Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 16:59:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: Rookie question...



I suggest as a good overview and guide to the literature Richard Schmitt's
Introduction to Marx and Engels (Westview). You should definitely read the
Communist Manifesto.

Beyond that you have to decide what you are interested in. If you are
interested in political economy (economics), you might start with Wage
Labor and Capital and Value Price and Profit and thewn look at a modern
discussion, such as Howard and King's The Political Economy of Marx.

If Y\you are interested in the state, you might look at The 18th Brumaire,
The Civil Waar in France, The Critique of the Gotha Program, the Notes on
Bakunin, the Class Struggles in France, and Lenin's The State and
REvolution, then look at something modern like Ralph Miliband's The State
in Capitalist Society or Marxism and politics. 

If you are interested in ideology, you might read the Theses on Feuerbach
(together with Wal Suchting's useful translation and commentary in Studies
in Marxust Philosophy, Mepham, ed. or Sidney' Hook's From Hegel to Marx),
Part I of the German Ideology, and (heaven help you) The Fetishism of
Commodities section from Capital, vol, 1. Then you might look at Gramsci's
Prison Notebooks for his treatment of hegemony. There's a lot on ideology.
I am rather fond of my own paper, Justin Schwartz, The Paradox of
Ideology, Canadian Journ. of Phil., Dec 93.

If you are interested in theories of socialism, you might look at the
Manifesto, the Contributuon to a Critique of Political Economy, The
Critique of the Gotha Program, parts of Cpital that Schmitt points you to,
and The Poverty of Philosophy. The main debate today is between planned
socialists like Marx and market socialists like Alec Nove and Dave
Schweickart. You can see how this plays out, e.g., in the papers in the
Review of Radical Political Economy, Fall/Winter 1992-93.

If you are interested in theories of Revolution, look at the Manifesto,
the Class Struggles in rance, the Civil War in France, the Inagural
ADdress to the Intrernationaal Workingman Assn., and subsequently,
the debates between Luxemburg (Reform or Revolution) and Bernstein
(Evolutuionary Socialism), as wella s Gramsci's ideas about the war
of position and the war of maneover. Hal Darper has a multivolume study
called Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution you might look at parts of.

You get the idea. Get a good guide like Schmitt and turn yourself loose.
Find someone who knows more than you do. Post questions on the net. If you
can (shameless plug) join Solidarity, my group.

--JUstin

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, Keith Alan Sprouse wrote:

> I've been lurking on this list for awhile and have even posted
> once or twice, keeping myself to the areas that I can deal with
> intelligently (which is why I haven't posted much!).  At any
> rate, although I definitely am to the left, I haven't had the
> grounding in Marx that I should, which leads me to my rookie
> question:  Where should I start reading?  I know the answer to
> this question is, in broad terms, "Marx."  But what I would
> like to know is, in what order should I tackle this huge body
> of texts and are there some that are more essential (ie. read
> these at all costs) than others.  I've been cruising the used
> book stores and have found alot of stuff, but am truly at a
> loss as to where to begin.  
> 
> Thanks in advance for any advice.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Keith Alan Sprouse				"Hypocrite lecteur, mon
> Dept. of French Language and Literatures	 semblable, mon frere"
> University of Virginia				 ----- Baudelaire
> sprouse-AT-virginia.edu
> 
> 
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