My uncle asked me for a primer on socialism. I was thinking maybe Socialism Made Easy or Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Anything that might be better?
For context my whole family are through and through vote blue liberals. It’s sad to say but most of them didn’t even like/vote for Bernie during the primary cycles. They aren’t really hardcore anticommunists though and have always been good on unions and labor generally, moreso the problem is really anti-Trump/pro-Dem brainworms. Maybe there’s something more modern to share that I don’t know of.
It’s not socialism, but Listen, Liberal: Or whatever happened to the party of the People? By Thomas Frank might help get the Dem brain worms out of their head.
You might try the “Why women had better sex under socialism” article. It’s shows very concrete examples of how socialist economics improved the lives of women in the relatively recent past and does rely on dense theory in the explanation. I think it could be a way to say “before I ask you to read the theory, let me show you an example of the outcomes of the theory so you know that the theory works and is valuable.”
A really great article actually, was it only ever the article and not a book? However, I got to say that there still seems to be a lot of anticommunist priming in nearly every sentence. And calling women in communist state positions advocating for liberation “cultural imperialists” is a little over the top. I forgot what it’s like to be in the weird in-between zone where you recognize socialism as a successful system that has already achieved great success for worker libration but still have to do the anticommunist song and dance to be “taken seriously”, maybe even from your own perspective yourself.
Utopian and scientific was mine. I think it was very effective at explaining what I didn’t fully understand and is what I always recommend. Not the manifesto. Don’t know why anyone recommends it.
Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
My suggestions for a good well rounded primer, imo:
Intro to theory:
- The Principles of Communism by Engels
- Why Socialism? by Mr. Einstein himself
- Understanding Socialism by Richard Wolff
- Understanding Marxism by Richard Wolff(personally haven’t read this yet)
- The Communist Manifesto
For historical analysis:
- Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
For understanding media biases against socialism:
- Inventing Reality by Parenti
- Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky(haven’t read yet so subject to change)
For philosophy:
- Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer(since Marx was first a philosopher, this is super helpful in understanding where he got his ideas of what socialism in the modern era can look like - I’m currently reading this)
For later if he wants more:
- The State and Revolution by VI Lenin
- Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg
I would maybe wait on state and revolution. I was listening to an audiobook and without context it sounds like an unwrapped twitter beef full of people with weird names you’ve never heard before.
Yeah. And no “vote blue no matter who” lib is going to accept a critique of universal suffrage right off the bat.
I didn’t even know this was in State and Rev, is it near the end? Is the critique regarding ex owners and all that?
