theory

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Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.

I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.

Week 20, July 2 - July 8, Volume 2 Chapter 2 Section 2 - Chapter 4

Time to investigate the circulation of capital in more depth. Around and around we go.

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF.

AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!


Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)


2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives: Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18Week 19Week 20Week 21Week 22Week 23Week 24Week 25Week 26Week 27Week 28Week 29Week 30Week 31Week 32Week 33Week 34Week 35Week 36Week 37Week 38Week 39Week 40Week 41Week 42Week 43Week 44Week 45Week 46Week 47Week 48Week 49Week 50Week 51Week 52


2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18Week 19

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We made it to the final chapter of the book! Last thread is here.

As I said in the previous thread, apologies for not posting a new thread last week. The superimperialists keep starting major wars and keeping me busy in the news megathread.

This thread will serve as the final one for the book, as a holding thread for any observations, questions, and suggestions for further books. There have been a few books suggested, such as How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, but if anybody has other suggestions, particularly for ones focussed on West Asia given ongoing events, then I'm all ears!

I plan to give everybody, including myself, a few weeks to rest, catch up, and be distracted by the potential beginning of World War 3. How busy I'll be will be determined by how the Iran conflict progresses, but I'm currently thinking to start the next book in late July.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/theory@hexbear.net
 
 

Hey, all!

For over a month, I've been spending a lot of my free time creating this list of theory. The impetus for this project came from two things: first, this post by @iie@hexbear.net titled "I wish we had a hexbear wiki compendium of good books on 20th and 19th century historical topics" which set the idea in motion in the background of my mind; and second, the desire to expand the currently very small geopolitical reading list in the news megathreads. Initially, I focussed only on books directly to do with imperialism and current-day politics and geopolitics. Naturally, these events required context, so I expanded the list to include more of the 20th century. Then, I realised more nation-focus works would be necessary, and more communist theory, and it kept growing into... this. I have gone through almost every post in c/literature and c/history, looked through a significant chunk of lemmygrad and prolewiki, and gone through the bibliographies and references of several significant works (such as Prashad’s The Poorer Nations and The Darker Nations).

I haven’t the time nor energy to search every nook and cranny of the internet, so it is absolutely guaranteed that I have missed a lot of books. I am certain that this list isn’t even halfway complete - it’s more of a prototype right now. But it still has hundreds of books on it, categorized into many different sections.

Ideally all these books would be written by communists, left-wingers, anti-imperialists, and so on - or at least, are written in a style sympathetic to that position. For the purpose of anti-sectarianism, the works of major ideological positions should be fully featured. This obviously means that this is not going to be a reading list where there’s a consistent ideological position which unifies it - authors on this list are going to disagree with each other, and sometimes very harshly. Personally, I also don’t want this list to devolve into shitflinging between different authors on why X left ideology/state/project is good/perfect/materialist/idealistic/bad/flawed/evil, though I think more constructive criticism should be allowed.

Unfortunately, for more obscure events and countries, non-leftists are sometimes the only ones who have written much on them, and so we must resort to them.

Books are usually listed here with their initial publication date. This is not a recommendation that you get that particular version of the book if there are newer editions - you should of course purchase the most recent one - but a) I think it’s best to know when the book was initially conceived of and written so that we know the context of when the information was being conveyed, regardless of newer editions that may add more information, and b) I don’t want to trawl for new editions of these books every so often to update the year numbers. Additionally, books are generally listed in order of publication date. If a subsection accrues many books that fit under that category but span a lot of topics or a large time period, then a new subsection will be created and the books re-categorized.

Want To Help?

Be sure to recommend any books (or, even better, entire reading lists) that I have missed. People in my life tell me that I have a profound ability to miss the obvious, so a massively important book that every communist has heard of and read not being here should not be interpreted as a sign that I’ve deemed it not worthy - I might have just forgotten it. Just as importantly, be sure to recommend that any book be dropped - a book being here should not be interpreted as a sign that I’ve necessarily deemed it worthy. I cast a very wide net.

When recommending books, I advise four criteria:

  1. Non-fiction books only. I might consider eventually putting in a historical fiction and alternative histories section, but not right now.

