Hi, /lit/, I'm coming to the end of my first year in university and I want to keep on reading, actively, during the summer. I was considering writing up a programme for reading certain marxist and communist texts and then convening once a week discuss what we've read.
Is anybody interested?
TL;DR; I wanna read some marxist and communist texts and discuss it with other anons. Are you interested?
>>8028641
>wasting time on a broken system
>>8028641
There's already something similar to this on /leftypol/ but I can see why you'd want to do this here.
>>8029259
>Broken
>Not saying capitalism is broken
Haha okay, friend :^>
Why do people want to waste so much time learning about the losing side of history when they could be learning about the system that they actually live in from people that actually understand it? Marx is dumb and anyone that doesn't agree with that assessment is also dumb and they will always be a poor little annoying whiny bitch as a result.
![Yplh18u[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/SF3HBEo.png "Yplh18u[1].png")
>>8029290
>>8028641
I would be up for this. Here's some suggestions:
How about the section from Marx's Grundrisse on the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (its pretty short and can probably be read in one go):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/
This might be a good longer read "Capital and community: the results of the immediate process of production and the economic work of Marx":
https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/index.htm
>>8029290
A bastardized Marxism controlled almost half the globe for most of the 20th century and most on /pol/ believe the KGB is still subverting and attempting regain control :^)
Best to know your enemy no?
>>8029284
>says the person posting on 4chan using a computer which was made by a company to produce profit
Give away everything you own. Never buy anything, search for your own food. Build your own house. Don't read books anymore. Get off of 4chan.
When you do that, we will talk about communism.
>>8029373
"Ah I'm sorry me-lord I can't criticize feudalism via print cause yee made it under feudalism!"
What a lazy fucking argument you have used. Labour created the laptop I was posting from and government funded military projects created the internet. I am required to buy products produced within a capitalism economy because I have no other alternative.
Pls make better arguments.
I'd participate but I can't help but think it will turn into a shitposting and debate thread
>>8029373
bait so good I almost forgot to ignore!
Here's the leftist theory I was planning on reading this summer;
The phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel
The philosophy of right by Hegel
Being and time by Martin Heidegger
Collected Essays by Emmanuel Levinas
The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin
On Ideology by Louis Althusser
Selected Works of Mao Zedong
Simulacra and Simulation (The Body in Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) by Jean Baudrillard
Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Poetics of Social Forms) by Frederic Jameson
The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek
First as Tragedy, then as Farce by Slavoj Zizek
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
>>8030199
>Heidegger
>leftist
lol :)
read Aristoteles first
Communism is literally never going to happen. The best you're going to get is raped by Muslims. You people are retarded.
Inb4 you can't never no nuffinz
>>8030199
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
MF THINKS HE CAN READ AND UNDERSTAND ALL OF THIS IN A SEASON HAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
>>8030206
>Discussing communism and brings up islam
Wot
>>8030216
this. you probably couldnt effectively get through half of being and time in one summer
>>8030159
You do have an alternative. What I told you to do in my previous post. If you are going to criticize it, don't partake in it if you really feel so strongly about it being broken. You hypocrite.
>>8030370
I cannot escape capitalism without a collectively organised reform, or revolution, on a large scale. You can criticise the economic conditions you luve under and still participate because it is all encompassing.
>>8030388
Yes you can.
Move somewhere else.
Go live in the woods. Become a monk.
There are many ways. You're just a child still, and not brave enough to do any of those things.
>>8030411
https://youtu.be/r5QZxg0Xajo
I literally cannot be bothered refuting you. Have a lovely educational video.
>>8029373
you can criticise a system without thinking it's bad in every single respect. likewise, you can advocate a system that you recognise has flaws. it's a case of weighing those things up.
>>8030421
Wrong. All imperfections must be rooted out and destroyed.
>>8030417
Learn the difference between a need and a luxury ya dingdong.
>>8030422
but what if you are the imperfection?
>>8030417
Coming from someone who never lived in soviet russia and is literally fucking 16 and stumbled across some edgy book and is now a retarded communist apologist.
You can't refute me because you are still an infant.
>>8030445
You end up killing millions of people like Stalin and Mao did.
>>8030445
seppuku
Also, if large parts of the population must be destroyed in order to save the planet, so be it.
>>8030450
You can't listen because you're Russian.
Marxism is for braindead idiots, unfortunately they've taken over the west
>>8030497
I thought that recognizing bait would be a sign of intelligence.
