Best communism & socialism books according to redditors
We found 264 Reddit comments discussing the best communism & socialism books. We ranked the 103 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 264 Reddit comments discussing the best communism & socialism books. We ranked the 103 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
"Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein is an editorial that is a good (and short) read.
Jacobin Magazine has an "ABCs of Socialism" primer that is also fairly short and accessible.
Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread" is another good one -- and there is a version of it available for free on Amazon if you have a Kindle or the phone app. It has a handful of weird formatting/editing errors, like page numbers still being present in there.
There's a "crash course" essay on GitHub that is community-maintained; I haven't read through it, so I can't really speak for it, but the authors have a shitload of sources listed in there. Based on the stuff in the parent directory, I'm guessing the content is more SocDem-focused.
Marxists.org has a large library of Marx and Engels works in eBook formats if you're feeling ready for the harder stuff. Capital and ye olde Manifesto are the main highlights.
Black Socialists of America maintains another resource guide,
but their site seems to be down at the moment.Edit: BSA's site is back up. Looks like they redesigned since the last time I looked at it, too.Leftist moms are awesome.
Edit - mine thought this was good reading for 10-year olds
Someone's basically already done that.
He sold a book entitled "why socialism works" and every page just reads "it doesn't". Check out the triggered customer reviews.
Here's the link to the book if anyone is interested.
I see you have never owned the libs by selling a book on Amazon called "Why Socialism Works" that actually only has the words "It doesn't" on every page
Relevant: this fucking book I found on Amazon today.
Unfortunately it seems that you are the one "undereducated" on Socialism as you seem to fail to see its true nature and its ultimate goals.
The goal of socialism (as defined by Lenin) is Communism, and Communist regimes are responsible for more death and mass killings in the last 100 years than any other ideology. 100 million people dead is the estimate most often sighted.
Living in the "information age" does not make the ideology any less dangerous or destructive and you would be a fool to think otherwise. Human beings are too quick to forget the lessons of the past and it's clear to see that the thinking that lead to that staggering number of deaths is back in vogue.
>How much did the delivery of the baby cost in Australia? Close to zero. $3500 bucks on average for just the childbirth itself, just that one day, in the capitalist paradise of the United States.
In socialist systems someone always pays. I can tell you for a fact that the birth of my child, nor any healthcare I receive in Australia, is "free". I pay for it with an extremely high tax rate. It appears that you haven't thought very deeply about the realities of a socialist system if you think that things are "free".
I have thought deeply about these things and my conclusion is that the system is fundamentally immoral as the state is taking my property by force for redistribution. If I do not consent to the redistribution of my property the state will destroy my life with either prison or death (if I resist).
>dragging on American academics for pointing a finger at the oppressor culture that is the source of global strife and complaint.
It's interesting to me that I keep seeing this rhetoric about the "oppressor culture". You state that it is the source of global strife and complaint, but all I see is that your thinking is immersed in identity politics and this idea that everything should be seen through the lens of the 'oppressed and the oppressors'. I believe this is a kind of cult that has infected people's thinking and it has spread comprehensively in the Western world. Now I don't hold it against you because I too used to think like this. The elements of this post-modern, marxist thinking are highly pervasive and have infected almost every aspect of our society.
There is too much to unpack here and I need to get back to show research but I will say this; both Aaron and I do not subscribe to identity politics or the far left thinking that has become so prevalent in society. We will continue to talk (and joke) about whatever we find interesting on Mysterious Universe, and this might include things that cross over into political or cultural areas that some listeners do not agree with.
If you don't agree with our views and what we say then that's fine. You have the liberty to not listen to us whenever you please.
Recommended Reading:
Ban this book, then. Your proposed principal extends to censoring core political speech in no time at all.
For all those on the left I have the "Perfect" book for you, it's #1 in the Political Ideologies section of Amazon! Why Socialism Works
I think it's more like a neoconservative sub in the sense that neoconservatism, when it's really effective, is to present right-wing or far-right positions as the true "left" position. A lot of the people there would've been big Christopher Hitchens fans during the Iraq War and so on, and they do still think very highly of him. I've also seen the "Euston Manifesto" get shared around there which is an old neocon document from the mid-2000s. Basically the argument was that the parts of the left that opposed the war had betrayed its principles and fallen into "moral relativism" and all these right-wing tropes. Today this kind of tendency also rewords the main right-wing positions of the time (cracking immigrants over the head with clubs, transphobia, etc.) as left-wing positions.
If anyone here is British they might be familiar with Nick Cohen. It's like "I'm on the left guys really but why is the left apologizing for MILITANT ISLAM???" Stupidpol is Nick Cohen-esque:
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Left-How-Lost-its/dp/0007229704
This article is a typical hit piece that uses several well known propaganda techniques to instill doubt into people. As someone who actually knew most of the things Peterson is talking about, from other sources, I can vouch for what Jordan Peterson says, the man is not a crank.
Here are some easily accessible materials that will cover many of his ideas:
Everything he says about the impact of biology on behavior:
>Robert Sapolsky's 2011 "Human Behavioral Biology" course from Stanford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D
Everything he says about the denial of human nature by ideologues:
>Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blank-Slate-Modern-Penguin-Science/dp/014027605X (Peterson actually mentions it at one point in his talks). (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFey_0cbgeo)
Everything he says about the corruption of the left wing utopians:
>Paul Johnson, "Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky" https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170 (videos of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-Oc6HoqTE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_6NsFvjm0o)
>Roger Scruton, "Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left": https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-Left/dp/1408187337 (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLfRoO8HwN0)
Everything he says about the virtues of Western Civilization:
>Niall Ferguson, "Civilization: The West and the Rest" https://www.amazon.com/Civilization-West-Rest-Niall-Ferguson/dp/0143122061 (video of the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnFeyMGUs8)
Read the book "None dare call it a conspiracy". Its a good primer on the world banking conspiracy to create a world socialist state. Although Rothschild's are imolicated , so are Anglo elitists the rockafellers and JP Morgan, many others. Its not a Jewish or Israeli thing exclusively...its a finance industry elitist cabal operating through international orgs such as CFR, round table, bildrrberg group, etc.
Israeli intelligence however has been running game on America undermining it and shaping the spectrum of discourse. Partly its our fault: 80% of our intelligence comes surprisingly from mainstream media!! Sine MSM is controlled by 6 companies that are Jewish owned, you can see how this trend creates a conflict of (national) interests. Also, all phone billing in america goes thru an Israeli company so they in essence have likely mapped out every citizen in America's social graph at least the "those you call" relationships.
Sad.
Its what happens when your intelligence, isn't. Because run by the military instead of a more diverse thinktank of learned people.
Ahem, including some distrustful but laterally thinking subverts such as those here in conspiracy.
Fukuyama vs Huntington.
This one actually exists.
At risk of copyright infringement, I will print here the entire text of the book here.
>It doesn't.
Two modern and more "moderate" books, considering that your brother goes to DSA meetings:
"Why not Socialism?" by G.A. Cohen
"Why Marx was right" by Terry Eagleton
And two firecrackers, one marxian, one anarchist:
"The Communist Manifesto" by Marx/Engels
"The Conquest of Bread" by Kropotkin
Before you go and buy any of this stuff for a dozen bucks or so, consider that they are all available online, "Manifesto" and "Conquest" even legally.
>He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
…
>The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Please pay attention to Žižek's work. Please read articles and books excoriating him. Rather than sniffing at him, I suggest you discover your own feelings on him. If you find him compelling, interrogate why you feel that way. If you find him unreasonable or dispicable, justify it.
Wage Labor and Capital as well as Value, Price and Profit is a very short booklet which covers basic Marxist economics. Das Kapital is Marx's Magnum Opus, so if you want to really get into the weeds, that is what you should read.
Professor Wolffs books are all very good, Democracy at Work as well as Capitalism's Crisis Deepens are both good and straightforward to read.
Chomsky's book Manufacturing Consent is necessary reading to understand how the media has crucified leftist theory and pushed an anti-communist, anti-socialist message for decades.
Just order off of Amazon. Here's a good book. Why Socialism Works https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521531218/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_3VKYAbCJQKFAK
He basically makes his money from critiquing the left. He wrote this book back in 2007 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whats-Left-Lost-Liberals-Their/dp/0007229704
Literally "what happened to the left", and hes been cashing those "i don't like the left" checks for like 10 years at this point.
That said, hes not wrong, corbyn needs to go
For those curious: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218
>Unless you can qualify this statement with an actual source of information it is only an opinion.
