, etc), but as I learned more about socialism, I realized that capitalism is unironically the cause of all that shit. I’m still learning more about socialism. I’ve never read theory like a nerd :)
Be a nerd and read theory! It helps give pattern and language to our shared struggles and is an invaluable tool for recognizing and correcting our own internalized liberalism.
I deffo see how it could be more valuable, especially when trying to explain certain concepts to others. I’m not totally deprived of theory. I’ve started listening to The Deprogram and have watched a couple of Hakim’s videos (I’ll slowly go through all of them). My main intro to socialism/communism was HasanAbi on Twitch and Bernie Sanders.
Nice! You can go at yout own pace, of course, and glad to see the lib-to-left pipeline is chugging along!
If you’re interested in recommendations, there are 3 that I recommend to folks, and in no particular order (really, whatever sounds best to you):
Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. It does an efficient and readable deconstruction of the opposing forces of socialists and reactionaries, with a particular emphasis on a (more accurate) rundown of socialism in the 20th century. I end uo recommendinf this book to the largest number of people regardless of how left they are.
State and Revolution by Lenin. While it is very much embedded in its time, it is still quite relevant and also surprisingly readable. Most folks are surprised to learn that Lenin talked about so many things still relevant (or at least with corrolaries) today. It’s also very useful for understanding where a lot of people around here are coming from, and can be particularly handy for understanding Trotskyists, which you will likely run into in any Western irl organizing context.
Capital Volumes 1-3, Karl Marx (hey that’s me). This is… not incredibly approachable, but can be tackled by anyone given a little dedication. It is also a product of its time, an earlier stage of capitalism when it was still stamping out outright feudalism (Lenin was also in that context in Tsarist Russia), but it is a work that, if you really get on top of it, will give you something like superpowers when it comes to recogning features of capitalism and reaching reasonable conclusions about it - and what to do about it. It is also invaluable for understanding what Marxists are talking about. Also, a little secret: most self-proclaimed Marxists have never read these books and make mistakes about them in the regular. And even if they read Capital, they usually stop after Volume 1. Even big names, like David Harvey, tend to reveal substantial misunderstandinfs of the work. Unfortunately the best thing to do is still to slog through the original works. It does pay off, though, I promise. As a bonus, you can dunk on every lib that ever criticizes Marx, as they are wrong 99% of the time and you’ll have receipts.
Last I heard capital recommended the person said chapters 1-4.
Chapters or volumes? If chapters, that’s an odd place to stop imo. If volumes… well I guess they like Kautsky lol
Chapters, they said that’s where the essential stuff is if your not going to read the whole thing.
In that case I wouldn’t recommend Capital at all. You’d be suffering through a challenging work just to pick up 1/10th of it and are almost guaranteed to think Marx overlooked a lot of things. Instead, some kind of summary will be better. Maybe the Heinrich introduction followed by reading Michael Roberts to counter some of Heinrich’s anti-ML, anti-TRPF ideas.
Huh, I may have been misremembering, so idk. I’ve personally read a summary book of capital and grundrisse, and have a copy of vol 1, but am scared to open it.
While the other comrades suggestions are on point, I think it’s also important to understand reading and learning theory as more than an individual burden. It has been historically and is in many places still the prime opportunity for organization. If you can at all join a reading group or organize one yourself, it’s by far the best thing you can do for your development as a communist and revolutionary. It’s more fun, better for learning anyway and will naturally bring up discussions around applying that theory into praxis.
Subscribe to The Red Menace podcast and listen in chronological order. The podcast is 100% dedicated to the summarizing, analysis, critique, and practical application of major works of theory. They even started analyzing some right wing texts as a way of understanding the opponent and maintaining clarity on Marxist position.
Thanks for this suggestion. I’ve already started listening to the first episode while running some errands. This is perfect for me :)
Reading theory can be easy! It’s not as daunting as it sounds! 😎
I felt the exact same way. The thing is, I sometimes question if scientific socialism really provides the correct (right) answers for the questions as to why things are how they are. I am a socialist because I think Marx, Engels and all the people after them were really good in analyzing the underlying conditions, contradictions in capitalism and solutions for those problems, but I also remain skeptical to the way they want to solve things. I don’t think there is an universal way how to make way for change, as any situation requires different methods. All roads lead to Rome one way or another, we just have to stay on the road and don’t turn back. But then again, isn’t this basically the essence of dialectical and historical materialism? Anti-Dogmatism and Self-Criticism? I saw many self proclaimed communists that think Mao’s way is the only right way and any change to it would be reactionary, but Mao himself basically wrote / said that this type of behaviour is not counter-productive, so I don’t understand where these people are coming from.