  2. Not written by a chud, unless the point of recommending the book is to illustrate how important chuds conceive of the world, such as pieces on American strategy written by people high-up in the state - or if there is literally no other choice (military matters tend to attract chuds, for example).

  3. Not too much detail, too far in the past. It would be silly to say that the Assyrians or the Romans or the Mongols haven’t had a large impact on the current world, so books on those topics are fine, but ideally they should be pretty general, and we shouldn’t have a biography for every Roman Emperor or anything like that. The period that I am most focussing on is the 21st, 20th, and 19th centuries, as that’s the best bang for your buck in terms of political understanding of the current state of affairs. This should be as efficient a reading list as possible - reading a lot is hard and life is tiring, and getting lost in the weeds of Cyrus the Great’s military campaigns isn’t helpful if you’re trying to get a grip on the current Middle East.

  4. Related to politics and/or history somehow. This is the loosest of the four criteria, and I don’t really want to be arguing about whether a book on how to care for succulents, or a book on pencil manufacturing, or a book on deep sea creatures, deserve to be on the reading list. If you can argue that it belongs, then, sure, I’ll put it on.


Version 1.0 (that is, the very first version):

Added, uh, the whole reading list.

A ton of thanks to @Nakoichi@hexbear.net for letting me know about the Chunka Luta reading list. Also thanks to @Alaskaball@hexbear.net for their party's book repository.


Version 1.1:

Added dozens more recommended books, spread out across the list, notably including more books for Japan.

Added an Indigenous Theory section and reorganized some books into it. Added a Science section and added some books to it. Expanded "Philosophy" into "Philosophy and Theology" and added some books to the Theology section. Added a Multi-Region section in the Regional Histories section, due to some odd books that cover multiple continents. Apparently I forgot Finland existed, so that now has a section, and a book.

I have been recommended a few reading lists, some of which will take me a long while to get through. Nonetheless, if you have more books to add, then continue to recommend them!

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Welcome to the fifth week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!

If you're just getting started, here's a link to the thread for

We're only doing one chapter per week and the discussion threads will be left open, so latecomers are still very much welcome to join if interested.

As mentioned before... This isn't just a book for trans people! If you're cis, please feel free to join and don't feel intimidated if you're not trans and/or new to these topics.

Here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:

pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook

Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.

In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 5: Can't Afford to Get Sick

Lots of CWs this week: Mentions of transphobia and mistreatment of trans people, SA, genital mutilation.

This chapter covers a speech given by Feinberg at the 2nd Transgender Health Conference, which seems to have been made up mostly of healthcare workers who were either LGBTQ themselves or worked with LGBTQ patients. In the speech ze discusses the sad state of trans healthcare in the US and the fight to improve it.

The Portrait section in this chapter is by intersex activist Cheryl Chase and is titled, "Until five years ago, intersexuals remained silent". She describes in detail the horrific "treatment" intersex people typically receive (including genital mutilation), mainstream media ignorance on the subject, and the efforts of intersex activist to change the status quo.

I'll ping whoever has been participating so far, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).

Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback also. Thanks!

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spoilerIn The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels builds on Karl Marx’s notes and the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan’s research to explain how human society developed through material changes in labor, technology, and social organization. Engels adopts Morgan’s three-stage model—savagery, barbarism, and civilization—to trace the evolution of the family, private property, and the state.

In early society, Engels describes a period of “primitive promiscuity” without formal family structures, incest taboos, or private property. The earliest family form, the consanguine family, allowed sexual relations among siblings and was based on matrilineal descent, as paternity could not be reliably determined. Kinship was organized through gentes, or clans, where women held social authority and labor was cooperative.

With the rise of agriculture, animal domestication, and pottery in the stage of barbarism, human communities became more stable and productive. The punaluan family introduced group marriage and formal incest taboos, leading to more structured matrilineal societies. The Iroquois, for example, lived in democratic clans governed by women, where property and leadership passed through the mother’s line.