I did mention that there's an entire book of source. Don't bother with the Amazon reviews, just read it. Get it out of the library if you don't want to pay money.
An important book everyone thinking about joining these groups should read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218
Maajid on Twitter today acknowledged that, although he coined the term, Nick Cohen was really the grandfather of the concept. He published a book on the subject in 2007 called What's Left.
The obvious example that comes to mind is Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
Another excellent book is Michael Mazarr's Unmodern Men in the Modern World: Radical Islam, Terrorism, and the War on Modernity.
You may also be interested in some of the Islamic perspectives:
Democratic socialism is a type of socialism informed by democratic and egalitarian values and critical of authoritarian structures that can be characterized as "dictatorships". From this perspective, socialism is not just about a change in government and government policy, but a transformation towards greater political democracy as well as democracy in the workplace (socialists used to use the term 'industrial democracy' as a shorthand for this). Higher levels of literacy and lower levels of poverty move this process (towards greater worker participation and liberty) along. And since socialism relies on democracy and requires democratic norms, a society where worker speech and organization are systematically controlled and restricted cannot qualify as socialist.
To quote one of my links below
>According to Ralph Miliband in Socialism for a Sceptical Age, three core propositions define socialism: (1) democracy, (2) egalitarianism, and (3) socialization or public ownership of a predominant part of the economy
As for Sanders, the way he uses 'democratic socialism' is more akin to European 'social democracy' which has evolved over the years into a ty[e of philosophy of government in the context of capitalism and liberal democracy. If we look at videos of Sanders from the 80s we see there was a period where he was more of a 'democratic socialist'. Sanders stuck with that self-identification (maybe out of habit), but it's fair to say his politics today are solidly 'social democratic'.
For background see
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/08/democratic-socialism-judis-new-republic-social-democracy-capitalism
http://www.dsausa.org/toward_freedom/
https://www.marxists.org/archive/miliband/1985/xx/beyondsd.htm
http://ouleft.org/wp-content/themes/wpremix3/images/21stCenturySocialism.pdf
https://thenextsystem.org/economic-democracy
https://thenextsystem.org/toward-democratic-eco-socialism-as-the-next-world-system
For book length treatments, see
https://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Sceptical-Age-Ralph-Miliband/dp/1859840574
https://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Past-Future-Michael-Harrington/dp/1611453356/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MZEMAZZY4S7VZXTCNE62
I'd also reccomend Mike MacNair's Revolutionary Strategy
He was behind this in the early 2000s when he thought that the Left was becoming toxic, especially after Iraq.
http://eustonmanifesto.org/the-euston-manifesto/
Essentially a manifesto that says universal values should be upheld instead of relative oppressor/victim politics and the politics of anti-imperialism.
He also wrote the book 'What's left'.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whats-Left-Lost-Liberals-Their/dp/0007229704
This book was a critique of modern double standards in leftists which excuse Islamists, horrible dictatorships and other nasties in the name of anti-imperialism. His principle is that someone like Putin should be opposed, and not supported because he is an enemy of the USA. Same with people like Chavez, Iran, Hamas, Hesbollah and so on.
A few months ago he made a 2 minute video in a spectator column on why he 'left the left'. Critizing Corbyn, though mostly his politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQQw5T2T94M
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/09/why-ive-finally-given-up-on-the-left/
Thomas J. Dilorenzo literally says that socialism also includes whenever the government does stuff like in the US with social security, the post office, and fire departments! He literally misunderstands why the USSR at one point had to have capitalist sectors of its agricultural economy as it was transitioning from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and claims it was because, "Socialism couldn't provide food for the Soviet people during Stalin's regime!"
​
Dilorezo also appeared on Fox News to promote his book!
​
The worst part about it is this is that Thomas J. DiLorenzo is a professor of economics at Loyola University and a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute! He literally is so ignorant he somehow got a professorship in economics but he doesn't even fundamentally understand anything about socialism and communism! I doubt Dilorezo even read any Marxist literature at all!
​
Here's the book! You can listen to the audiobook too!
Text:
By Steven WardMay 4 at 7:00 AM
On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported the State Department’s policy planning staff, led by Director Kiron Skinner, is “preparing for a clash of civilizations” with China. Skinner’s office is composing what it calls “Letter X” — styled after George Kennan’s “X Article” that laid out an argument for containing the Soviet Union during the first years of the Cold War.
The Examiner’s description of the State Department’s thinking contains remarkable details. Skinner describes great power competition with China as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before.” China “poses a unique challenge … because the regime in Beijing isn’t a child of Western philosophy and history.” The Cold War constituted “a fight within the Western family,” while the coming conflict with China is “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”
[No, China and the U.S. aren’t locked in an ideological battle. Not even close.]
Skinner is right that “you can’t have a policy without an argument underneath it.” But the argument that seems to be informing U.S. China policy is deeply flawed and dangerous.
Has the United States never competed with a great power whose ideology or civilization was dramatically different from ours?
Skinner’s claim that China is the United States’ first ideologically distinct great power competitor is wrong. For one thing, it is not at all clear that such an ideology is central to Sino-American competition. For another, this mangles history. Nazi Germany is an obvious counterexample. The Soviet Union is a second. Skinner has written extensively on President Ronald Reagan, who would be surprised to learn that American competition with the U.S.S.R. — the “evil empire” — did not involve ideological differences.
To Skinner, the Cold War did not constitute a conflict of civilization because it took place within the “Western family.” She takes her cue from Samuel Huntington’s ideas about the “clash of civilizations.” But those ideas do not stand up to scrutiny. The concept of “civilization” lacks empirical support. Also, the enterprise of classifying countries according to dominant civilizations ignores the variety and contingency of identities, treating some as fixed or natural while erasing others. Nor is it clear that Russia was ever understood (or understood itself) as a fully Western or European nation.
Fortunately, Skinner offers a further clue about what she means. China, she notes, is the first great power competitor that the United States has faced that is “not Caucasian.” In the end, the argument is not about ideology or civilization. It is about race. China — unlike Russia — is not predominantly white, and thus must be dealt with differently.
Before World War II, Japan came to believe it wouldn’t be treated equally in world politics because of Western racial attitudes.
But the claim that the United States has never faced a non-Caucasian great power competitor is also wrong. Japan before World War II was a great power rival and was understood as racially different.
Nah, that's not the thing.
The real reason is that lefties are in love with anything that a) causes massive bloodshed and b) takes away personal responsibility for it. It's why lefties flocked to communism and why they are now massively shilling for islam.
If you want an interesting read, I suggest you buy this book:
https://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602
Jamie Glazov knows his stuff. He himself fled Soviet Russia with his parents so he knows the evils of communism firsthand.
> So you can see, labor cannot be correlated to the market value solely as Marx wanted to phrase it, because a lot of problems occur in the whole formula.
If you read all three Volumes of Capital, you will see that for Marx value ≠ market prices and surplus value ≠ profit. Only, the sum of ALL value = the sum of ALL prices and the sum of ALL surplus value = the sum of all ALL profits. In other word, you could say that he modifies (resp. develops) his labor theory of value, as Alex Callinicos says. Through the equalization of the rate of profits and the formation of the general rate of profit in the market, the surplus value which is produced in the whole economy distributes throughout the different capitals. So that the individual market prices "approaches" towards the prices of production (with: production price = cost prices + average profit). So the labor intensity of a sector (or to be more precise: the organic composition of a single capital) doesn't directly determines its rate of profit.
There is a new book out there that deals with this topic and is meant to be very good, but I haven't read it yet. It is: _Money and Totality by Fred Moseley.
> Bohm-Bawerk
I think Andrew Kliman in Reclaiming Marx's Capital_ has completly destroyed his critique and the whole issue of the so-called "transformation problem". Although I haven't read his (Bohm-Bawerks) work myself. Anyhow, it is a damn good book, which provides a great defense of Marx's Theories.
Edit: changed the links (from .de to .com)
I keep coming back to Nick Cohen's What's Left when these things crop up. Some on the left have a big blind spot when it comes to the behaviour of others on the left, preferring to believe that their innately moral nature means that any reports of misdeeds must surely be propaganda of the right.
Plenty on the left supported Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq prior to 1991, as he was seen to be a pan-Arab socialist standing up to American neocolonialism. The fact that he massacred tens of thousands of Kurds was merely incidental.
Corbyn has banged on and on about how great Venezuela is, when it's wildly corrupt, funds FARC terrorism, and is now pretty close to becoming a totally failed petro-dictatorship.
