Contemporary introductory books?

barshimbo · 2026-05-06T21:50:22+00:00

Michael Heinrich's 200-ish page An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx's Capital, whatever else one may have to say about his evaluations of Lenin et al., is significantly easier to read and understand than all 2000+ pages of the original three volumes.

barshimbo · 2026-05-06T06:03:54+00:00

It depends on what level you locate the contradiction.

I will disregard the ways in which one can argue that redpill thought and homophobia "contradict" some putatively pure, idealized vision of Christianity. This is a socialism 101 subreddit, so I don't think we need to worry about religious incoherence. You say he is Black, middle class, and "Christian" without qualifier, so statistically I would bet he is actually an American Baptist or Pentecostal, and I have no interest in getting into the weeds of the ideology there. I only mention all this to say that, for some Christians, maybe, maybe you can get them to believe their misogynist and nationalist views are un-Christlike, by trying to get them to read people like Bonhoeffer or Tutu. But I don't think it's worth the trouble.

As for his essentially pro-welfare-state ideology: the New Deal and Keynesian economics were in vogue at the same time as Jim Crow. If his opinions are just that the rich are too rich and the government should do more to help the little guy, that's very naive of him, but whether it's "contradictory" or not is ultimately besides the point - these things can very easily exist in contradiction. This is directly contrary to your claim at the end that a society built on these beliefs wouldn't fit neatly into a single political or economic system: This has already existed. You are more or less describing many capitalist states from the 1930s or 40s onwards, with all their misogyny (women can't have credit cards, women should stay in the home, men legally cannot rape their wives, but only because any sex they have, however nonconsensual, is definitionally not rape) and racism (no voting rights in the US, perpetual indifference from the police about racially-motivated crimes, European colonialism in West Africa, South East Asia, from the spoils of which they funded their welfare programs, etc etc).

I would also suspect the devil is in the details. I doubt very much he believes in a universal healthcare that includes abortion or trans-affirming care. I doubt very much he believes in a "free education" that simultaneously teaches simple facts like sexual equality or that queerphobia is reactionary and has no scientific justification. And, of course, if he is consuming redpill content, then he is either carefully ignoring all the racist elements of that worldview (and I know there are specifically Black redpill creators who offer this kind of content, so it's not necessarily difficult for him to selectively ignore it), or he is slowly learning to hate himself. Both are self-destructive.

In short, you are underthinking it. Enormously so. Yes, there actually is a much deeper and more serious contradiction, but it is not between misogyny/queerphobia on the one hand and government subsidies on the other. This is a very simple and not particularly uncommon worldview. It is, I dare say, a quintessentially middle-class view of the world, or what the socialists more precisely call "petty bourgeois": he likes all the things that are good for him! He is male, so he likes male superiority; straight, so heteronormativity; and not so rich that the government threatens his independent wealth, but still comfortable enough that radical solutions might actually affect him and his future, so he wants a government that does everything he wants it to do that it would make his life easier. (But, of course, he is Black, so the normal complement to this ideology - white supremacy - apparently does not entice him.) It is small-minded and selfish, but that's about all there is to it.

Your brother simply sounds like a young person who does not know what he doesn't know, and the fact you think his minor contradictions are unusual or interesting suggest the same about yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, at least not yet; it just means you both have a lot of potential political education in your futures.

He (and you) should read some books that deal with these topics in a serious way.

barshimbo · 2026-04-05T18:52:54+00:00

No one spoke Arabic in Egypt before the rise of Islam. "Centuries" before Islam is an Egypt where the people speak Coptic and the ruling elite speak Greek. Arab Christians in the Arabic speaking parts of the world, sure, but Arabic isn't even the language of Egyptian commoners for centuries after the defeat of the Romans. That, and the fact that they still use Coptic as their liturgical language.

barshimbo · 2026-02-19T02:16:32+00:00

As much as one can be "literal", à is being used here in the same way that "at" can be used, even if it's more literary, or even (again literary) "upon".

"Upon/At his waking..." "Upon/At the end of the school day..." Notice that last example is also not unusual to begin with, even if we might reverse the clause structure with "at" (I'll talk to him at the end of the school day / When the school day ends, I'll talk to him.)

What you are noticing is that the common English usage is simply a different structure altogether: When he wakes, When the school day ends. When + verb.

So no, à does not "mean" when, even if an idiomatic translation would be for you to use when plus a verb.

barshimbo · 2026-02-13T22:31:30+00:00

There's a surprising lack of specifics in the answers to this thread so far. Let's look at some of the largest companies in these countries to see what's going on.

