Introduction to Marxist thought?

[TheGiantBear]

My teen is interested in economics A level & has asked me questions about Marx that I am unable to answer. We considered both attempting to read some of Marx’s works to answer these questions but have abandoned this idea because Karl does not seem to have appreciated the needs of the TikTok generation & the stressed middle aged mother in terms of the length of his works.

Can anyone recommend an accessible, neutral and fairly short introduction? One that is not too dry?

The Communist Manifesto in itself is quite brief. However it is not neutral obviously! Its not that well explained either tbh, more 'this is all terrible' then 'this is why all other socialists are wrong' then 2 pages of 'this is what society will be like after the Revolution'.

Good to have a perspective of what happens if a country tries to implement it!

I remember "Plato To Nato" was really useful. Political thought in a nutshell (ie a short, cheat version!) and a chapter devoted to Marx from recollection.

Plato To NATO
Here's the link

Ooh thanks ive ordered it for DS1's stocking. £3 bargain!

There is an exceptional lecture series on YouTube by David Harvey. It's on reading Capital and it made reading it way more accessible. My husband and I read about a chapter a week a few years back and watched the lecture together. The chapters are short but complicated, but honestly if you can follow the first 3 chapters, you understand the core ideas (although it took me a lot of thinking!). Critical to understand economics if you ask me.

Yeah. I have read a lot of Marx, and none of it is well explained, and any questions you come up with are never answered.

Marx, how to write 5000 words to say not a lot.

I am sure that is why Marxism was so successful. Because anyone could say " it means this ", and nobody was confident enough in what it means to disagree.

My interest is the CPC, and how what Marxism is has changed from the 1920's in China to today. How Mao promised the peasants free land and retribution against the landlords, through the Great Leap, cultural rev etc, to todays state capitalism, complete with new landlords.

I find it fascinating how Marxism keeps being changed and re-defined, but is still called Marxism.

And I think that is because Marx was really really bad at explaining things.

Rather than reading works per se it might be more useful to look at particular concepts and discuss the continued relevance or otherwise of Marxist and post Marxist theories like labour theory of value, commodity fetishism, socialisation of capital, spatial reorganisation of the social relations of capital , Hegelian idealism versus materialism, ideology and hegemony etc.

There is
Marx: A very short introduction by Peter Singer
Part of the very good Oxford short introduction series

Slightly less neutral but much more accessible is
Marx for Beginners by Rius
Marxism explained in cartoons. There's a used copy of the original 1976 book on Amazon for £1.50.

This is all so useful & interesting thank you. I am heading to Amazon to look at these (which somehow seems very inappropriate).
I looked at some Joti Brar on YouTube too and found her a very warm & clear & engaging speaker tho clearly not neutral! And I assume she is coming at things from one particular school of thought within Marxism.

John Green does a series of 'Crash Courses' in different topics on you tube, I am sure there must be something on Marx.

It's worth having a look on Ted talks. This is an interesting one from a former Greek finance minister. Not explicitly Marxist but he is an economist.
https://www.ted.com/talks/yanis_varoufakis_capitalism_will_eat_democracy_unless_we_speak_up

The Origin Story podcast is doing a socialism season at the moment, there are 2 episodes on Karl Marx which are great.
www.podmasters.co.uk/origin-story

Heavy on comedy and quite sweary!

The Manifesto is just propaganda.

Das Kapital is quite readable, though.

How about a graphic approach?

No!

Das Kapital has brought so much suffering to so many millions of people.
We might as well honour them and read the book proper, instead of a dumbed down version.

But the OP was asking for something accessible @ChardonnaysBeastlyCat - which is why I suggested this.

It trivialises it though.

You need the whole package to understand where Marx was coming from and to put into perspective what happened after that.

Trivialising human tragedy, the curse of our time.

It's probably ok to trivialise it.

The CPC in China do.

Watch the budget next week, and the following economic fallout. Should be quite the education.

Trust me on this, Labour are not Marxist. :-)

I think I’ve just found my 2026 year long slow read. Thanks All! Capital! It is one of those books which I always intended to read and never did. I’ve read pretty much all the key texts to do with communism except this one.
I don’t have any good recommendations sadly as I’ve never read any good introductions but there seems to be some interesting ones here!

I think one thing you can understand from reading the Communist Manifesto is how certain groups have latched onto it to justify their actions. So, for example, the 'dictatorship of the Proletariat', where suddenly the middle class intellectuals aren't the Bourgoisie but will be the Proletariat, but as they are more 'educated' they will own the means of production until they can teach the uneducated masses how to do things like running factories, then after that they will then redistribute the wealth amongst the people. However, once the 'Intellectual' proletariat get their hands on the means of production it somehow takes many years (a hundred or so) to get the poor uneducated masses to the level where they can own the means of production, so the intellectual Proletariat have no choice but to become the owners of the means of production and indulge in things like forced labour in order to educate the masses into how to produce things. The end will justify the means because eventually they will be better off. They are different of course from the Bougoisie of old because they eventually will redistribute their wealth to the masses, they just haven't got round to it...ever in the history of Communism!

Yup.

On something you said though. " ....until they can teach the uneducated masses how to do things like running factories,...."

The proletariat are already making stuff in the factories. They are running production, but they don't own it.

So for the proletariat to own the means of production, all you have to do is get rid of the Bourgeoisie who own it.

Marx did not appear to understand risk assessment though, just simple " what if ?".

For example, if we get rid of the Bourgeoisie who own the means of production, and give it to the workers, how do we stop the workers becoming a new elite.

And I think that is where his whole manifesto falls over.

As you say, certain groups can latch on to parts to justify themselves. All the new elite have to say, is we are not Bourgeoisie, we are proletariat.

And yes, when you say ".they just haven't got round to it...ever in the history of Communism", I totally agree. I don't think they can't, not without re-writing all of Marx, and actually defining what stuff means.

For Example. " To each according to needs".

The USSR done that, the CPC do that. But because " needs" was never defined, the system can't work. The elite leaders define what needs are, not Marx. And the leader's needs are very big.

Yes, The 'educated' proletariat become the new elite because they take over all the means of production, they just don't admit that's what they are. 'All are equal but some are more equal than others' as Orwell said.