A friend wants me to introduce him to marxism. Please help

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I've got a friend in one of my classes who is interested in marxist theory and willing to learn it, but the problem I find with explaining it is that I don't know where to start. Can anyone help me with this?

And also a reading guide might be helpful.

[Blake's Baby]

The Manifesto. That outlines all the basics. Development of capitalism, class struggle, revolution, socialist future. There's a lot of stuff about parties and movements that don't really exist any more but it doesn't matter, the whole thing is only 50 pages or so. A version with some of the prefaces to various editions is good, you can see how Marx and Engels changed some of the emphases and indeed dropped some things over the 40 or so years after its publication. Doubles the length of the whole thing, but even so, 80-100 pages or whatever it is is hardly a terrible reading schedule.

That would certainly be where I'd start. But be prepared to discuss it with them. Then you both benefit from (re-)reading it and thinking about what it all means.

[The Idler]

Oxford University Press
Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction by Colin Ward
Communism: A Very Short Introduction by Leslie Holmes
Socialism: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Newman
Marx: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Singer
Engels: A Very Short Introduction by Terrell Harver

Icon Books/Pantheon/Totem
Introducing Marx by Rius
Introducing Marxism by Rupert Woodfin and Oscar Zarate

Graphic Guides
Marx's Das Kapital for Beginners by Michael Wayne, illustrated by Sungyoon Choi (Steerforth)
The Communist Manifesto Illustrated: Chapter 1 by George Rigakos (Red Quill, 2010)
The Communist Manifesto Illustrated: Chapter 2 by George Rigakos (Red Quill, 2011)
The Communist Manifesto Illustrated: Chapter 3 by George Rigakos (Red Quill, 2012)

[Mr. Natural]

Yes, the Manifesto is the appropriate starting point. I would also recommend an up-to-date book written for an introductory, popular readership, Joel Kovel's Enemy of Nature (2003).

Kovel is now the unofficial head of the American ecosocialists, and Enemy nails capitalism and outlines a grassroots, "ecosystemic" revolutionary response that I believe closely resembles any viable revolutionary process that could take place in the US.

Perhaps comrades could narrow the many Manifestos down to the one that has the best introduction and is most current. My copy, edited by Beers, is poor.

My red-green best.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

The Principles of Communism by Fredrick Engels (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm)

Easy to read format, covers essential points on Marxism, and a good introduction (I would argue even better than the manifesto).

[Ostrinski]

[I]Oxford University Press
Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction by Colin Ward
Communism: A Very Short Introduction by Leslie Holmes
Socialism: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Newman
Marx: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Singer
Engels: A Very Short Introduction by Terrell Harver


These should be sufficient for introductory to leftist theories.

[Manic Impressive]

This would be my order of suggested reading

Principles of communism
Communist manifesto
Socialism Utopian & Scientific (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm)

Then for some good concise videos I always recommend Brendan McCooney
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3F695D99C91FC6F7&feature=plcp

Then I usually try to find out what specific areas are of concern to the person and recommend something that addresses those problems.

[l'Enfermé]

Bugger that, the Manifesto and the Principles of Communist were written in Marx's 29th and Engel's 27th year. Neither are proper introductions to Marxism. Instead, download and print David Riazanov's "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: An Introduction to their Lives and Work". It's a masterpiece, though I had the advantage of reading it in the original Russian.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/riazanov/works/1927-ma/index.htm

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You might try Max Shachtman's, "The Fight for Socialism." It is written in plain English, and answers many basic questions. We know that Max was a renegade from Marxism, but at this point in his development, he gets most of it right.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1946/ffs/index.htm

[Marxaveli]

The Manifesto, while awesome, might be a difficult read to fully grasp what Marxism is really all about. I would say bring your friend to this site, where we can easily explain this stuff to him in laymen terms.

[Yuppie Grinder]

A lot of stuff Marxists fought for in the mid 1800s isn't really relevant now. Writings on the importance of progressive taxation aren't of that much interest to today's young people.
The stuff The Idler suggests is good.

[Lowtech]

I would start with this definition: the economy is a public utility who's intended purpose is to sustain a civilization

Currently, capitalism doesn't do this, instead, resources are moved around in whatever way is most lucritive for the plutocratic class, and based on exchange value, instead of properly based on use value.

Producing based on exchange value also means ignoring need. Demand in a market economy doesn't reflect need as demand is exchange value stimulated by marketing/comercialism.

The plutocratic class uses the profit mechanism to retain value.

The profit mechanism being the underpaying of workers and over pricing the end product. essentially, to retain value, the rich sell products above production cost. this serves no economic purpose. retaining value allows the rich to reduce the scarcity they experience by increasing scarcity artificially for everyone else.

war and most crime, etc is given exchange value by a market economy and artificial scarcity.

Then refrence the following great article as its very important to understand that what happened in the soviet union and other self proclaimed communist states do not represent communism.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2001/no-1169-december-2001/marx-and-lenins-views-contrasted