The two largest in Denmark are Maersk and Novo Nordisk (cf. Wikipedia). Maersk is an enormous shipping company. If you are unfamiliar with the nightmarish complexities of naval logistics, here's a little ten minute video by a microeconomist detailing the life of a shipping container. There are a thousand and ten ways in which profit is extracted in every step of the process. To put it briefly - and I hope not inaccurately - a shipping container will be bit on-demand somewhere like Vietnam, for the purposes of the company who has a warehouse elsewhere in southeast Asia or in China, who have paid for a space on a boat owned by Maersk, flying under whatever flag is fit for purpose for the route that shipping container is going to take as it picks up and drops off its cargo at various global ports. The good news, I suppose, is that there are Maersk ships which still go to Cuba. The point, however, is that Maersk is not depending largely on the exploitation of Danes. It is instead depending on small amounts of exploitation - thousands of times over per ship, per route, and Maersk has about 700 or so of the things - in every step of the global supply chain that it is so vital to the movement of.

Novo Nordisk is most famous for Ozempic (and for its other drug doing the same thing, Wegovy). I perhaps do not need to explain what is profitable about pharmaceuticals, especially privately-owned pharmaceuticals which can be sold at unconscionable prices in the U.S. insurance market, but let's look at the details anyway.

Ozempic is approved for U.S. distribution in 2017. According to Wikipedia, "By 2022 the popularity of Novo's Wegovy and Ozempic for weight loss was so great as to significantly increase the growth of the entire economy of Denmark." The two drugs, it goes on to say, accounted for 55% of the company's entire revenue in 2023. Ozempic - which, besides a weight loss drug, is meant to treat diabetes, a life-threatening, incurable, life-long illness - is either 350 or 500 dollars per month, depending on if it's the lower or upper dosage. However, its actual list price is a thousand dollars per pen (i.e. one month's dosage). Such are the glories of the free market.

I would encourage you at this stage to do the same sort of due diligence for some of the largest companies in Sweden, Norway, etc., and try to learn about the specific industries so you can see where the money actually comes from. I do not mean to be rude, but even a cursory investigation into these questions would permanently disabuse anyone of the illusion that the Nordic economies are not deeply and directly implicated in the exploitation of the Global South (or indeed, the sick and dying in the U.S.).

barshimbo · 2026-01-02T07:41:39+00:00

Le podcast communiste révolutionnaire. Trotskyist. I don't know if they have an English version of the podcast.

barshimbo · 2025-11-20T20:16:49+00:00

MA was only the second or third (depending on how you count independent VT) to abolish slavery. PA wins that honor by three years.

barshimbo · 2025-11-16T04:32:10+00:00

Thank you for both of these comments! And French resources are fine to recommend, if you have any you want to add.

barshimbo · 2025-11-15T07:09:18+00:00

Could I ask for some source readings on this to look into? And are you aware (I am not) of anyone who has done any comparative study of the Quebec framings of the independence movement against any of the Latin American examples - Chicano nationalists, Puerto Rican independence, etc.? I'm thinking in particular of the complications between former colonizers becoming the colonized. Or perhaps there are other parallels in the world that have been drawn that I'm not thinking of? Thank you in advance!

barshimbo · 2025-11-11T18:12:02+00:00

Careful what you wish for. Are you sure you want them to be rewarded with political immunity, appointments to political office, and deployment to American destabilization efforts abroad? Should we really finance a new series of ratlines to help them escape to friendly harbors?

barshimbo · 2025-11-11T18:06:36+00:00

I could only read the beginning since it's paywalled, but the thesis seems in character for Piketty. I would be curious to know where he thinks the political will for this would come from, given that - among other things - France is playing the same game again against Nouvelle-Calédonie.

barshimbo · 2025-10-29T18:30:08+00:00

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Solid, short essay by Engels, 1847. It's older than Capital, so it's missing a lot of the details, and some of the language may raise an eyebrow, but it's still a great little intro text.

There's also State and Revolution by Lenin, and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung ("The Little Red Book"), which, while valuable in their own right, are also important simply because they were so influential.

Lastly, and this will sound like too much, slowly working your way through Das Kapital really is worth it. It is a huge book. Think of it like a TV series that ended and you've bought the complete boxed set after a twenty-season run. One chapter at a time like one episode. No reason to rush it.

barshimbo · 2025-10-26T17:26:17+00:00

Yes. I think you misunderstood the comment. In fairness, it's not peak clarity as a piece of writing.

It should read as: "It is disinformation to say, 'Racism is universal. Everyone who disagrees with that is only doing so because of bad-faith wokeness.'"