>>8030511
>b-better call it bait real quick so people don't think I'm an idiot
>t. Idiot
>>8029284
>comparing the system that brought the greatest increase in general standard of living in the history of the planet to a system that killed a hundred million people before all the countries switched back to capitalism
>anime faces
>communist manifesto instead of something with actual content like capital
>>8030528
post a meme
>>8030528
That's right. Posting bait isn't childish or immature.
>>8030561
You are a meme
>>8030542
Muh boi, ye'v dun meh prauwd.
>>8030163
>I think it will go bad do I won't conytibute to it go ing well.
Self fullfillinh expectation
>>8032935
Stay in the room and fuck the girls.
I'm already in heaven bby
>>8033396
They're 14 you sicko
>>8033402
old enough
>>8033402
legal in Poortugal :^)
>>8029290
>when they could be learning about the system that they actually live in from people that actually understand it?
That is exactly why you should read Marx.
>>8033500
>debtor who never worked a serious day in his life
>understands capitalism
>>8030199
>mao zedong
jesus if youre reading mao fucking zedong for knowledge on how a state should be run then you are beyond help
then again you being a communist, i guess there was never any question
>>8033876
if the first post is seriously how you view history/ Marx then you REALLY do need to read some Marx
>claims to understand capitalism
>hasn't read Marx
Top Kek m8
>>8034615
Tell me which profound insights has Marx given us that economists ignore?
>you share a board with university marxists
>>8030542
>comparing the system that brought the greatest increase in general standard of living in the history of the planet to a system that killed a hundred million people before all the countries switched back to capitalism.
Industrialisation of any kind brings a massive rise of the standard of living, Russia, and China underwent massive increases in life expectancy, and happiness after their respective leaps forward were complete, and a change from any economic system to another always results in the death of a sizeable percentage of the population. If you think Capitalism first entered the world peacefully, then you've never studied history.
>anime faces
This is an anime-imageboard. It would be weird if they didn't show up eventually.
>communist manifesto instead of something with actual content like capital
I have to give you that one.
>>8034721
>saw a skinny five foot cuck with a ponytail putting up gravestones for old pagan gods on my university commons
>communist manifesto jammed into his tiny back pocket, bent up, desperate for some validation
>tfw i see him posting on /lit/
>>8034743
>millions of people die in famines caused directly by centrally planned economy
>"lol that's just what happens when systems change"
>tfw fucking bolsheviks in 2016
Hmm, I'd start off by reading the Wealth of Nations and then reading history books about every communist country and their horrible disastrous failures, and then maybe a book about how Marxism has found its way into and is plaguing the education system
I am interested if it's relatively serious
Could we include Gramsci?
>>8034780
I'd finish this anon's list with On The Jews and Their Lies, perhaps followed by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion if you want to continue your foray into redpillcore.
Walking into a /pol/ thread is always like falling face first into shrek's swamp
WHO
ARE
YOU
QUO
TING
????
I recommend reading some G.A. Cohen.
>>8034679
>speaks about Marx and economists as if they are separate things
>not realising(?) that Marx was and is one of the most influential economists of all time
Do you see how ridiculous that sounds to read?
One of his profound insights was his reconfiguration of Adam Smith's labour theory of value.
His concept of Historical materialism would be great for you considering
>>8029290
is your current understanding of economic and social history
>>8030199
>Hegel
>fitting in any simplistic political category such as 'left'
Mild kek.
>>8029373
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3252FSW7OC4
Link related, your argument being put forward by a British Conservative politician and getting destroyed live on 3 minutes of TVThe politician is hot and I feel guilty for fancying her
>>8034768
>"famines caused directly by a centrally planned economy."
>Be a country that is so backwards it can't even manufacture fucking rope with famines every other year.
>Have a breadbasket in Eastern Europe that needs to feed the entire country.
>Have a shitload of rich peasants in that country who won't stop hoarding grain in order to inflate the price.
>tfw this causes a famine.
>tfw this gets blamed on the government.
>tfw centralised farming was introduced as a counter to the famine, and after the five year plans were completed, (and the country finished rebuilding from WWII), Russia wouldn't have another famine of a size that prior to the revolution would have been considered normal, until the fall of Communism in 1991.
>tfw to this day, this event is used as an argument against communism, based on the bullshit claim that the Kulaks were just impoverished farmers, and the famine was engineered by Stalin for no fucking reason whatsoever.
>Be China
>Be even less industrialised that Russia
>Be unsure as to whether we should begin the industrialisation process, or focus on growing food to feed our freakishly large population first.
>Have a long history of landlords killing peasants for not producing enough rice.
>Forget to tell the peasants that this policy is no longer in place.