The transition to civilization began with the discovery of iron and the invention of writing. These technological advances created economic surpluses and led to the accumulation of private property. Men, seeking to pass wealth to their biological heirs, replaced mother-right with father-right, leading to the rise of monogamy. Engels argues monogamy was not rooted in love but in the need to ensure paternity and male inheritance. This shift marked what Engels called “the world-historic defeat of the female sex,” as women were subordinated within the patriarchal family and excluded from social production.

As class divisions deepened, the state emerged—not as a neutral authority, but as a tool for protecting property and ruling-class interests. Unlike kin-based institutions, the state enforced order through territorial control, laws, and violence. Engels shows how communal institutions were hollowed out across societies like Greece, Rome, and Germany as private property and patriarchal power took hold.

In modern bourgeois society, Engels argues that monogamy and the state continue to uphold inequality. Marriage becomes a legal institution rooted in economic dependence, often amounting to legalized prostitution. Even with legal equality, women’s subordination persists through material constraints.

Yet Engels identifies the working class as the force capable of transforming these conditions. In proletarian families, where property and inheritance are absent, relationships become more equal and based on mutual respect. As women enter wage labor and patriarchal authority erodes, the conditions emerge for a future society based on gender equality, collective ownership, and the abolition of the state. For Engels, both the family and the state are historical institutions—products of class society—that will ultimately disappear with the rise of socialism.

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spoilerGeorge Jackson, Blood In My Eye

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The 1888 English Edition

The Manifesto was published as the platform of the Communist League, a working men’s association, first exclusively German, later on international, and under the political conditions of the Continent before 1848, unavoidably a secret society. At a Congress of the League, held in November 1847, Marx and Engels were commissioned to prepare a complete theoretical and practical party programme. Drawn up in German, in January 1848, the manuscript was sent to the printer in London a few weeks before the French Revolution of February 24. A French translation was brought out in Paris shortly before the insurrection of June 1848. The first English translation, by Miss Helen Macfarlane, appeared in George Julian Harney’ s Red Republican, London, 1850. A Danish and a Polish edition had also been published.

The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June 1848 — the first great battle between proletariat and bourgeoisie — drove again into the background, for a time, the social and political aspirations of the European working class. Thenceforth, the struggle for supremacy was, again, as it had been before the Revolution of February, solely between different sections of the propertied class; the working class was reduced to a fight for political elbow-room, and to the position of extreme wing of the middle-class Radicals. Wherever independent proletarian movements continued to show signs of life, they were ruthlessly hunted down. Thus the Prussian police hunted out the Central Board of the Communist League, then located in Cologne. The members were arrested and, after eighteen months’ imprisonment, they were tried in October 1852. This celebrated “Cologne Communist Trial” lasted from October 4 till November 12; seven of the prisoners were sentenced to terms of imprisonment in a fortress, varying from three to six years. Immediately after the sentence, the League was formally dissolved by the remaining members. As to the Manifesto, it seemed henceforth doomed to oblivion.

When the European workers had recovered sufficient strength for another attack on the ruling classes, the International Working Men’ s Association sprang up. But this association, formed with the express aim of welding into one body the whole militant proletariat of Europe and America, could not at once proclaim the principles laid down in the Manifesto. The International was bound to have a programme broad enough to be acceptable to the English trade unions, to the followers of Proudhon in France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, and to the Lassalleans in Germany. (2)

Marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. The very events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men’s minds the insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing the way for a more complete insight into the true conditions for working-class emancipation. And Marx was right. The International, on its breaking in 1874, left the workers quite different men from what it found them in 1864. Proudhonism in France, Lassalleanism in Germany, were dying out, and even the conservative English trade unions, though most of them had long since severed their connection with the International, were gradually advancing towards that point at which, last year at Swansea, their president [W. Bevan] could say in their name: “Continental socialism has lost its terror for us.” In fact, the principles of the Manifesto had made considerable headway among the working men of all countries.

