Reddit reviews Marx: A Very Short Introduction

Eh, Marx was inevitable. He took the ideas of a genius, Hegel, and the idea of the historical dialectic and inverted it.

Marx made a good observation about a way of interpreting the driving forces behind human history. He was ultimately wrong (historical materialism is too simplistic), but that idea was going to happen one way or the other.

We ought to blame Marx as much as Stalin and Mao as well as everyone else who behaved like a total fuckwad when it wasn’t necessary to behave like a total fuckwad.

I recommend everyone to listen to Peter Singer summarize Hegel

https://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/019280197X

And Marx

https://www.amazon.com/Marx-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/0192854054

Edit: Lots of overlap between Peterson and Hegel btw. Though Hagel was highly critical of the Classical Liberal notion of freedom.

Edit: Fixed spelling for all anal retentives

I think the "Planet-sized ghost" came from here https://www.amazon.com/Marx-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/0192854054

which Scott reviewed on SSC back in 2014 http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/13/book-review-singer-on-marx/

TBH I'm not so sure about what should be a good source and in some senses I'm overgeneralizing a bit: some anarchists wouldn't agree or perhaps more interestingly, would consider it fundamentally uninteresting. Individualist anarchists of the egoist - "what is good is that which maximizes my welfare" or perhaps "a good action is that which is determined by my interests alone" - stripe would go that way, but it's not that large a tendency in anarchist thought.

Before getting into anarchism proper, I'd recommend you to read about Marx who's the father of the idea I described. I recommend reading two short books., First, read the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. Just read it as a primary source and take into account what the world was like in 1848 and for the time being try not to worry what historical consequences you might ascribe to it or not: I'm not an communist, but there is time and place for everything. Secondly I liked Peter Singer's slim volume Marx: A Very Short Introduction. It's very lucid, written by a famous contemporary philosopher (who is not a communist) and only 120 pages long. Third would be to read about anarchism and in that I can't help you, but I shall put the main thing like this: Marx and the anarchists like Bakunin disagreed mainly on the methods by which to bring communism into fruition. Marx wanted a transitory state governed by the working class, but anarchists wanted to dispense with the state as fast as possible.

Lastly: a diagram of the idea that I alluded to, but after reading my recommendations you'll have a better idea of what the implications are.

All I ever think of when I hear milbank is "We are nihilists, Milbank! We believe in nossink!"

Which is not to compare him with the Dude, by any means.

Cavanaugh fools around with them here and there, and vice versa. It's that participation language; the only Catholics that aren't allergic to it these days are hardcore phenomenologists like Marion. But, as you said, RO as a whole has some excellent critiques (I particularly like Graham Ward). Have you ever read Peter Singer's short introduction to Marx? He actually situates Marx as a Romantic rather than a simple economist, which I think really illuminates his economic theory. It might coincide with what you explained in Miekle, which sounds pretty interesting.

What sort of historical areas are you most interested in?

I'm similarly new to Marxism but I found Peter Singer's "Marx: A Very Short Introduction" to be a useful starting point. It's cheap and extremely short (maybe 100 or so pages in length), but it's clearly written and covers a lot of ground.

For me it was best to start with secondary texts. Paul D'Amato's The Meaning of Marxism and Peter Singer's Marx: A Very Short Introduction were both wonderful resources.

A few places you might think of starting with:
Gary Gutting has some fairly accessible stuff on french philosophy.

Peter Singer has written books on Hegel and Marx that might be helpful.

/u/Magnificrab a critique is not an ideal starting place for someone new to a subject.

PlzFadeMeBro when you are first learning about something it is best to start from a neutral position and then proceed to sophisticated supporters and detractors. To do otherwise is to risk becoming an ignorant and dogmatic ideologue.

Oxford University Press produces a series of books called Very Short Introductions that provide accessible introductions to different topics.

https://www.amazon.ca/Marx-Short-Introduction-Peter-Singer/dp/0192854054
https://www.amazon.ca/Postmodernism-Short-Introduction-Christopher-Butler/dp/0192802399

I am frankly surprised that you want citations for these fairly commonplace and well known facts. As far as I can tell, everything I've said about communism and Marxism is fairly well known, and widely believed by historians, essayists and philosophers.

My other claims that (that communism is impossible etc.) are obviously more debatable, but my claim that Marxism/communism requires that human nature is endlessly changeable is unremarkable. Every book about communism - both for and against - I have ever read makes these same claims, and they are as widely known and accepted as the fact that capitalists believe in the free market (or do you need a citation for that, too?).

But since you are this obstinate, here are some summary quotes from the philosopher Peter Singer, found in his book Marx: A Very Short Introduction

>How did Marx think the opposition between private and communal
interests could be overcome? Obviously the abolition of private
property could play a part – it is not so easy to feather one’s own nest
if there is nothing one can call one’s own to feather it with. But the
change would have to go deeper, for even without private property
people could pursue their own interests by trying to get as much as
they could for themselves (for immediate consumption if the abolition
of private property made hoarding impossible) or by shirking their
share of the work necessary to keep the community going. To alter
this, nothing short of a radical transformation of human nature would
suffice.

[p 81.]


>Material abundance and the transformation of human nature provide
the basis for Marx’s claim that the state as we know it would cease to
exist under communism.

[p. 85]


>Here – Marx’s second lasting contribution to modern thought – his
view of human nature – ties in with his idea of freedom. Marx’s theory
that human nature is not for ever fixed, but alters in accordance with
the economic and social conditions of each period, holds out the
prospect of transforming society by changing the economic basis of
such human traits as greed, egoism, and ambition. Marx expected the
abolition of private property and the institution of common ownership
of the means of production and exchange to bring about a society in
which people were motivated more by a desire for the good of all than
by a specific desire for their own individual good. In this way individual
and common interests could be harmonized.

[p. 93 - 94]

> that the Soviet Union &etc. were Socialist, not Communist,

The other way around, mate. I'm not trying to defend socialism btw, I don't think it'd work either, but it doesn't seem like you really ever bothered to understand the concept.

If you're interested in getting a proper idea of socialism, or at least understand Marx' criticism of Capitalism, I strongly recommend "A Very Short Introduction to Marx" by Peter Singer. It's really short, and explains the ideas very well.

This is both.

Get some context first from an introductory text like Marx: A Very Short Introduction

The three paradigms that he drew to make is work: Classical economics, French socialist political philosophy, and Hegelianism are all antiquated in the sense that in general we don't think in those terms any more. Reading Marx and understanding everything you read is not always the same thing.