>Peasants tell me they made a shitload of rice.
>Begin industrialisation process.
>Start running out of food.
>"No worries, we'll just switch back to farming again, and..."
>Weather disaster strikes, half our crops are wiped out.
>Well fuck.
>Suffer massive famine.
>Learn from mistakes, ensure beyond a reasonable doubt that we have enough rice next time.
>Once again, after the industrialisation process is over, we never have another famine.
>>8034812
Well, he is almost completely ignored in economics nowadays. The only ones who pay attention to him today are sociologists.
>>8029373
>you live in a capitalist world so aren't allowed to criticise it
Toppest of keks
Your argument 400 years ago
>Yeah I know feudalism is shit and a semi form of slavery, but you can't criticise it whilst you are still benefiting from your 1 day off a week and are still alive through eating potatoes grown on your feudal owner's plot of land
>>8034836
The "field" of economics is essentially apologetics for the status-quo power structure. Of course nobody playing that game has time for a critical thinker.
>>8034847
You can move to a different country cheaply. You couldn't in the past. A great deal of leftists have done this. Some regret it, some don't.
>>8030199
Just reading Hegel will take you the whole summer. Also, Heidegger is not a left-wing philosopher.
>>8028641
I will join, anon. What literature should we read?
I need to read The Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford, just throwing that out there.
>>8034857
>the whole summer
He can spent a whole year reading the Phenomenology, depending on how serious he is about it.
>>8034851
Ok, that sentence clearly shows you know nothing about modern economics. I invite you to actually try to read some papers on economics and see how brainwashed you are.
Just a note: youtube, reddit, 4chan, twitter, random blog or sites, introductory undergraduate courses or sociology professors are not good sources to learn about economics.
>>8034768
>tfw Hitler killed himself instead of facing the wrath of glorious communism
How's justice feel snow nigger?
>>8034836
Literal bullshit. Read any basic or advanced textbook on different economic theories and there will be at least a full chapter dedicated to him.
One of my economics lecturers at University was a Marxist, there are countless journals dedicated to him/ his thoughts/ his economics etc, across many disciplines apart from sociology. He is literally the most cited academic of all time, and he wrote his PHd in like the 1830s m8. It is astonishing how relevant much of his work is today even more relevant.
Even just read this article if you want to know an incredibly basic way in which there is a lot to learn from Marx
"Marx Was Right: Five Surprising Ways Karl Marx Predicted 2014
From the iPhone 5S to corporate globalization, modern life is full of evidence of Marx's foresight
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/marx-was-right-five-surprising-ways-karl-marx-predicted-2014-20140130
"
>>8034865
I'm quite familiar with the field, thank you. It has all the scientific credibility of theology.
>>8034854
What does that even mean and what does it have to do with how shit an argument you made?
I live in the UK, which Americans call socialist because we don't make poor people die of preventable diseases. Where do I move to and how would it mean criticisms of capitalism were more valid?
>>8034865
what are these papers you talk of? Written by who?
>inb4 he posts some bullshit from the Cato institute or Mises
>>8034911
>any basic or advanced textbook on different economic theories
No shit a survey of economic theories is going to include an economic theory, retard. That doesn't make it a good theory, or valid today. I'm sure you'll find shit about serfdom and mercantilism too.
>rollingstone.com
So many Marxists would never be made if they had to read other sociology literature more contemporary with Marx, such as Weber, Durkheim, Michels, Menger, etc.
That said I'd be interested in a reading group if I knew it could happen, but let's be honest, this is 4chan. The problem with Marx isn't so much his theory of how things work but his inexplicable attachment to proles. The only reason Marx is so strongly associated with the Left (and remains to be recovered by the Right) is because "gotta save the proles from capitalism" is useful for the high-low vs middle politics. Marxism was really more of a Schelling point for the Russian revolutionaries than it was the raison d'etre.
>>8034891
>tfw you only survive getting broomhandled by germans because capitalists lent you equipment
>>8034911
There are no longer "economic theories" in economics. That is why the history of economic thought is no longer taught at universities. Usually, people criticize economics education on this point but it makes sense to think of it as a curiosity if you acknowledge how packed the curriculum already is. The only ones who claim economics is heavily ideological are those whose methodologies have been relegated because they don't bother to empirically test the hypothesis they make.
About the article, just lol. Do you think that is an accurate depiction of what Marx thought? That article is atrocious. And again: not a good source. Now I'm starting to believe you know nothing about Marx.
