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Jorge @lemmy.eco.br

Please introduce me to Marxism (and Marxist Lemmy)

I was a far-right lunatic until about 2009, when I started turning left. I have read many (center-)leftist articles from Jacobin, Common Dreams, The Guardian, and, from Brazil, Carta Capital and IHU (Catholic liberation theology).

Lemmy (despite my suboptimal instance) and communist friends got me interested in actual Marxism, but I have not yet really studied it. So please recommend:

  • The best Marxist Lemmy instance for my background.
  • Marxist books or videos in approximate reading/watching order. For the next many months (I suspect six months) I will have very little time, though.

Bonus:

  • reasonable tolerance of Catholic faith and individual morality
  • contextualized on Brazil, Cuba, broader Latin America or China

Background: Brazilian Catholic male autistic ADHD IT analyst with an electronic engineering degree and MsC in computer science. I have a son with my wife. I highly value privacy and software freedom. I read English well, but Spanish quite poorly. Native Portuguese speaker.

EDIT: I got a lemmygrad account. I am still processing the other recommendations.

78 comments

  • Hi friend!

    For what Marxist instance would be best given your background, well there are only two total, to my knowledge, so you could just try out both and see what you like best! They are Hexbear and Lemmygrad. Lemmygrad is smaller but is more focused on Marxism-Leninism in particular. Hexbear has a ML-ancom and everything in between left unity stance and places great emphasis on making the space safe for people of marginalized groups. Lemmy.ml has many Marxists but is not explicitly commie.

    For reading recommendations, this can be a difficult question to answer because there are many important texts in the Marxist tradition and some of them, particularly the foundational ones, are dense and challenging to read. I do strongly recommend reading the core works of Marx and Engels, since they define Marxism and later works are based on them. The order in which to read books really depends on how you prefet to read and learn.

    I prefer to read from "the beginning" and already knew the relevant philosophical background so I just read Das Kapital right after The Communist Manifesto. But reading Das Kapital takes a long time. Reading groups dedicate months just to Volume 1. If you prefer a faster introduction and summaries, then I recommend Heinrich's companion text. Heinrich inserts some of his own opinions, but you can balance these out by reading Marxists critical of Heinrich, like Michael Roberts. If you want an even faster and simpler introduction, you can work backwards by reading short overviews from newer texts and blogs and so on and then make sure to try and tackle Capital later. But remember that the farther from the original works you get, the more likely that you will learn something incorrect about them without being in a position to notice it.

    Another strategy is to start with Lenin, particularly his own notes on Hegel and Marx, and proceed to Stalin's overview of Marxism-Leninism, which includes an overview of Marxism. These are much easier to read than the source texts. All of the works so far will have Portuguese translations.

    Regarding tolerance of Catholic faith, both instances will likely not care so long as this does not mean contradicting community standards, e.g. a vocal tradcath would contradict the feminist stances of both instances. Both instances have Christian comms, similar to subreddits. Lemmygrad's all seem to be inactive, though. Hexbear is, generally speaking, against insufferable New Atheist contrarianism (and so many of its original proponents became reactionary).

    Regarding having Latin American context, both instances of course have a good amount of comrades from Latin America. I know that Hexbear has an active Latin America comm.

  • Read The Principles of Communism and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels. People usually recommend The Communist Manifesto as an introduction, but in my honest opinion it can be skipped entirely. (These can all be read for free on marxists.org, and there might even be Portugese translations on there)

    Also, the youtube channel Socialism For All has a lot of audiobooks of Marxist texts, although they are in English.

    The podcast Revolutionary Left Radio is worth checking out.

  • Marxist-Leninist's (ML) like to cite "On Authority". Here's an anarchist view: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/punkerslut-on-authority-a-response-to-friedrich-engels

    • I don't really think this is a productive text to link. It's littered with historical inaccuracies regarding the efficiency and working class upliftment that happened and continue to happen in AES states (which are indeed not magical wonderlands, but really existing Socialism nonetheless) such as the false claim that Chinese workers cannot strike. Furthermore, the author appears to be making a hit piece, rather than engaging with the text to see if there's any value to it, and in this process there are several errors. Honestly, I think it ends up being insulting to Anarchists more than Marxists, and I'll get back when I wrap up.

      In the first section, the author describes a production process requiring no authority, just mutual consent. There are a number of issues here. The first, it assumes a lack of consent in a Marxist system. The second, it overly simplifies production. When you create a phone, for example, there are huge supply chains at scales unimaginable by any given worker, highly trained engineers and technicians to design and maintain both the machinery and the phones themselves, armies of safety and quality workers that ensure the conditions are not toxic and that the phones themselves are working and not dangerous, production managers who run the assembly lines, and educational bodies that train the workers, including the engineers. These educational bodies need methods of accountability at large so they don't teach false physics, like V=I/R instead of V=IR.

      Engels argument is that production needs "authority." This is correct, no matter how you slice it, you must restrict freedom to misdesign, freedom to spill sewage into the drinking water, freedom to slack on maintenance, freedom to not do lock out tag out on machinery during maintenance. Engels also is making the argument that this is consensual to have a functioning society of mass cooperation and complex industry, but the Author tries to pretend it isn't and that only "voluntary cooperation" is valid. The Author misframes Engels and in the process slanders Anarchists who understand that some hierarchy is necessary and just! The only other conclusion is that Anarchism must be of a return to earlier production methods where complex industry no longer exists, but such an aim would result in the resurgance of Capitalism.

      This strategy is the same for the whole article, misframe Engels point that "authoritarian" is nonsense as everyone needs some level of exertion of authority (such as to prevent a nuclear power plant from exploding), and then pretend Anarchists want a Utopia where everyone magically decides to just voluntarily arrange themselves in complex production while denouncing "authority" and that nobody would ever disagree with this. It slanders the Anarchists I know are more reasonable than this, and it misframes Engels entirely.

      I could go on, but I think I made my point.

      • I appreciate your points. I know we are of conflicting persuasions and finding ML's that engage outside their echo chambers is difficult. Driving our convictions is the common goal of communism: a stateless, moneyless, classless society,

        For complex production any necessary hierarchies should be managed by the workers and not a vertical power structure like a party. Assuming horizontal power structures are incapable of managing complex production seems unjustified. Workers produce, masters exploit. Socialism should be ordered from the bottom up to prevent exploitation by masters. Any necessary hierarchy to ensure communication happens between autonomous workers should be accountable from the bottom. A QA worker can let others know there are issues without a boss.

        Engel's argues tools have authority over workers, thereby authority is unavoidable. The author of the linked essay would thereby push that to, "I need to breathe; Engel's says authority" which may be hyperbole. If I constrain someone's airway, they no longer have "power to" breathe and I have "power over" their ability to breathe. Authority thereby cannot be defined as natural like breathing or tool use. Authority instead is a constraint on "power to" imparted by another with "power over". I do not need a boss to tell me when to breathe.

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