This is just another example.
Socialism/Communism
A People's History of the World
Main Currents of Marxism
The Socialist System
The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)
Marx for our Times
Essential Works of Socialism
Soviet Century
Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)
The Meaning of Marxism
The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)
Of the People, by the People
Why Not Socialism
Socialism Betrayed
Democracy at Work
Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)
The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)
The American Socialist Movement
Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)
It Didn't Happen Here
Eugene V. Debs
The Enigma of Capital
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)
After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action
Capitalism
The Conservative Nanny State
The United States Since 1980
The End of Loser Liberalism
Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)
Economics: A New Introduction (must read)
U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)
Kicking Away the Ladder
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
Traders, Guns and Money
Corporation Nation
Debunking Economics
How Rich Countries Got Rich
Super Imperialism
The Bubble and Beyond
Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents
Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
America's Protectionist Takeoff
How the Economy was Lost
Labor and Monopoly Capital
We Are Better Than This
Ancap/Libertarian
Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)
Man, State and Economy
The Machinery of Freedom
Currently Reading
This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)
It's probably considered racist by many, especially those left of centre, but according to this article in 2016 it was the fourth most read book in the top 10 US colleges so you cucks can blow me.
https://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/dp/1451628978
Free for your kindle:
https://smile.amazon.com/Conquest-Bread-Alekseevich-kniaz-Kropotkin-ebook/dp/B002RKSJ04/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Communist-Manifesto-Illustrated-Materialism/dp/0981280722
There are two main things that conservatives hate about globalism: (1) its penchant for centralizing power at the global level and (2) the premise that all cultures are of equal value.
Conservatives hate #1 because we believe that government functions best/legitimately at as local a level as possible. We distrust the consolidation of power that happens under nationalist/globalist regimes because it is inefficient and likely to be used to trample on people's rights. Local institutions are more accountable to, and better able to solve the unique problems of, the community they represent.
We hate #2 because we love the social and political values we've inherited from our forefathers. These values are under threat by elitist global institutions that push foreign values on unsuspecting peoples.
You may be interested in The Clash of Civilizations by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington.
> MRA (Men's Rights Activist) - Noun - Ehm-ARRR!-Aye: These are men and women that work toward alleviating over-conviction of males, men's custody rights, raising male sexual assault awareness, etc. These aren't anti-feminists, or red-pillers, or channers.
Any definition of the modern men's right's movement that puts a specific caveat of "these aren't anti-feminists" is really, really bad. At the very least, highly inaccurate to reality.
MRAs are not "all people who advocate for men." They're a specific ideology of advocating for men, consisting of places like /r/mensrights, websites like A Voice for Men, and a good chunk of much worse places that don't really need to be mentioned. Anti-feminism is quite literally a tenant of the MRA movement, quite possibly the single most unifying belief among their constituency. Of course, this predates the Internet, but real-life MRA organizations are few and far between. Of the few MRA political parties out there, they tend to be, uncoincidentally, antifeminist (ex). Or you can read the guy from AVfM who started his own political party. Note the URL, particularly feminism/government-tyranny. This is the same guy who wrote this book.
This isn't to say that there aren't pro-feminist MRAs, because given how many people are involved, there could be at least a couple. But the dominant frame of the movement is a reaction to feminism gone too far.
> less a marxist and more of lacanian psychoanalysist
>Peterson probably should argue with an actual marxist.
But old school Marxism was dead and splintered into a thousand factions long ago. The 'post-modern neo Marxists' are Peterson's main targets.
Philosopher Roger Roger Scruton wrote a book on that whole philosophical tendency long before the modern culture war with Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. Zizek is right there in the last chapter of the latest edition. I have not gotten around to reading it properly yet but a scan of that chapter would seem to fit well with Peterson's themes. The main critique seems to be something like that Zizek uses his Lacanian framework to opt out of the morality of real consequences (such as human suffering) to a morality of ideas based on intention. Scrution quotes Zizek saying that the difference between the Russian Gulag and the Nazi concentration camp is the difference between civilisation and barbarism. With the gulag on the virtuous side. Given Peterson's moral philosophy is based on suffering as evil in itself and his thought influenced by reflecting on the gulag, I am sure there was the potential for some proper metapysical fireworks, which seems to have been missed.
The first and hardest concept to grasp is that socialism is only an economic system. It is often conflated with the political system, communism, but both are very broad. Wikipedia's article is actually very good for an overview.
The question that neturally arises from an overview of socialism is, "well, how would we implement this so we can enjoy [insert level of quality of life]?" And that is a very involved discussion.
I've also found that Michael Harrington's Socialism: Past and Future to be a good read, but I'm sure there are others here that could recommend better books.
Lol, I totally understand. Still, I think there's considerable value in his works, particularly from the 80s. When he's working to synthesize the experience of socialism and advance its theory, it's pretty good stuff. When he's trying to convince people he's the only hope for the world, not so much.
Some other sources I've found useful:
A World to Win magazine had a number of important articles which are well worth digging into.
Corrigan, Philip, Harvie Ramsay, and Derek Sayer. 1979. For Mao: Essays on Historical Materialism. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Starr, John Bryan. 1979. Continuing the Revolution: The Political Thought of Mao. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
(These are from academics and focus more on the theoretical aspects. They're the best academic works I know of on Mao though and are very nice overviews.)
Another academic work which has an excellent chapter on Mao (though the bulk of it deals with other aspects) is Martin, Bill. 2008. Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. Open Court.
Badiou has a nice analysis of the GPCR in Badiou, Alain. 2008. The Communist Hypothesis. Verso.
(Some journalistic/historical accounts of Maoism in practice/development in China):
Belden, Jack. 1949. China Shakes the World. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Han Suyin. 1976. Wind in the Tower: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1948-1975. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Hinton, William. 1966. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. New York:
Vintage.
Horn, Joshua S. 1969. Away with All Pests: An English Surgeon in People’s China, 1954-1969. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Hunter, Iris. 1986. They Made Revolution Within the Revolution: The Story of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Chicago: RCP Publications.
Milton, David and Nancy Dall Milton. 1971. The Wind Will Not Subside. New York: Pantheon.
Myrdal, Jan. 1965. Report from a Chinese Village. New York: Signet.
Finally, Li Onesto has good book on the Nepalese revolution which unfortunately was betrayed by the leadership.
Force all your lefty friends to read this
https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Socialism-Thomas-DiLorenzo/dp/1621575896
I've read many books on socialism.
The evidence is very clear. I highly recommend read this book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=socialism&qid=1555585874&s=gateway&sr=8-5
Is this a Warren Meme? It's pretty clever, tbh. Reminds me of this book on socialism.
https://www.amazon.com/Communist-Manifesto-Illustrated-Historical-Materialism/dp/0981280722
The book is now an amazon editor's pick for the "best books of the month".
http://www.amazon.com/Feminism-Ugly-Truth-Mike-Buchanan-ebook/dp/B00795BPEO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421944751&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+buchanan&pebp=1421944755300&peasin=B00795BPEO
I'm not even going to read it, but damn this backfired for the campaigners...
Honestly, I haven't come across a ton of good textbooks explaining the basics of IR theory. The Wikipedia page is a pretty good starting point for the big theoretical schools.
Neorealism and Its Critics is also a modern classic on IR theory you'd read in most college or graduate level IR courses. Waltz's Theory of International Relations is also a seminal text. Sam Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" Article and Book were both extremely important to recent thinking on IR.
British author and journalist Nick Cohen wrote about this in 2007 in his book What's Left?: How the Left Lost its Way: How Liberals Lost Their Way Where he discusses this unholy alliance came to be of the left and the Islamist far right.
The left have become so rabidly anti-US/West that they have adopted the idea of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend". They have abandoned their core principles and will make bedfellows with those that are antithetical to their world view and goals. This is how you have British Labour protesters marching shouting "We are all Hamas" or have an ostensibly progressive organization to combat fascism named Unite Against Fascism have an Islamist Fascist serving on the board...
A principled left would be supporting Arab intellectuals, journalists, authors, professors, feminists, trade unionists, Marxists, etc. Instead we have the left supporting the far right Islamist movements in these parts of the world i.e. Hamas, Hizbollah, etc.
Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton
...Be the change you want to see in the world? Alternatively, there is an illustrated version.
Now there's no reason not to have read the Communist Manifesto.
