I want to read Marx. Where do I start, which translation, and what secondary materials should I read?
Read the communist manifesto first and then go with Das Capital
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital:_Critique_of_Political_Economy
It depends what you already know really, how well you know the history of mankind, how well you understand economics, what else would you like to learn etc.
tell me more about what you are interested in and why, and what have you read so far
kill yourself for wanting to have anything to do with marx you commie scum
>>7709398
confirmed for not having read it
http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/
>>7709398
Either b8 or post-1984 schoolbabby
>>7709264
Renewal of interest in Marx started in the 60's with the re-discovery (by Louis Althusser in Paris' ENS?) of The German Ideology, a philosophical text by young Marx.
He explains his disagreement with Hegel and Young Hegelians, who reject metaphysics, but are still caught in it. Marx says the superstructures (thoughts, ideas) have to be interpreted by the infrastructures (conditions of living, structures of production).
Really exciting short text, gets you into it.
To be honest, the weird thing is that Althusser, Lacan et al. may have done exactly what Marx fought against : reducing thought to vain, useless talk about pure ideas, while he wanted to focus on law and economy.
Philosophy was just propedeutics for him.
But damn, the German Ideology is a powerful Manifesto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_German_Ideology
>>7709581
Trying to say it better,
Young Hegelians want to free Man of old ideas (as chains)
Marx want to free Man of the structures of domination. He doesn't want a change of ideas, but a change of reality.
Ideas don't make the world, the world makes the ideas. If you want to change the ideas, change the world first.
After 12 years of school, I found this materialistic satire of the world of ideas really refreshing.
work in the 21st century
>>7709398
Everyone should read Marx and Hitler so they can at least see why left/ right extremes were terrible and left an un removable scar on the world
>>7709694
Hitler wasn't really a right winger.
>>7709264
>Wanting to read a fucking garbage
>>7709264
>>7709420
>>7709581
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Capital
>The book caused a sensation in French intellectual circles, and attracted a large international readership.[2] The abridged English translation, which includes only Althusser and Balibar's contributions,[3] was published in 1970, and helped shape the development of Marxist thought in the English-speaking world throughout the 1970s.[2]
>>7709694
The rise of Hitler was precisely caused by Kapitalism's 1929 krach, stupid. They should've read Marx, instead of waiting until 1945 to implement his ideas (welfare state in modern countries, implemented earlier in the USA by FDR)
Do Marxists seriously trust the government?
>>7709694
Fascism was not truly right wing, read a little of Evola's critiques of the ideology. Fascism was socialism masquerading as aristocracy.
>>7709759
The rise of Hitler was not merely a response to poverty in Germany but also to national humiliation, the first world war echoed in the national psyche. Without Versailles, Hitler's rise would not have been possible. It was the same in Italy, Italy got a shit deal in the peace treaty which led to Mussolini. Russia got a shit deal in the peace treaty which permitted for Stalin's nationalistic brand of socialism that was very similar to fascism.
The second world war was completely a result of the first war not being played out to its proper conclusion.
>>7709806
>class collaboration
>nationalist
>socialism
0/10 you clearly don't understand socialism or fascism, evola was an edgelord
>>7709770
Read it. Then you won't call "Marxist" anyone who has just read a few books, and is willing to guide others.
I'm not a Marxist, and I don't blindly trust the government. You should understand Marx in the frame of Hegelian history. Marx opposed Hegel, but kept the spirit. Marx analyzed the French 1789 revolution, and instead of seeing, like most progressists, a victory of freedom, he saw the victory of the rising bourgeoisie against the aristocracy. Through a dynamic view of history, Marx thought that like the bourgeoisie, the proletariat would one day become the rising class, so large that they would easily overthrow the bourgeoisie. It would be the final revolution, as it would be the triumph of a class without private property (the proletariat : mostly factory workers).
They would naturally decide, once in government, that the factory belongs to everyone.
With the end of private property, the need of a governement would vanish.
So thinking Marx was a Statist is a big misunderstanding.
He was a prophet, his predictions turned out to be false, but it's still interesting.
