/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5182287]

Let's make /lit/'s recommended left-wing literature chart, shall we?

[Anonymous No.5182299]

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5182302]

If you want to make improvements on this one, sure.

[Anonymous No.5182305]

[OP No.5182315]

>>5182302
Oh cool. I'll add this for one.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5182321]

Could we arrange it in sections, if not three separate lists? One for revolutionary (Early liberalism, republicanism, etc.) another for communism/socialism, and a third for anarchism?

[OP No.5182326]

>>5182302
We could add fiction.
What do you think is Gorky's best?
I've only read Mother.

[OP No.5182338]

>>5182321
Anarchism certainly needs another section, but we might want to leave out bourgeois liberalism.

[Anonymous No.5182344]

please for the love of god don't include anything by lenin

[OP No.5182367]

Then there are modern critiques of capitalism, like this one.

[Anonymous No.5182372]

Oh please post some more books by rich straight white men, I can't get enough

[Anonymous No.5182375]

>>5182372
go to bed Laurie

[Anonymous No.5182390]

>>5182338
This book is great, upboat

Also, some of my recommendations

[Anonymous No.5182393]

>>5182302
Nice.

Get rid of the Zizek and it would be better. Also, Adorno and Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment.

Whether or not you like him, Chomsky has been influential - good to see Rosa Luxemburg on there, though. She is his one of his biggest influences.

No Gramsci? Maybe I can't see it on there.

Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities takes a Marxist approach.

No Foucault?

I really like that David Harvey book. I just bought it on a whim one day.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5182439]

>>5182367
I meant to pick that one up once.

[Anonymous No.5182441]

i know alot of people will be pissed but the shock doctorine needs to get on that list

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5182466]

>>5182344
I agree. Soviets sucked
>>5182338
I guess you're right. I read this one a bit ago, and it's instructive enough from a historical pov

[Anonymous No.5182523]

>>5182441
I would be for adding a popular leftist literature section to the list, and separating it from the academic stuff, as to be inclusive without implying that every book on the list is regarded with equal esteem.

Somewhat interesting: I'm being inclusive and my captcha contains the word patrician, probably the most over-used word on some of the 4chan boards.

[Anonymous No.5182555]

Are there any left-wing literature that criticize the French Masonic Revolt of 1789?

[Anonymous No.5182573]

>>5182523
cool you should make that list.
i think that books more accessible to the people are can also be great and perhaps more important
plebeian or pleb is the most over-used word on 4chan

[Anonymous No.5182841]

>Let's make /lit/'s recommended left-wing literature chart, shall we?

Hell no

Look, the biggest evidence of the intellectual weakness of the right-wing movement is the peaceful coexistence of everything within their ranks from libertarians to fascists, conservatives to anarcho-capitalists, religious fundamentalists to monarchists (depending of the cultural context) and so on

This lack of coherence is due to the fact that despite any of the superfluous stylization, anything that belongs to the Right is essentially nothing more than a desperate reaction against progress - often lead by the classes who lose the most by it - and the field where said progress seems to be happening in the fastest, its ideological opposite becomes the main right-wing trend of the time, often fashioning itself as "new" by claiming to be against other right-wing trends who are losing popularity (as libertarians claim to hate militarism, fascists claim to hate capitalism, and so on)

What makes the left "the left" is the fact that we don't have a single concept to oppose, we aim towards a set of (vague) principles we believe mankind should be governed by and each individual, party, movement and ideology has its own methods of achieving it. If we see ourselves as a whole, we're often contradicting these principles or favoring one at the expense of the others (is it ok to kill for socialism? to hurt the enviroment for better conditions for the poor? is the use of religion to fight poverty or war acceptable? when should peace be violated? human rights?)

This is why we often divide ourselves into irrelevance. A left-wing list either has to include anyone who makes a valid point for something the Left represents (which means including stalinists and outdated thinkers who are now almost right-wing for our current sensibilities) and be too long and horrible, or be selective and mostly self-contradictory (like trotsky and gandhi side by side or whatever) I mean look at you niggas. Not even 10 posts in and there's already a potshot at lenin

You can't attribute a definite set of methods or tools of thinking to the "Left" because then you're limiting it to our current conditions, ideology and scientific thinking. The best you can do is define the goals as vaguely as possible, and that was already done

TL;DR lists are shit, your idea is stupid

[Anonymous No.5182859]

>>5182841
Nah tho. The right-wing is certainly not defined by a stance against progress as such - I mean, if nothing else, it's completely nonsensical to say that about the libertarians, who are COMPLETELY about progress, and not in any way about maintaining the past. They want to move boldly forward into a bright new future by smashing all government regulations and leaving it up to them to create the new economic structure, but just because it's not your vision of progress, that doesn't mean it's not a vision of progress.