I enjoy critiques of intellectuals and learning relations between them. You should also check out The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism by him. Mark Lilla is very similar, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals and Politics and The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Of course philosophers and politics would be very lacking without Isaiah Berlin Also Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: The Thinkers of The New Left is very good. Lastly The Opium of Intellectuals of Raymon Aron is a must-read classic.
Read this.
Check out The Governance of China by Xi Jinping.
Can't tell if this is a joke post, but in case you are serious, there's this website called Amazon, and on it you can buy pretty much every book ever published, including the collected speeches of our revered leader, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping ALL HAIL http://www.amazon.com/XI-JINPING-GOVERNANCE-English-Version/dp/7119090577/ If you are in China, you can find the English edition at any branch of Xinhua, and it's also all over Taobao for various prices (and various states of authenticity). After you've read Xi's "Little White Book" and contemplated his sacrosanct quotations and speeches, please do report back here with a review and interpretive analysis.
https://www.amazon.com/China-Shakes-World-Jack-Belden/dp/0853451591
Value, Price, and Profit + Wage-Labor and Capital are a great introduction to Marx's critique of political economy. You can find both on marxists.org or in print for only 8$ US (both pieces in one book) https://www.amazon.ca/Wage-Labour-Capital-Value-Price-Profit/dp/0717804704
Here you go - Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left
> From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. In addition to assessments of these thinkers' philosophical and political contributions, the book contains a biographical and bibliographical section summarizing their careers and most important writings.
> In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands Scruton asks, What does the Left look like today, and how has it evolved? He charts the transfer of grievances, from the working class to women, gays, and immigrants, asks what we can put in the place of radical egalitarianism, and what explains the continued dominance of antinomian attitudes in the intellectual world. Can there be any foundation for resistance to the leftist agenda without religious faith?
> Writing with great clarity, Scruton delivers a devastating critique of modern left-wing thinking.
>. Clinton could have just written fuck trump for 500 pages and I'd probably find a way to justify it being my favorite book of the year.
reminds me of this
As the world gets more homogenised, people facing a loss of identity seek kinship with people with shared values. You can see this with radicalised Muslims. In Indian students associations in American universities.
The Clash of Civilizations is a great book if you want more information. Some parts of it have been discredited, some are outright racist, but the central premise still stands.
Why Socialism Works by Harrison Lievesley
I know the author splits opinions, but Nick Cohen's book What's Left? really is an excellent deconstruction of the Corbyn-style left in Britain. It's never been more relevant than now, I read it recently and it's spot on in many of it's arguments and insights.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Whats-Left-How-Lost-its-Liberals-Their/0007229704
For What's Left?
Relevant book:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218
https://www.amazon.com/Socialism-Past-Future-Michael-Harrington/dp/1611453356
Sure, I have met lots of Muslims. I live in Manhattan so I interact with Muslims every day. In my experience, they all seem to be lovely people.
I am not basing my opinion on the majority of Muslims in the world on my own limited personal experience.
I am basing my opinion on the majority of Muslims in the world on Pew Research, the gold standard in public opinion polling.
Pew did an exhaustive study where they did face to face interviews with 38,000 Muslims in 39 separate countries over the course of four years.
You can read the 200+ page report for yourself. I certainly did. I then broke down the results of their research here. It's about 20 minutes long, which is much longer than it took me to read the report.
Muslims integrate well into a Western population when they are less than 2% of the population. As the percentage of the population rises, problems arise.
I also analyzed the data collected by Samuel P. Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations. I also broke down his research in about 20 minutes here.
Let me know if you have any questions.
This YouTube discussion series and a book to accompany.
this book outlines everything you are bringing up and in detail describes how, why and when this happens. It’s a great short read.
Starting? It started with the SWP. As usual it's not mainstream, but it's not new either.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whats-Left-Lost-Liberals-Their/dp/0007229704/
Some of Mises' work on this topic would perhaps be more informative, but for something shorter/simpler, consider the following: [Tom DiLorenzo's The Problem With Socialism]
(https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Socialism-Thomas-DiLorenzo/dp/1621575896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475195162&sr=1-1&keywords=the+problem+with+socialism)
An entire book has been written on it. Perhaps worth a look
To me, the best was "why socialism works" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218
Most of the suggestions in this thread are specifically socialism from a marxist perspective. I think you might find Socialism: Past and Future by Michael Harrington an engaging and insightful read on socialism from another perspective.
Yeah, I recently started reading through the Kindle edition, and it's got some crazy stuff in there. While Cleon Skousen does seem to be well read on Marx, he makes more than just a few historical errors, such as claiming that Mikhail Bakunin was an advocate of Marx's ideas, as well as some very fundamental logical fallacies in his own reasoning, such as saying that Marxism is automatically wrong and without morals simply because Marx promoted atheism.
Hating Valentine's: Why Islamists and the Radical Left Loathe Valentine’s Day:
Today, February 14, is Valentine’s Day, the sacred day that intimate companions mark to celebrate their love and affection for one another. If you’re thinking about making a study of how couples celebrate this day, the Muslim world and the milieus of the radical Left are not the places you should be spending your time. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to outdo Islamists and “progressives” when it comes to the hatred of Valentine’s Day. And this hatred is precisely the territory on which the contemporary romance between the Left and Islamic Supremacism is formed.
The train is never late: every year that Valentine’s comes around, the Muslim world erupts with ferocious rage, with its leaders doing everything in their power to suffocate the festivity that comes with the celebration of private romance. Imams around the world thunder against Valentine’s every year — and the celebration of the day itself is literally outlawed in Islamist states.
This year, for example, the Islamabad High Court in Pakistan banned the celebration of Valentine's Day in public places, and at an official level, and prohibited all electronic and print media from covering any festivities or mentioning of the occasion. Several cities across Muslim-majority Indonesia, meanwhile, banned people from celebrating the day. In the city of Surabaya, a group of school students, which included many girls wearing the hijab, denounced Valentine's Day. In Muslim-dominant Malaysia, the group The National Muslim Youth Association directed females not to use emoticons and perfume in a pre-Valentine's Day message.
Last year, Pakistan also banned Valentine’s Day, calling it an “insult” to Islam and warning that "strict" action against anyone daring to celebrate the day in any part of Islamabad. In the past, Valentine’s Day activities were disrupted by Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's main religious party, but in the last two years the state and court now get involved to ban celebration of the day. Back on Valentine's Day in Pakistan in 2013, supporters of Jamat-e-Islami took to the streets in Peshawar to vehemently denounce the Day of Love. Demonizing it as “un-Islamic,” the Muslim protestors shouted that the day had "spread immodesty in the world." Shahzad Ahmed, the local leader of the student wing of Jamat-e-Islami, declared that the organization will not “allow” any Valentine’s Day functions, warning that if Pakistani law enforcement did not prevent Pakistanis from holding such functions, that the Jamat-e-Islami would stop them “in our own way." Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader in Jamat-e-Islami, calls Valentine's a “shameful day.”
These Islamist forces in Pakistan cannot, of course, completely succeed in preventing couples from showing love to each other on this special day, and so many Pakistanis still cryptically celebrate Valentine's Day and exchange presents in secret.
In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia last year, and as always, Valentine’s Day was outlawed. Under the Islamic regime in Iran, for instance, any sale or promotion of Valentine’s Day related items, including the exchange of gifts, flowers and cards, is illegal. The Iranian police consistently warn retailers against the promotion of Valentine’s Day celebrations.
Over the years, Islamic religious leaders and officials in Malaysia have warned Muslims against celebrating Valentine's Day. In Saudi Arabia, the morality police outlaw the sale of all Valentine's Day items, forcing shopkeepers to remove any red items, because the day is considered a Christian holiday.
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are carrying the torch for the Indonesian Ulema Council in Dumai, Riau, and for the Education, Youth and Sport Agency in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, both of which issue a dire warning each year to people against celebrating Valentine’s Day, stating that the Day of Love “is against Islam.” This is because, as the Indonesian Ulema Council 2011 judgment explained, Valentine’s Day takes young people into a "dark world.”
Malaysia's State mufti chief assistant Mat Jais Kamos always keeps his mind focused on that dark world and so, in 2014, a few days before Valentine's Day, he ordered young people to stay clear of celebrating the Day of Love: “The celebration emphasizes the relationship between two individuals rather than the love between family members or married couples," he affirmed, and department officials backed up his command by distributing leaflets to remind Muslims of the 2006 ban on Valentine’s Day issued by the state fatwa council. In Islamic Uzbekistan, meanwhile, several universities habitually make sure that students actually sign contracts promising not to celebrate Valentine's.