The Manifesto itself came thus to the front again. Since 1850, the German text had been reprinted several times in Switzerland, England, and America. In 1872, it was translated into English in New York, where the translation was published in Woodhull and Claflin’ s Weekly. From this English version, a French one was made in Le Socialiste of New York. Since then, at least two more English translations, more or less mutilated, have been brought out in America, and one of them has been reprinted in England. The first Russian translation, made by Bakunin, was published at Herzen’ s Kolokol office in Geneva, about 1863; a second one, by the heroic Vera Zasulich, also in Geneva, in 1882. A new Danish edition is to be found in Socialdemokratisk Bibliothek, Copenhagen, 1885; a fresh French translation in Le Socialiste, Paris, 1886. From this latter, a Spanish version was prepared and published in Madrid, 1886. The German reprints are not to be counted; there have been twelve altogether at the least. An Armenian translation, which was to be published in Constantinople some months ago, did not see the light, I am told, because the publisher was afraid of bringing out a book with the name of Marx on it, while the translator declined to call it his own production. Of further translations into other languages I have heard but had not seen. Thus the history of the Manifesto reflects the history of the modern working-class movement; at present, it is doubtless the most wide spread, the most international production of all socialist literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of working men from Siberia to California.

Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. By Socialists, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, [See Robert Owen and François Fourier]both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances, in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the “educated" classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian communism of Cabet in France, and of Weitling in Germany. Thus, in 1847, socialism was a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.

The Manifesto being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms the nucleus belongs to Marx. That proposition is: That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class — the proletariat — cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinction, and class struggles.

This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin’ s theory has done for biology, we both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. How far I had independently progressed towards it is best shown by my Conditions of the Working Class in England. But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring 1845, he had it already worked out and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here.

From our joint preface to the German edition of 1872, I quote the following:

“However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Assocation 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the Earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.

"But then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter."

The present translation is by Mr Samuel Moore, the translator of the greater portion of Marx’ s Capital. We have revised it in common, and I have added a few notes explanatory of historical allusions.

Frederick Engels
January 30, 1888, London

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I’d like to further my understanding about how the Soviet Union was structured from the lowest level in basic union organization to the highest levels of government.

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Who here has read Camus?

I’m starting on The Rebel so that I can discuss it with an acquaintance. So far it seems very much idealist, but I’m trying to give it a fair chance before dismissing it.

There is a whole debate in the literature comparing existentialism, absurdism, Marxism, and other isms, by the likes of Camus and Sartre. I haven’t engaged in it yet. Frankly it seems exhausting and maybe a waste of time, but perhaps there is something useful to glean? Idk, I just hate pointless philosophizing and dawdling.

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Welcome to the fourth week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!

If you're just getting started, here's a link to the thread for

We're only doing one chapter per week and the discussion threads will be left open, so latecomers are still very much welcome to join if interested.

As mentioned before... This isn't just a book for trans people! If you're cis, please feel free to join and don't feel intimidated if you're not trans and/or new to these topics.

Here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:

pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook

Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.

In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 4: "Are You a Guy, or What?"

CWs: Mentions of transphobia, misgendering.

This chapter covers remarks by Feinberg at a True Spirit Conference workshop called "Exploring Our Options", which are primarily focused on challenging the gender binary and defining ourselves in ways that honor our self-expression.

There are also two great "Portrait" sections here, one by Michael Hernandez and another by Dragon Xcaliber, with both discussing their lived experience in not fitting neatly into the categories that society tries to force us into.

I'll ping whoever has been participating so far, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).

Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback also. Thanks!

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Basically the title. I'm involved in a local leftist group that is organizing but the subject on misogyny was brought up because we've had some issues of men in the group talking over the women in the group or dismissing them. A comrade and I are trying to come up withe some texts for education to address this issue but we've both realized this is a blind spot in our theory knowledge. I suggested Caliban and the Witch and The Second Sex but after that I'm kind of drawing a blank.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated as always. Marxist and anarchist texts are both welcome.

Thanks!

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Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.

I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.

Week 19, June 25 - July 1, Volume 2 Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 Section 1

Onto Volume II! Time to investigate the circulation of capital in more depth.

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF.

AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!


Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)


2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives: Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18Week 19Week 20Week 21Week 22Week 23Week 24Week 25Week 26Week 27Week 28Week 29Week 30Week 31Week 32Week 33Week 34Week 35Week 36Week 37Week 38Week 39Week 40Week 41Week 42Week 43Week 44Week 45Week 46Week 47Week 48Week 49Week 50Week 51Week 52


2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18

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Welcome to the third week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!

If you're just getting started, here's a link to the thread for Chapter 1: https://hexbear.net/post/5178006?scrollToComments=false and Chapter 2: https://hexbear.net/post/5254179?scrollToComments=false

We're only doing one chapter per week and the discussion threads will be left open, so latecomers are still very much welcome to join if interested.

As mentioned before... This isn't just a book for trans people! If you're cis, please feel free to join and don't feel intimidated if you're not trans and/or new to these topics.

Here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:

pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook

Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.

In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 3: Living Our True Spirit.

CWs: Minor mentions of transphobia.

This chapter covers a speech by Feinberg at the True Spirit Conference, a regional conference described as being for "people who are themselves, or who are supportive of others who were assigned female gender at birth, but who feel that is not an adequate or accurate description of who they are."

The "Portrait" section here is written by the conference chairperson, Gary Bowen, who describes himself as "a gay transman of Apache and Scotch-Irish descent, left-handed, differently-abled, the parent of two young children -one of whom is also differently abled - of an old Cracker frontier family from Texas, a person who values his Native heritage very deeply, and who is doing his best to live in accordance with the Spirit, and who keeps learning more about his heritage all the time."

I'll ping whoever has been participating so far, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).

Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback also. Thanks!

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Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.

I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.

Week 18, June 18 - June 24, we are finishing Volume 1!

For those reading the Fowkes translation, read Appendices 3-4. For all else, take this as a break weak, a catch-up, and share your thoughts on the whole volume! You did it! Congratulations. Next week we will be starting Volume II!

dubois-dance kitsuragi-dance

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=AA342398FDEC44DFA0E732357783FD48

(Unsure about the quality of the Reitter translation, I'd love to see some input on it as it's the newest one)

AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!


Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)


2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives: Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18Week 19Week 20Week 21Week 22Week 23Week 24Week 25Week 26Week 27Week 28Week 29Week 30Week 31Week 32Week 33Week 34Week 35Week 36Week 37Week 38Week 39Week 40Week 41Week 42Week 43Week 44Week 45Week 46Week 47Week 48Week 49Week 50Week 51Week 52


2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17

19
 
 

Welcome to the second week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!

If you're just getting started, here's a link to the thread for Chapter 1: https://hexbear.net/post/5178006?scrollToComments=false

We're only doing one chapter per week and the discussion threads will be left open, so latecomers are still very much welcome to join if interested.

Also, as I mentioned last week. This isn't just a book for trans people! Cis comrades would get a lot out of this reading/discussion as well, so don't feel intimidated if you're not trans and/or new to these topics.

As with last week's thread, here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:

pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook

Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.

In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 2: Allow Me to Introduce Myself.

CWs: Discussion of transphobia.

This chapter covers a speech Feinberg gave at the 9th annual Texas "T" Party in Richardson, TX, as well as a (very heartwarming imo) "Portrait" section where Linda and Cynthia Phillips (seen in the thumbnail) discuss their relationship and life experience.

I'll ping whoever has been participating so far, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).

Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback also. Thanks!

20
 
 

published anonymously in the early 1970s, now known to have been written by Grace Lee Boggs (玉平) of Sojourner Truth Organization. Although it doesn't seem to be available on STO's archive.

My friend gave me this with some ceremony. I'm curious if anyone else has read it? What are opinions of the text, its author or STO?

21
 
 

Hop in, comrades, we are reading Capital Volumes I-III this year, and we will every year until Communism is achieved. (Volume IV, often published under the title Theories of Surplus Value, will not be included, but comrades are welcome to set up other bookclubs.) This works out to about 6½ pages a day for a year, 46 pages a week.

I'll post the readings at the start of each week and @mention anybody interested. Let me know if you want to be added or removed.