>>8030542
speaking as a Marxist,
> the system that brought the greatest increase in general standard of living in the history of the planet
has undeniably been capitalism. Marx himself recognised this and greatly admired the capitalist mode of production for the increases of productivity.
Like he literally wrote so many complimentary things about the productive capacity of capitalism.
That wasn't his argument
>>8034929
Ok, you have been completely brainwashed on this issue. Seriously, you need to get out of your bubble.
>>8034941
Read the Journal of Economic Perspectives. It is basically a non-technical journal for intelligent laymen on what's being currently done in economics.
The Cato or Mises Institute are as big of a joke as Marxist or PK economists. These do not do economics. They are political advocates.
>>8034961
>That is why the history of economic thought is no longer taught at universities.
No that isn't thought because it's revealing the greatest embarrassment of the field of the economics
>>8034981
>it's another economics thread with a faggot claiming esoteric position in the simplest humanities "science"
>>8034982
If you assume "economics, bad", you are not going to learn anything. Besides, it does not lend you one bit of credibility.
Universities first made the course on history of economic thought optional because they thought it was no longer a requirement, for the reasons I've explained above. Since these courses, in most universities, have almost no students, they opted to drop them. If you really complain about opening one, many are open to the idea. Those that say "we will not open a whole course for 5 students" still allow you to organize small lectures on the history of economic thought and many professors of that same university gladly join in. So no, sorry, you are completely wrong.
>>8034961
There are no valid experiments in economics. A scientist can isolate phenomena and study them in his laboratory. An economist cannot do that any more than a meteorologist can gain insight into the weather by going on walks and looking at the sky.
>>8035016
It's not esoteric. I'm part of the majority who actually studies this in university. Most economists who are actually doing economics instead of spewing shit as political advocates agree with me.
And, yes, economic is a science. It derives falsifiable hypothesis and tests them.
>>8035025
You know nothing about econometrics, that's why you say that. Controlled experiments are good because you can set the correlation between explanatory variables and possible confounding variables to be 0. There are other ways to achieve this without controlled experiments. They are not as good (require a larger sample, for instance) but they do work (both theoretically and empirically).
>>8034961
> he talks about economics as if it is a homogeneous science
>>8034961
>>8034948
>it isn't worth learning about the merits and flaws of different economic theories
>implying such knowledge is not necessary to possess any educated position on the discipline of economics.
>serfdom and mercantilism are economic theories
wut?
>>8034961
>there are no longer economic theories in economics
A ridiculous yet probably somewhat truthful statement with regards to the state of undergrad economics courses. Presumably somewhat related to the state the world economy finds itself in after 2008.
>empirically test economic hypotheses
top kek, even the governments of the most advanced western countries with the best statistics gathering techniques struggle to test the impact of isolated economic policies
>rollingstone
I originally wanted to post articles from the Financial Times but it would be behind a paywall and inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have a subscription. Articles where people who are capitalists at least see the value in a lot of Marx's work as well as his enduring relevance.
Ideally, I would have recommended the 3 volumes of Kolokowski's Main Currents of Marxism alongside Das Kapital and David Harvey's accompanying online lecture series... But I get the sense neither of you would have read any of them.
So for my two brethren who were dismissive of Marx and seemingly quite ignorant of economics, I opted for the buzzfeed style terribly written article which is accessible and does make some valid points about Marx's foresight. i.e. globalisation
Of course
>>8035025
And, still, many sciences do not rely on controlled experiments, like astronomy.
>>8035043
>different theories
Economics is mostly homogeneous nowadays. Again, grab actual papers on economics and try to read them. The only ones who bash economics are the ones who do not bother to test their theories. These are immediately shunned as cranks.
>empirical testing in economics
Have you actually worked inside these government institutions trying to evaluate policy? Most of the people there are not economists and know shit about statistics. Fortunately, they began hiring young economists but still they can barely compete with the private sector. The only exception is the US and the stuff they come up with is actually pretty good.
The biggest issue in economics is of external validity. That is, you test a very specific phenomenon and you can't extrapolate that to other apparently similar phenomenon because so many things have changed.
>undergrad courses
they suck because economics has changed so much in the last 20 years and nobody has bothered to compile everything. Besides, the new useful material is not that easy for undergrads but still they could learn it. To know economics you must read papers not books.
The financial times is actually pretty bad, economics wise. Every article is riddled of mistakes and of "consensus" based thinking.
>>8035043
Just as an example, in my classes, around 90% of the papers I read are from the 90s onward and most of these are from the new millennium. On macro, all papers I read were written after the great recession.
Economics has been built from the ground up.