All these Islamic outcries against Valentine's Day reflect myriad other efforts to suffocate the day of love throughout the Muslim War. For instance, in Aceh province in Indonesia every year, Muslim clerics issue stern warnings to Muslims against observing Valentine’s Day. Tgk Feisal, general secretary of the Aceh Ulema Association (HUDA), has stated that “It is haram for Muslims to observe Valentine’s Day because it does not accord with Islamic Sharia.” He has stressed that the government must watch out for youths participating in Valentine’s Day activities in Aceh. One can only imagine what happens to the guilty parties.
As mentioned, the Saudis consistently punish the slightest hint of celebrating Valentine’s Day. The Kingdom and its religious police always officially issue a stern warning that anyone caught even thinking about Valentine’s Day will suffer some of the most painful penalties of Sharia Law. Daniel Pipes has documented how the Saudi regime takes a firm stand against Valentine’s every year and how the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts.
Christian overseas workers living in Saudi Arabia from the Philippines and other countries always take extra precautions, heeding the Saudis’ warning to them specifically to avoid greeting anyone with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” or exchanging any gift that reeks of romance. A spokesman for a Philippine workers group has commented:
> We are urging fellow Filipinos in the Middle East, especially lovers, just to celebrate their Valentine’s Day secretly and with utmost care.
The Iranian despots, meanwhile, as mentioned above, consistently try to make sure that the Saudis don’t outdo them in annihilating Valentine’s Day. Iran’s “morality” police sternly order shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations and images of couples embracing on this day — and anytime around this day.
Typical of this whole pathology in the Islamic world was a development witnessed back on February 10, 2006, when activists of the radical Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Community) went on a rampage in Srinagar, the main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir. Some two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters showing couples together.
In the West, meanwhile, leftist feminists are not to be outdone by their Islamist allies in reviling — and trying to exterminate — Valentine’s Day. Throughout many Women’s Studies Programs on American campuses, for instance, you will find the demonization of this day, since, as the disciples of Andrea Dworkin angrily explain, the day is a manifestation of how capitalist and homophobic patriarchs brainwash and oppress women -- and push them into spheres of powerlessness.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498567671&sr=1-1&keywords=why+socialism+works
Here are some I suggest for you!
1
2
3
4
>Yeah you do, watch this
I'm not watching some hour long rant about student unions in America. I would literally rather bang a nail into my head with Brie. Student politics has fuck all to do with real politics and it should be treated as such.
>The original aims of PC to stamp out prejudice was fine, but PC has become insane over the last few years.
How exactly has it become insane.
>Brexit is largely the result of PC, because anyone who was white working class and supported controlling immigration was
labelled a racistupset about not being on top of an unequal power structure, so they decided to stick 2 fingers up at the PC numpties and voted en masse to Leave.FTFY
>Yes on here it is discussed more openly tbf probably because there's a higher proportion of right wingers.
I thought this was a left wing hugbox?
>On twitter it was swept under the carpet as much as possible by the left though.
Right, despite all the hundreds of headlines about it the problem is clearly being swept under the carpet because of Twitter? People on twitter are constantly going on about Muslims and grooming gangs, I don't understand why you think it's so hidden.
>She was definitely sacked purely because of the article in The Sun.
When exactly did you become a shadow cabinet minister?
>Look at Aaron Bastani's tweets mentioning Sarah Champion.
When exactly did Aaron Bastani become a shadow cabinet minister?
>Again, maybe it's different on here than on twitter. I only joined Reddit late last year.
Not really, it's a constant topic on both.
>Influential Corbynites like Shelly Asquith and Ash Sarkar in particular used to bang on about Prevent being Islamophobic and racist
If I remember rightly Prevent was established as an anti-radicalisation program, but then it pretty much solely focused on Islam, ignoring other forms of radicalisation that needed to be addressed, which is kind of islamophobic and more importantly actively dangerous to our security.
>The Islamists fabricated stories about Prevent in order to brand it Islamophobic and to turn it toxic in the Muslim community, and it worked.
What fabricated stories are these?
>There's a chapter in Sara Khan's book "The Battle for British Islam" about it. Just Googled for something by her about it and I've not read this but it should give you an idea about how Prevent has been undermined.
Funnily enough when you check the link for her evidence of her claims it links you to her book. I'm not buying the book so unless you have an actually available source I'm not seeing any evidence.
>We're literally on a thread where the thread title is a tweet by Mohammed Shafiq in which he brags that he met Facebook and helped to get Tommy Robinson banned.
Sorry I misphrased that, what I mean is that although some Muslims wanted him banned, as I do, it was Facebook's decision to do so and it seemed to me you were assuming it was a Muslim employee who forced the issue. Rereading it that doesn't seem to be what you were saying.
>Virtually all anti-imperialists despise the US and the West in general and support the enemies of the West.
I've met a lot of anti-imperialists in my day, none of them support the "enemies of the West". They might point out where the west has been going wrong or when other nations are blamed for things they shouldn't be but they don't support other countries. Most of them don't support any countries. Do you actually know anyone like this in real life?
>If you think the authors are the only people who think this, here's George Orwell absolutely nailing Stop the War's anti-West pro-Russia worldview, and I think that was written during WW2.
>And there's a whole book about how the anti-imperialism brigade are only actually opposed to Western imperialism and they turn a blind eye to the imperialism of Russia and other anti-West countries such as Iran.
>The leading figures in UK anti-imperailism appear to be Jeremy Corbyn, Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, i.e. Corbyn himself and 2 of his closest advisors.
A) That's bollocks, there aren't pacifists going around saying China and Russia are allowed to war with people. Likewise with imperialism
B) The reason western pacifists or anti-imperialists are predominately talking about western violence and imperialism is because we can actually influence that. A protest in the UK won't stop China or Russia, it might stop the UK
C) This is all still a bunch of (unevidenced) theories about certain positions. None of it is evidence that Corbyn nor anyone else is actually subscribing to these schools of thought.
>They've provided lots of evidence in the book.
Well I don't own the book so I can't find that out can I?
>If you really don't think he thinks like that then you don't know Corbyn. Maybe you should do some research on your hero.
Ooh I love this bit you have where you tell lefties what we think, can we call it rightsplaining?
>Btw if you think the authors of the book about Corbynism are anti-Corbyn and are just out to smear him, they're actually 2 left wing academics, both of which voted for Corbyn to become Labour leader and 1 of them helped to set up a local Momentum branch. The entire book is simply an analysis of Corbynism from a left wing approach. It is not a right wing hit piece.
You already said that, you seem oddly defensive about this book.
>You won't accept this because you've clearly fallen too far down the Corbyn is a Saint rabbit hole, but Corbyn ALWAYS LIES WHENEVER he's asked about his dodgy as fuck past associations with dodgy as fuck terrorist groups and murderous regimes. He NEVER EVER TELLS THE TRUTH.
Woah mate calm down, Jesus wept you keep going like that you'll pop an artery. Yeah okay he's made a few mistakes on Iran I'll give you that, he's not perfect but he's a lot better about war and imperialism than anyone else on offer. He has brought up the issue of their human rights abuses in parliament and elsewhere, he's not blind to their faults.
>And it's frustrating to say the least that his supporters refuse to accept a single bad word about the dodgiest MP in the House of Commons.
The dodgiest? Really? Like, I might let dodgy go by unquestioned but dodgiest? When you have Tory MPs being implicated in dirty russian money laundering and backdoor lobbying? The expenses scandals?
>lol.
Great way to dismiss a pretty big hole in your argument.
>Indeed not.
No, we just perfected it.
Why Socialism Works https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521531218/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_MRaRBbEVFXRBD
The Communist Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/dp/1508475660/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ZqJKDbK0FC37H
Archives for the links in comments:
----
I am Mnemosyne 2.1, Now with more commenting ^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^message ^^^^me ^^^^suggestions ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time ^^^^Opt ^^^^out ^^^^of ^^^^tracking ^^^^by ^^^^messaging ^^^^me ^^^^"Opt ^^^^Out" ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time
Michael Harrington's Socialism: Past and Future is an excellent primer (though it assumes some familiarity with the topic and players at hand). I don't know that there can be a "best" book on socialism, but that's generally what I recommend to friends.
Harrington isn't primarily concerned with picking apart capitalism here, and it won't serve as a refutation of Friedman if that's what you're looking for -- it stays basically within the bounds of what the title suggests -- but it's a well-written, valuable read nevertheless.