Week 17, June 11 - June 17, we are reading Volume 1, Chapters 32-33, and Appendicies 1-2 if you are reading the Fowkes translation.

Finishing out Primitive Accumulation, and onto the appendicies! If you aren't reading the Fowkes version, you can use this as a break time, find the Fowkes version and follow along, or skip the appendices even if you have the Fowkes version. Well done!

Discuss the week's reading in the comments.

Use any translation/edition you like. Marxists.org has the Moore and Aveling translation in various file formats including epub and PDF: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/

Ben Fowkes translation, PDF: https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=AA342398FDEC44DFA0E732357783FD48

(Unsure about the quality of the Reitter translation, I'd love to see some input on it as it's the newest one)

AernaLingus says: I noticed that the linked copy of the Fowkes translation doesn't have bookmarks, so I took the liberty of adding them myself. You can either download my version with the bookmarks added or if you're a bit paranoid (can't blame ya) and don't mind some light command line work you can use the same simple script that I did with my formatted plaintext bookmarks to take the PDF from libgen and add the bookmarks yourself. Also, please let me know if you spot any errors with the bookmarks so I can fix them!


Resources

(These are not expected reading, these are here to help you if you so choose)


2024 Archived Discussions

If you want to dig back into older discussions, this is an excellent way to do so.

Archives: Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16Week 17Week 18Week 19Week 20Week 21Week 22Week 23Week 24Week 25Week 26Week 27Week 28Week 29Week 30Week 31Week 32Week 33Week 34Week 35Week 36Week 37Week 38Week 39Week 40Week 41Week 42Week 43Week 44Week 45Week 46Week 47Week 48Week 49Week 50Week 51Week 52


2025 Archived Discussions

Just joining us? You can use the archives below to help you reading up to where the group is. There is another reading group on a different schedule at https://lemmygrad.ml/c/genzhou (federated at !genzhou@lemmygrad.ml ) (Note: Seems to be on hiatus for now) which may fit your schedule better. The idea is for the bookclub to repeat annually, so there's always next year.

Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6Week 7Week 8Week 9Week 10Week 11Week 12Week 13Week 14Week 15Week 16

22
 
 

linky to pdf (*advanced class of radlibs, however, is more receptive to piketty than obscure french marxist, so)

23
 
 

This is a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. Last week's thread is here.

Welcome to the seventeenth week of Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of US World Dominance! I'm reading the Third Edition.

For every week, I will write a summary of the chapter(s) read, for those who have already read the book and don't wish to reread, can't follow along for various reasons, or for those joining later who want to dive right in to the next book without needing to pick this one up too. I will post all my chapter summaries in this final thread, for access in one convenient location. Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 16: Monetary Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, which is approximately 15 pages.

24
 
 

Welcome to the first week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!

Each week we'll read one chapter and discuss it in the comments. There are 8 chapters, and each chapter isn't too long, so this will be relatively light reading for most of you.

Also, THIS BOOK ISN'T JUST FOR TRANS PEOPLE. Obviously the book discusses trans issues, but as I've said before, it covers discussion on gender topics that would be relevant to basically everyone. So I highly encourage you to join if you're interested, regardless of whether you're trans or not.

To get started, here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:

pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook

Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.

In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 1: We Are All Works in Progress.

CWs: Discussion of transphobia, abuse, SA. I should also mention since this came out in 1998, some of the language used might feel a little dated (specific language used is also a good topic of discussion imo).

I'll also ping a discussion list each week. Since this is the first week, the ping list will only include the few who've mentioned they're interested, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).

This is my first time doing something like this, so let me know if you have any feedback for me. Thanks!

25
 
 

What should I read to understand how to build and verify a cybernetically valid system? (e.g. cybernetically valid planned economy)

I understand that production needs to be controlled, and that the decision-making needs to be linked to the front-line workers (because they have eyeballs on the reality of the work). And it's a design-error if decisions are made removed from work, because the controller doesn't have first-hand knowledge.

But I don't understand how to describe that in formal terms. Is there a list of all possible system-design-errors? Is there a methodology/checklist for confirming if me mum is cybernetically valid?

Is there a textbook on all this?

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