posted in Asklemmy

curious_beetle@curious_beetle@lemmy.ml
edited

As a non communist, should i read the manifesto? (Plus other Marx and Engels stuff)

I am interested in politics, and even tho i am not a communist, i am interested in what can be learned from it and i also want to learn more about political ideologies as a whole, instead of speaking out of my ass whenever someone mentions communism and potentially say some bullshit. What do you think?

Edit: thanks for all the answers! I swear i read them all, i just don’t know how to answer to each of them, but thanks for all the recommendations!

TheStaffmaster@TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world
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Replying to @⁨curious_beetle@lemmy.ml⁩

Back when I was still on reddit (and r/askreddit wasn’t a cesspool of AI ragebait) someone asked if there were books people recommended, everyone should read, and I came up with this list of 6 if you want a good basis for reasoned philosophical thought:

  • Plato’s Republic

  • Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

  • Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations

  • Machiavelli’s The Prince (Machiavelli also wrote an “Art of War” and that’s also worth reading)

  • Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations

  • Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto

The Republic defines what society’s goals should look like

The Art of War defines how to resolve conflict

Meditations teaches one how to remain objective under pressure

The Prince defines that what is OBJECTIVELY TRUE is not always what is MORALLY CORRECT

The Wealth of Nations lays out a case against Feudalism and how a functional economy should operate.

The Communist Manifesto details the natural rights of everyone to equality and shared prosperity.

Marxist Communism is a bit myopic as it really deals with factory work, and the failures of a Capitalist system to deliver on the promise of class mobility. He and Engels envisioned a classless society, and while that is a fine ideal, historically, achieving that though strictly amicable means is a bit pie in the sky, not to mention the arguments against it citing human ambition as a stumbling block aren’t without merit.

emergencyfood@emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works

Replying to @⁨TheStaffmaster@lemmy.world⁩

The Communist Manifesto details the natural rights of everyone to equality and shared prosperity.

I read it a long time ago, but my memory is that the Manifesto (and its writers in general) discard the idea of ‘natural’ rights, arguing that legal / moral principles arise from the economic conditions of the time.

Marxist Communism is a bit myopic as it really deals with factory work

Marx’s biggest scientific contribution is the development of a ‘materialist’ (here meaning ‘physical’) theory of history. I feel that his specific stages are too eurocentric, but the general principles are universal.

The Manifesto is a call to action, so it is somewhat simplified theoretically and deals specifically with the issues and conditions of the time.