WWI and WWII were perfect example of white people fighting white people. It was a political and power's conflict. Now everything is settled and there is no need to acquire more power or territory in state level (at least for developed states) except for acquisition of resources. But you are also right, there was also cultural conflict going on. But now it is purely about that. You must be aware of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. If not then you should read it.
> I think you have a misunderstanding of the crash. I would recommend the book courage to act from Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke
Thanks, I'll check it out in a few months.
What I was getting at, when calling it like a Ponzi, is the idea that the solution to the last recession (I'm going to call it this now, instead of a depression, like I did before), is that the Government, just put a band-aid on the problem with QE. I think the rates are so low right now, to encourage spending, that when the next shock hits, there will be no more play room to address it other than printing more money.
Ponzi was definitely a wrong word to use, but it was the only thing that comes to mind when the current system is based on Consumption. You need more consumption in the future then you had in the past or you have a recession or a Depression. That strikes me a Ponzi, in that constant consumption is impossible, before something gives or breaks.
> globalization monetary system?
The whole shebang. Everything.
> Magic of the market. (Oil is still down)
Oil was just a random example I used, to display any variable of causes attributable to "Reasons why XYZ happened, happens, is happening" when economist or journalist try to explain how or why.
Pension system, I feel, will not be fixed. I'm more pessimistic then you are.
Health care needs to become Universal, but again, I'm more pessimistic then you are and don't think it will happen.
Refugees are what I think will cause the next "big thing". WW3? Collapse of the system..I have no idea...10 years, 20 years from now...I have no idea. I think two books, very controversial, but worth reading regarding this matter are The clash of Civilizations and Culture Matters by Samuel Huntington. Helping people help themselves is the only way to truly help someone and the manner of letting people flow undocumented into countries is not going to end well for those people or those countries.
> Each generation will adapt to the changes before it. Just like we used to have 80% workforce in agriculture. Now we have 2%. The next generation will do something else (always)
Definitely...but at what cost? Revolution? Civil War? Civil Discord? War? Change does equal Reaction....how will they react? (in general, well and good, or violently and with fear?) I guess depending on how fast the change happens will determine how violent the reaction will be.
>
> Timescales. Maybe, but Whether the system collapse in 100 years or 1000 years matter. The system has thus far shown resiliency to large external shocks (2008). Idk if it will survive a ww3 though
Agreed. So long as the resiliency is Real which would lead to assuming what the Government did to solve the last shock was applying a band aid to a necessary amputation. We will see when the next shock happens, 5 10 100 or 1000 years from now
> Marx
Educate yourself
Library in the other end of the room. And it is three:
http://www.amazon.com/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0786715103
http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Civilizations-Remaking-World-Order/dp/1451628978/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375278381&sr=1-1&keywords=clash+samuel
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Ding-Village-Yan-Lianke/dp/B005FOG3X4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375278398&sr=1-1&keywords=ding+village
Indeed, he has. I have not read it (yet) but I've listened to a bunch of his interviews, so I think I know the gist of what he defends. My understanding is that it is, for whatever reason, very controversial, so there's clearly a lot of work to do.
I have a depressing theory, though: the neo-Marxians think TRPF is not a thing for a bunch of reasons (that I think Kliman explains very well in "Reclaiming Marx's Capital"), so at this point I'd not be surprised if they just happen to reject any evidence of the rate of profit falling as a matter of principle. For Kliman, it would be the exact opposite. The thing is, only one group can be right. I've heard Kliman explain how people are measuring these things and there seems to be some astonishing elementary differences in how they do it (which are actually related to their theoretical differences once you get into it), so I guess it's not surprising that their results are wildly different.
I guess what bothers me is that it's not clear to me how this dispute can be resolved, basically. Sorry if I'm rambling.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218
> It is bad for the world. The US is fucking amazing, Europe is spineless and China doesn't give a fuck.
True
> Unfortunately, I think the US' golden age is over, and the world doesn't know what its got, until its gone.
You might be right, but I think this is a matter of popular perception. The US golden age as far as the US being loved does seem to be waning. As far as it's influence and power is concerned I think it's still strong. Much of the anti-Americanism (and anti-westernism) in the world is due to conspiracy theories but also partly to blame on leftists and I am a leftist/liberal just so you know.
This anti-NATO protest in Chicago is one example of what I mean.
I recommend watching this interview with the British journalist Nick Cohen:
Part 1 & Part 2 on his book "What's Left: How the Left Lost its Way"
At least Tony Blair doesn't have the western liberal guilt that many have...
Another part to the perception of western decline not just American is the rise of other big economies like China, India and Brazil.
Osama Bin Laden even said something like "we have to bleed the Americans". GW Bush's war strategy was forceful and huge in order to show American power but it was too expensive and hurt the economy. Exactly what Bin Laden wanted.
Obama is also part of this perception because of the way he talks. He wants to end American exceptionalism, which sounds like a fair thing to do but is ultimately a dangerous thing. He doesn't seem to me to believe that America is a leader in the world anymore.
> Politics still is a dirty game, and it has to be. The US and the UK can easily be called terrorists. They have done horrible things, and it sounds Machiavellian, but there are definitely times when the ends justifies the means, if you want rapid, more reliable results.
I agree with what you say here but I don't agree that the US and the UK can easily be called terrorists. They do not meet the definition of being terrorist states or state sponsors of terrorism. I don't think you can make that equivalence.
> That is the problem with democracy.
I agree. Another problem with democracy is the belief that if you give people free elections that they will choose wisely. Another problem is people misunderstanding democracy and believing it means majority rule. Yet another problem is trying to spread democracy without spreading secularism. The United States forced a constitution on Japan after WW2 and the Japanese people have barely changed it since and look how great their country is. So that proves you are right when you imply that an iron fist has to be used sometimes. I don't think that a kind and reasonable dictator is such a bad thing.
> And I liked Ron paul in the beginning. He was kind of adorable. But all that Gold standard/Austrian school/Mises shiz was just silly. Before you worry about a potential presidents stance on abortion, you have to look and see if he has a basic grasp of economics.
Haha yeah! He wants (i'm not sure if this is still his position) to shut down the US central bank and believes this will somehow improve the economy!
> It is illegal to serve as governor while being an atheist in more than 10-20 states. Half the country doesn't believe gays should be able to marry. They don't think prostitution or drugs should be legalized. The US has to take care of itself. It is the only civilized country without socialized healthcare. The jail situation is incredibly depressing, especially for the black population.
I don't see why a country like the US can't fix it's domestic problems while still having a strong foreign policy. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
> Your problem is that you care on an emotional level maybe.
Of course I care on an emotional level but I don't think on an emotional level.
> Being in the UK, I assume you are Indian or Pakistani?
I'm Egyptian and moved with my parents and sister to the UK when I was 4 years old.
> Not an isolationist. First you have to love yourself, before you can love others.
Agreed. I don't think your an isolationist btw.
I have to admit, I didn't put much effort into this post but I did read all of your post carefully.
I would also recommend to OP Lebowitz's other book The Contradictions of "Real Socialism": The Conductor and the Conducted for a detailed account and critique of the economies of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union. I don't think Yugoslavia was mentioned but it did cover relations between different state-owned industries and the way production and management were carried out in places like the DDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Whats-Left-How-Lost-its-Liberals-Their/0007229704
"From the much-loved, witty and excoriating voice of journalist Nick Cohen, a powerful and irreverent dissection of the agonies, idiocies and compromises of mainstream liberal thought.
Nick Cohen comes from the Left. While growing up, his mother would search the supermarket shelves for politically reputable citrus fruit and despair. When, at the age of 13, he found out that his kind and thoughtful English teacher voted Conservative, he nearly fell off his chair: 'To be good, you had to be on the Left.'
Today he's no less confused. When he looks around him, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, he sees a community of Left-leaning liberals standing on their heads. Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam that stands for everything the liberal-Left is against come from a section of the Left? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the Left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal-Left, but not, for instance, China, the Sudan, Zimbabwe or North Korea? Why can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a liberal literary journal as in a neo-Nazi rag? It's easy to know what the Left is fighting against – the evils of Bush and corporations – but what and, more to the point, who are they fighting for?
As he tours the follies of the Left, Nick Cohen asks us to reconsider what it means to be liberal in this confused and topsy-turvy time. With the angry satire of Swift, he reclaims the values of democracy and solidarity that united the movement against fascism, and asks: What's Left?"
