Writings on Philosophy, History, and Economics pertinent to Marxism/Anarchism

[Catmatic Leftist]

I usually have no trouble reading high level texts, but sometimes I can't even begin to figure out the meanings of certain jargon words through context clues. Is there any informative, non-partisan, independent, objective, and non-biased sources and texts about Philosophy, History, and Economics that define key terms and are remotely understandable that you can recommend?

[StalinFanboy]

here? I mean nothing is unbiased, especially when it comes to Marxism.

What particular works or words are you having trouble with?

[Catmatic Leftist]

Perhaps my query was way too specific. Perhaps just a general introduction to Economics and Philosophy that isn't some pseudo-scientific B.S. I really need a cultural immersion on especially those two topics.

To answer your question, Species Being, I recently purchased Capital to examine in close reading, but it seems alien to me, even though I can normally effortlessly understand high level texts. Perhaps I need to read other stepping stone material before tackling Capital.

[Hit The North]

You can get pretty cheap but useful dictionaries of philosophy, economics and other disciplines that can be useful as companions when you're reading technical texts. There's also a Dictionary of Marxist Thought (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dictionary-Marxist-Thought-Tom-Bottomore/dp/0631180826/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305292019&sr=8-1) which can be useful but expensive. Or for free, there's this (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/index.htm).

[TC]

I usually have no trouble reading high level texts, but sometimes I can't even begin to figure out the meanings of certain jargon words through context clues. Is there any informative, non-partisan, independent, objective, and non-biased sources and texts about Philosophy, History, and Economics that define key terms and are remotely understandable that you can recommend?

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online, peer reviewed, and open access) is the best place to find explanations of terms in philosophy.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

For Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell, A history of western philosophy, and its connection with political and social circumstances from the earliest times to the present day. is a good lefty survey, though he obviously doesn't get Marx. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought is still available cheaply in the second edition, but the print quality's pretty poor. Essential.

[graymouser]

With Capital, I found that a series of Marx's other texts helped a whole lot in reading the book, both for comprehension of his language and for understanding the ideas more clearly. The central ones I'd point to are, in rough order:

The Communist Manifesto
Wage-Labour and Capital
Value, Price and Profit
The Poverty of Philosophy
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

I also read Ernest Mandel's short Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory to help along the way. Capital is a difficult and dense tome but well worth the effort.

[Ocean Book]

If your interested in economics and philosophy that relate to leftism, I'd recommend political philosophy and political economy. There's a lot of stuff in economics and philosophy you don't need to know to understand social theory better.

[Zanthorus]

he obviously doesn't get Marx.

Or Hegel. Or Plato for that matter. I've read Russell's book myself and I'm very suspicious of it's merits since whenever I get deeper into any particular philosopher I tend to find their views in contradiction with Russell's account.

[Lyev]

On simple economics, try Adam Smith with the 'Wealth of Nations', and also David Ricardo's 'Principles of Political Economy and Taxation', since these were the kind of guys that Marx read to learn economics and they also represent the best of bourgeois thought and political economy; the kind of ideas that Marx critiqued.