_______________________________
http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpalthusser11.htm
How to Read Marx's Capital
Louis Althusser
*Translation reprinted from Marxism Today, October 1969, 302-305. Originally appeared (in French) in l'Humanité on April 21st, 1969.
8. The greatest difficulties - theoretical and otherwise - standing in the way of reading Volume I easily are unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) all to be found right at he beginning of Volume I, more precisely in Chapter I of Part I, which deals with 'commodities and money'. My advice therefore is - begin with reading Part II of Volume I entitled 'The Transformation of Money into Capital'. It is not possible in my view to begin (and only to begin) to understand Part I without having read and re-read the whole of Volume I from Part II onwards.
9. This is more than a piece of advice. It is a recommendation, one which I regard as imperative. Everyone can confirm it by practical experience.
10. If one begins to read Volume I from the beginning, that is, from Part I, one can get bogged down and tend to give up
>>7709806
The biggest mistake in Versailles was that the French didn't take all the Reparations they wanted instantly, like the Germans did to them in 1870 (stealing all the gold).
Instead, they made the Germans promise they would pay a yearly payment, which of course they quickly stopped doing, which led to WW2.
So blaming Hitler on the French is moot.
I blame it on 1929, a capitalism crisis which Marx expected ("collapse under inner contradictions")
>>7709746
Althusser was a dumb fucking hippy who couldn't understand Marxs law of value, don't waste your time
Get the Ben Fowkes translation of Capital, it's from the French edition which is the most accurate and last edition Marx published in his life time.
Before reading capital this might help:
From Marx's Grundrisse, the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/
The preface and appendix to the Critique of Political Economy
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/
>>7709949
>Althusser was a dumb fucking hippy
You sound like a dumb fucking snob.
You can say all you want about Althusser's structuralism, he wasnt dumb or a hippie.
>>7709986
Ok, but he was still a mentally deranged murderer
>>7710035
If you don't know why you strangle your wife, she does.
>>7709873
Not only Marx expected it aaaalot of people expected it
>>7709581
>re-discovery of German ideology
Jewish you mean.
>>7709852
>Marx was a prophet.
No, only was a Jew.
>French revolution
Jew revolution.
The Marx bio by Francis Wheen is pretty good.
For those claiming Marx was jewish (other than his roots) are uneducated and wrong. He was never jewish.
>>7710106
Funny how it seems it's the job he took as a journalist that triggered his thinking about economy.
He wrote articles about current german events where he would sometimes question private property. This triggered long debates with readers and editors. Until he was fired, and used the time to think more.
Stirner (one of the Young Hegelians, with Engels)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner
>Stirner planned and financed (with Marie's inheritance) an attempt by some Young Hegelians to own and operate a milk-shop on co-operative principles. This enterprise failed partly because the dairy farmers were suspicious of these well-dressed intellectuals. The milk shop was also so well decorated that most of the potential customers felt too poorly dressed to buy their milk there.[citation needed]
>>7709949
>Althusser was a dumb fucking hippy who couldn't understand Marxs law of value
12. This is the law of surplus value which workers are able to grasp without the slightest difficulty, because, quite simply, it is the scientific theory, the force of which they experience every day, namely class exploitation.
13. Parts III and IV, both very weighty but very clear, are of decisive importance to the class struggle today. They deal with the two fundamental forms of surplus value with which the capitalists can carry through the maximum possible exploitation of the working class - what Marx calls absolute and relative surplus value.
14. Absolute surplus value (see Part III) is related to the length of the working day. Marx explains that the capitalist class strives inexorably to extend the length of the working day as much as possible and that one of the aims of working class struggle for well over a century has been to secure a reduction in the working day.
Althusser http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpalthusser11.htm
reminder that there is absolutely no point reading Marx unless you have a good grasp of classical political economy
>>7709806
Evola was the 20th century equivalent of a neckbeard.
>>7709694
Reading Marx will give you no idea about what Stalin did
>>7709770
Communism implies abolishing government. The goal is a classless, stateless society.
>>7710099
haha edgy :)
>>7709705
>whole platform saw for a return to traditional values
>promoted the concepts of class collaboration
>supported big buisness
>called for the oppression of various ethnic and religious groups
>not right wing