Yeah read it about 10 years ago dude. Its a 600 page book, kinda hard to go through 600 pages on a reddit comment. If you are pressed for time however, read Mises' 90 page essay "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Common Wealth," or listen to Dr. Joepsh Salerno's lecture "Calculation and Socialism."
Mises' primary argument involves calculation of the price system however. He described the nature of the price system under capitalism and described how individual subjective values are translated into the objective information (prices) necessary for the rational allocation of resources. Mises argued that the pricing systems in socialist economies are deficient because if a public entity owned all the means of production, no rational economic inputs could be obtained for capital goods as they were merely internal transfers and not “objects of exchange.” As socialized industries have no genuine economic inputs – that is to say, no objective money prices as determined voluntarily on the open market established by how much individuals are willing to pay for such “services” – government is unable to properly discern, relative to demand, if what it is engaged in is of overall benefit to society. Systems of private property and voluntary exchange however, enable consumers to compare – via a medium of exchange (money) – the costs of goods and services without having to obtain knowledge of their underlying factors of production.
As consumers rely on their own personal cost-benefit analysis – prices develop – which are contingent on how much voluntary paying consumers are willing to pay. The resulting price system therefore, promotes the economically efficient deployment of resources relative to demand. This is called the signalling function of prices, as well as the rationing function which prevents over-use of any resource. Without this market process to fulfill such comparisons, Mises argued, there is no way to compare different goods and services and/or rationally calculate profits and losses. Absent this feedback, socialized industries like policing lack the means to relate consumer satisfaction to economic activity – which ultimately leads to surpluses and shortages and disables governments ability to properly ascertain how to deploy resources optimally.
Also read Hayek's essay "The Use Of Knowledge In Society" for information on the "knowledge problem" relating to socialism. His primary argument is that while in centrally planned economies an individual or a select group of individuals must determine the distribution of resources, these planners will never have enough information to carry out the allocation reliably. Within capitalism, the overall plan for production is composed of individual plans from capitalists in large and small enterprises. Since capitalists purchase labor and capital out of the same common pool of available, but scarce labor and capital, it is essential that their plans fit together in at least a semi-coherent fashion.
Hayek defined an efficient planning process as one where all decision makers form plans that contain relevant data from the plans from others. Entrepreneurs acquire data on the plans from others through the price system which forms an indispensable communications network for plan coordination among entrepreneurs. Increases and decreases in prices inform entrepreneurs about the general economic situation, to which they must adjust their own plans. Hayek asserted that a centrally planned industry could never match the efficiency of the open market because any individual knows only a small fraction of all which is known collectively. A decentralized economy thus complements the dispersed nature of information spread throughout society.
Government planners simply do not have the information available to the them to successfully determine how to deploy resources without price signals. To illustrate this, imagine a gas shortage. When gas is in short supply, prices go up. In these situations, entrepreneurs are quickly derided by government as “price gougers.” The state then usually steps in and fixes prices, disabling the price mechanism from properly functioning. This has disastrous effects. The aforementioned rationing function of prices that serve to preserve scarce resources has now been interfered with – meaning shortages of gas are likely on the way. When the government sets the price of gas, you don’t get cheap gas, you get no gas.
Bureaucrats simply do not posses the collective information contained within the market economy. Instead, they must rely on mere whim in determining how to deploy resources.
Thoms Dilorenzo has put together a good couple hundred pages that includes Mises and Hayeks primary arguments, as well as others in his new book "The Problem With Socialism." If pressed for time, check out his recent lecture, Ten Things Millennials Should Know About Socialism.
That book got great reviews.
I find this to be an excellent paper that tries to debunk postmodern methodologies: http://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf
The philosopher Roger Scruton has written a whole book devoted to critiquing various postmodern thinkers: https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-Left/dp/1408187337/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1468857400&sr=8-1
For postmodernism's relation to the field of history, you could try this volume by Richard J. Evans: https://www.amazon.com/Defence-History-Richard-J-Evans/dp/1862073953/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
In its relation to science, you could try this book: https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Superstition-Academic-Quarrels-Science/dp/0801857074/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=
> I hope you recognize that this is a politically charged statement, and the implicit danger is not necessarily grounded in reality.
I do realize that, and it's the reality I saw and experienced with my own eyes in France, Germany, and Italy only last year. I was in there when a series of terror attacks were carried out.
> conservative media hysteria
Not sure about this, because I rarely go to conservative news sites, preferring to get my news from the BBC, DW, France24, AlJazeera, and RT (yes I know some are propaganda, but I like to view the US through a critical lens).
What I have noticed is that there is a notable absence of any reporting about various anti-immigrant movements throughout Europe (especially PEGIDA in Germany). We were scheduled to attend a rally in Dresden (one of my friends in DE is an activist, and was in Leipzig in 1989 too), and not a word was mentioned anywhere I could find.
> Islam vs Western Liberalism conflict is almost a sideshow compared to what really needs to be solved
They're both grave situations. I don't completely disagree with you. But it would not be acknowledging reality to dismiss what one can see with one's own eyes and hear with one's own ears.
An anecdote: looking across the Lusatian Neisse River from Zgorzelec, Poland to Görlitz, Germany, I saw dozens of full hijab-wearing women and their children lining the banks on the German side. (Zero on the Polish side.) Anyone who says this is not a full-scale invasion of Europe is deluding themselves.
Yes, there are some refugees actually in need (the aforementioned women and children), but the vast, vast majority of people I saw were bodybuilder males aged 18-35, and they comprised roaming gangs through the squares of every town and village I visited.
You mentioned that secular society doesn't share our Christian values. I agree. Secular society also usually doesn't drive trucks over people they disagree with. (Not yet, anyway.)
Let's not be disingenuous nor put our heads in the sand about what is happening -- it's a clash of civilizations that has been happening for 1300 years.
I'd love to just "get along" and not be violent, just like the Pope says. But we're to be "wise as serpents" as well.
Post 1 of 2
> We don't play oppression olympics
Yeah you do, watch this. That's about PC on US uni campuses but the UK isn't far behind.
> we're aware of the importance of intersectionality.
lol.
> There are lots of aspects to the power dynamics of our society, race, class, gender, orientation. These have to be considered as a whole, not just individually.
The original aims of PC to stamp out prejudice was fine, but PC has become insane over the last few years. Brexit is largely the result of PC, because anyone who was white working class and supported controlling immigration was labelled a racist, so they decided to stick 2 fingers up at the PC numpties and voted en masse to Leave.
>> Grooming gangs: every time it's mentioned
> We're talking about it right now aren't we? Who's sweeping anything under the carpet? It's been mainstream news for years. What exactly are you basing this on?
Yes on here it is discussed more openly tbf probably because there's a higher proportion of right wingers. On twitter it was swept under the carpet as much as possible by the left though.
>> when Corbyn sacked Sarah Champion because of it.
> Not what happened at all, but I doubt you'll be changing your mind anytime soon.
She was definitely sacked purely because of the article in The Sun.
Look at Aaron Bastani's tweets mentioning Sarah Champion. The Sun article was published on 10th August 2017. Prior to that Bastani had praised her because she's "unresigned" and gone back into the shadow cabinet at a time when Corbyn was struggling to find people who would work with him.
Then The Sun article was published and Bastani branded it racist and then says she resigned because of The Sun article. I remember this well because I was on twitter at the time and arguing with Corbynites about it.
>> Terrorist attacks: every time there's a terrorist attack.
> They also make mainstream news and are all anyone talks about for weeks and months round here. When exactly are these meant to have been swept under the carpet? This must be a very small, very transparent carpet cause it all seems very visible and out in the open.
Again, maybe it's different on here than on twitter. I only joined Reddit late last year.
>> The left even joined in with the Islamists
> Right... Who exactly joined in with who?
Influential Corbynites like Shelly Asquith and Ash Sarkar in particular used to bang on about Prevent being Islamophobic and racist, and Shelly Asquith joined in with the Islamists campaigning against Prevent. The Islamists fabricated stories about Prevent in order to brand it Islamophobic and to turn it toxic in the Muslim community, and it worked.
>> trying to undermine the Prevent deradicalisation programme to turn it toxic, which they succeeded in doing.
> Do you have any actual, oh I don't know, evidence for any of this? How exactly has it been undermined?
There's a chapter in Sara Khan's book "The Battle for British Islam" about it. Just Googled for something by her about it and I've not read this but it should give you an idea about how Prevent has been undermined.
> Interesting that your first reaction is it had to be a Muslim who wanted him banned, I'm not Muslim and I'd certainly have banned the conniving little cunt.