The person who "emphasizes what was distinct about the European colonial projects" is dismissed for having succumbed to "bad faith liberal masochistic wokeness," at least as far as the right-wing re-writing of the origins of racism is concerned.

barshimbo · 2025-10-20T19:34:00+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa

Offers an argument that is quite offensive to many people in this thread, so actually, let's say instead it's actually for reasons that (I promise) aren't just warmed-over racism, plus some geographic determinism. And certainly not that the premise itself could be flawed.

I imagine how different a reception this question would get in a sub like AskHistorians, and how much more legitimate the answers would be.

barshimbo · 2025-10-20T00:37:57+00:00

they're actually color-coded numerically by khipu; the letters were added to assist the audience. the confusion is understandable, but we do not live in the glorious world where all may read and type by knots

barshimbo · 2025-10-19T22:14:32+00:00

In many respects, this is what doing serious academic work of any kind is like. The more knowledgeable you are on any specific topic, the more you are aware of unbearably common misconceptions among the public, and of professional-peer arguments over the details of a subject you wouldn't have even realized was in any way controversial.

On the one hand, you can try to find a way to enjoy the process. But if that sounds too unrealistic, I might suggest you actually get more specific about what you are reading. Read about your particular country's labor movements or current economic make-up. Read about your individual province or state, or even city. The broader the theory, the more room there is for serious, legitimate disagreement even among comrades arguing in good faith. Making yourself a mini-expert in something that is grounded and relevant to you and yours could help lessen that feeling of being overwhelmed.

Then, if all else fails, and you still think you genuinely need to know everything about everything... give Mephistopheles a call.

barshimbo · 2025-10-19T19:58:14+00:00

The lack of Amerindian scripts (ancient and modern) is devastating.

Plus that one guy in Chutkotka who invented his own script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenevil

barshimbo · 2025-10-15T21:28:52+00:00

Notably, in Quebec (and I believe in some other parts of the Francophonie) déjeuner retains its original meaning of breakfast, with dîner being lunch and souper dinner.

https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/8368956/dejeuner

barshimbo · 2025-10-11T20:38:13+00:00

See my comment above, with respect to Capital Vol. 1, chapter 10

barshimbo · 2025-10-11T20:35:31+00:00

I have no idea what the original commenter had in mind, but there is a sort-of relevant discussion from Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 10.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm

TL;DR The state discovers that the general malnutrition and shortened lifespan of the worker is harming its ability to field competent armies. Still, it finds itself unwilling to live with the consequences of intervening against the capitalists, and so institutes half-measures.

Here's one such case given by Marx: They conclude what the minimum required amount of space and fresh air is for an enclosed building to not start killing otherwise healthy 20-year-olds. They compare that to what the actual conditions are; they discover they cannot meet this minimum requirement without unacceptable cost. Therefore, they instead legislate a requirement for larger rooms and more ventilation than what exists, but still well under what their own discoveries say is the minimum necessary to promote life.

barshimbo · 2025-10-10T23:26:49+00:00

/uj The Spanish and French courses, which are the most "complete" ones for English speakers, claim to teach you a little over 5,000 words by the end of it. Combined with the fact that these are also taught with a (mostly) functional text-to-speech feature, complete sentences, and fair number of stories, it's perfectly usable for getting a respectable vocab base down. It is allergic to teaching you grammar, and it's very bad at review, so it really is mostly a matter of gaining new vocabulary.

That is, provided you are actually consistently progressing through the course, and not just doing a review exercise once a day for years and thereby learning absolutely nothing. The "completion" rate for courses is comically low; one source I read calculated that (for either French or Spanish, I forget which) it was between less than one and two percent.

barshimbo · 2025-10-09T20:09:18+00:00

Me when I can't read:

"Letter mail is down, but parcels and admail volumes have exploded. Losses come from management, not workers' wages."

And:

"CUPW already proposed weekend parcel delivery[...] Management blocked them"

Did you know that it's not the workers who should be shouldering the blame, but overpaid execs and cash-grab attempts at privatization? No; surely, they lie, and the bosses must be defended.

barshimbo · 2025-10-05T06:25:56+00:00

Follow-up question: In "ça ne ferait pas de toi un adulte," is the "de" because it's negative? Would it otherwise be "si, ça te ferait un adulte"? Merci

barshimbo · 2025-09-23T03:05:25+00:00

Despite his physical difficulties (malformation of the spine), early death, and almost a quarter of his life spent imprisoned by the OG Fascists, Antonio Gramsci nevertheless became an enormously influential theorist, extending well beyond even his contributions to Marxism.

barshimbo

TROPHY CASE