We're literally on a thread where the thread title is a tweet by Mohammed Shafiq in which he brags that he met Facebook and helped to get Tommy Robinson banned.
> It's an example of someone talking about two campism, I'll give you that. How is that supposed to be evidence that literally anyone except the author thinks that way? Because from where I'm sitting they've laid out a viewpoint with not a lick of evidence that anyone supports it bar them.
Virtually all anti-imperialists despise the US and the West in general and support the enemies of the West.
If you think the authors are the only people who think this, here's George Orwell absolutely nailing Stop the War's anti-West pro-Russia worldview, and I think that was written during WW2.
And there's a whole book about how the anti-imperialism brigade are only actually opposed to Western imperialism and they turn a blind eye to the imperialism of Russia and other anti-West countries such as Iran.
The leading figures in UK anti-imperailism appear to be Jeremy Corbyn, Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, i.e. Corbyn himself and 2 of his closest advisors.
> Wow mate, that you've put the 1% elite as being some consultancy of NWO Rothschild banker rich Jews says a lot about you, maybe you should reflect on that. That's not an okay association to draw on your part.
It doesn't say anything about me. I'm not the one who believes in these conspiracy theories or views the 1% as inherently evil. It's a large sub-section of Corbynites who believe these things.
> Well I've not read the book but from that paragraph alone they've just posited a viewpoint and given no evidence that Corbyn ever held it.
They've provided lots of evidence in the book. As I said, that was just one paragraph in an entire chapter dedicated to Corbynism's two-campism.
>> I just picked a paragraph that I thought nicely sums up Corbyn's entire foreign policy worldview.
> You might want to pick a better paragraph where they actually give some proof that he thinks like that.
If you really don't think he thinks like that then you don't know Corbyn. Maybe you should do some research on your hero.
Btw if you think the authors of the book about Corbynism are anti-Corbyn and are just out to smear him, they're actually 2 left wing academics, both of which voted for Corbyn to become Labour leader and 1 of them helped to set up a local Momentum branch. The entire book is simply an analysis of Corbynism from a left wing approach. It is not a right wing hit piece.
>> On the subject of Corbyn being anti-imperialism, how come he supports Iran and Russia who're both imperialist countries
> Oh that's very simple, he doesn't.
I suggest you watch this
Here's the timeline:
2009-10: the Iranian Green Movement is suppressed by the Iranian govt
January 2012: Press TV is banned by Ofcom for its role in the torture of a journalist
Later in 2012: Jeremy Corbyn appears on Press TV
2014: Corbyn gives a speech praising the Iranian regime
2018: Corbyn appears on Andrew Marr and lies that he ceased doing programmes on Press TV after they treated the Green Movement in the way that he did.
You won't accept this because you've clearly fallen too far down the Corbyn is a Saint rabbit hole, but Corbyn ALWAYS LIES WHENEVER he's asked about his dodgy as fuck past associations with dodgy as fuck terrorist groups and murderous regimes. He NEVER EVER TELLS THE TRUTH. And it's frustrating to say the least that his supporters refuse to accept a single bad word about the dodgiest MP in the House of Commons.
Basically he supports Iran because they're anti-Israel and they fund the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups that he supports because they're also anti-Israel.
He supports Russia because they're anti-US and he's still fond of Russia because of the USSR no doubt.
>> he never says a word about them?
> Seems like that's not true he even put in an EDM about Iran
lol.
> Well I know the west is the cause of a lot of messes but it my suprise you mate, we didn't actually invent being a cunt.
Indeed not.
And you should read this: (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218)
SnapShots: 1, 2, 3 ^[?]
^^ttumblrbots ^^will ^^be ^^shutting ^^down ^^in ^^around ^^a ^^month ^^from ^^now.
That is wholly insufficient response, specifically what did hitler do that was socialist but not related to war time production. the primary argument i see in the comments is that hitler centralized and nationalized some industries, by that logic the WPB, and any form of Rationing, Price control, general central planning related to conducting a world war would make a nation socialist.
In truth the cartel act of 1923 allowed german industry to centralize and cooperate in a central manner all germany did was take control for conducting a war. he privatized social programs, suggested privatization of public transit.
Hitler might have called himself a socialist but he had a fundamental fear of communism, this was listed multiple times in Mien Kampf, 203 he specifically says
"In the years 1913 and 1914 I expressed my opinion for the first time in various circles, some of which are now members of the National Socialist Movement, that the problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated." (Hitler P. 203)
To claim Hitler was a socialist is akin to saying the DPRNK is a democracy because it's in the name.
some further reading
Capital in the 21st Century, https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/0674979850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526865050&sr=8-1&keywords=capital+in+the+twenty-first+century
Against the mainstream: Nazi privatazation in 1930s Germany, https://coreyrobin.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/bel-2010-nazi-privatizations1.pdf
Mien Kampf, http://www.greatwar.nl/books/meinkampf/meinkampf.pdf
The German Dictatorship, https://www.amazon.com/German-dictatorship-structure-national-socialism/dp/B0006C06H4
Im seriously interested in where the logic comes from, can you point me to some source that claims and defends the position: Nazi germany was closer to Communism than Capitalism
Stalinism (an authoritarian form of socialism) is the most well known, and reviled, because of Cold War propaganda, but it worked pretty well. It's really the only form of socialism people know to have been fully implemented (Mao too but I don't know enough to comment on that) and since it was pretty evil in the beginning, people assume every form of socialism is inherently evil. Cuba has done pretty damn well despite being under intense embargos. Give Michael Harrington's book a read for a good recap of the history of socialism.
Then there's capitialism, which is a precursor to socialism, as it was a necessary evil (Industrial Revolution, for instance) to get us to be able to produce goods at a massive clip. I think in the beginning capitalism was fine for what needed to be done but it always ends in monopoly and incredible disparity because it relies on wealthy people being "well meaning" and "good" when we know they're not. Capitalism keeps people ruled by elites and allows us to...elect fascists like we have now. Nothing is perfect but I'm just asking you to challenge your preconceived notions of capitalism.
Apologize if this was hastily written, I'm about to drive somewhere.
Sim. Um óbvio plágio deste livro.
E provavelmente foi inspirado [neste] (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Socialism-Works-Harrison-Lievesley/dp/1521531218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504059913&sr=8-1&keywords=why+socialism+works).
>That you could have read all the books you often quote without discerning that faith-hatred played a role in Nazis' targeting of the Jews suggests you may be brain damaged.
Maybe you should demonstrate and post what you're talking about. There are passages from Goebbels and Julius Streicher which suit your case. Unfortunately, you seem to have precious little else.
> It's also belied by your constant references to the Nazis' faith-hatred in your comparisons to Zionism and Israel. You seem entirely unaware of your other comments, or you're lying.
Its very obvious that the Zionists are much, much more discriminatory.
>But assuming you're not lying, and only brain damaged, get back to me when you've read:
Yeah, when in a hole get someone else to do the digging.
Make sure you personally abuse them first!
>Mein Kampf (which you admit to never having looked into)
The very first book on your reading list doesn't appear to prove your case ... transcribed by Emile Maurice - later "Aryanised" like many others. Its partly? largely? copied from Henry Ford's 1924 "The International Jew". ("parts of Ford's text were used nearly verbatim in 'Mein Kampf'" http://www.aish.com/ho/i/48956701.html "extensively" http://greyfalcon.us/Charles%20Lindbergh.htm )
> Die deutsche Diktatur (The German Dictatorship), by Karl Dietrich Bracher, who argues that genocide of European Jewry was entirely a function of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic hatred.
I think you're talking bollocks - neither http://www.amazon.com/The-German-dictatorship-structure-socialism/dp/B0006C06H4 nor http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-German-Dictatorship-Structure-Consequences/dp/0140137246 say anything of the kind.
>Antisemitism provided a common denominator, necessary in a movement which was so obviously a loose coalition of interests as the Nazi Party, and which after 1933 was devoid of any real active political role apart from indoctrination and social control. - Ian Kershaw
I'd have thought modern day Israel was a much more extreme example of vicious faith-hatred. No Germans are ever recorded saying "Kill the Jews" - even after the terrorism they were only calling 'Juden raus! Auf nach Palästina!'
The Problem with Socialism
By Thomas DiLorenzo
I was a hardcore Bernie fan and this book opened my eyes and I eventually became a conservative. Very nice and short book that everyone should read. No fluff just substance.
The Problem with Socialism https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621575896/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_HukQAbXC2HMK5