It's not progress. Try again.

[Anonymous No.5182884]

>>5182859
libertarians are left-wing by all standards except that of corporations

[Anonymous No.5182891]

>>5182302
>progressive

Cool linguistic programming bros

[Anonymous No.5182894]

>>5182884
The person I was replying to was using a definition of 'right-wing' that included libertarians.

I'm cool with you though, I understand where you are coming from.

[Anonymous No.5182908]

>>5182884
And actual leftists.

[Anonymous No.5182913]

>>5182884
Economically Right
Socially Left

[Anonymous No.5182928]

>>5182913
>Economically Right
Too broad.

[Anonymous No.5182930]

>>5182913
i was just about to say that anyone who thinks libertarians are left-wing is also likely to know so little about politics that he thinks the "social/economic" axis is a valid way of measuring political thought

carry on guys, whatever list you come up with will surely be a fantastic reference to left-wing ideas

[Anonymous No.5182938]

>>5182928
Less state intervention
Capitalism
Economic freedom

[Anonymous No.5182946]

>>5182930
>"social/economic" axis is a valid way of measuring political thought

Name one instance when it isn't

[Anonymous No.5182948]

My Left-Wing list:

Hayek, Mises, Ron Paul (they didn't like the state and stuff)

Mussolini, Spengler, speeches by Goebbels (they didn't like capitalism and stuff)

Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (they don't like religion and stuff)

All very progressive and stuff

[OP No.5182956]

>>5182930
Will make another thread, but yeah, libertarianfags have no place on the chart.

[Anonymous No.5182963]

>>5182948
>Mises and Mussolini in the same list

Hahahahahahahahaha

[OP No.5182969]

>>5182948

[Anonymous No.5182983]

>>5182969
>>5182963
I think that's his point

[Anonymous No.5182989]

>>5182983
What? That he's a retard?

[Anonymous No.5183002]

>>5182989
he's cracking wise on people's weird-ass definitions of what it means to be right wing

[Anonymous No.5183007]

>>5183002
A wise crack indeed.

[Anonymous No.5183009]

>>5182948
How can one person be so stupid?

>Hayek
The granddaddy of neo-liberalism. Suuuuuure.
>Ludwig von Mises
It gets worse.
>Ron Paul
Full retard.
>Mussolini
Leftist in his early days and then turned into an anti-Marxist, anti-Communist, authoritarian conservative ultra-nationalistic war mongerer and genocidal collaborator.
>Spengler
This logic has no logic.
>Goebbels
"They didn't like Capitalism and stuff" doesn't mean they were leftists. If you think this, you have absolutely no understanding of political-economy.
>Dawkins
He's a hack who deals in banalities. Very little points to him being leftist. He's exhibited imperialistic tendencies before.
>Hitchens
The ultimate bullshitting imperialist. I could go on for ways about how mediocre this arse was. Near the end of his life, he even had the gall to maintain that he still was a Marxist. I suppose we should just take him on his word. Marx would have pimp-slapped that fuck.

[Anonymous No.5183034]

>>5182946
A soviet state seeking to regulate media and culture for the sake of Communism would measure as "social control" the same way a religious person seeking to influence morals for the sake religious piety would

A Marxist whose aim is the advancement of society towards common ownership is likely to despise the welfare model because of its sociological impact on the working classes, so both him and a liberal be for "economic freedom" if that's where you draw the line

Some people want to control capitalism to save it from self-destruction, othes want to control capitalism is to make it more equal, or make it a stage towards something else. That axis would compute them both as the same.

It's really not hard to come up with examples. This "system" is appliable to modern america only. And even in that is shallow and deceiving.

[Anonymous No.5183056]

>>5183009
hahaha this nigga funnier than carrot top

[Anonymous No.5183063]

>>5182393
don't get rid of zizek. he carried on marx in some interesting ways, bringing it back to hegel in innovative ways.

[Anonymous No.5183081]

>>5182956
I think the solution could be a huge ass list with lots of categories, but labelled not according to what it defends but to what it's set against. So for example you'd have a part of it dedicated to criticism of capitalism as a whole coming from a variety of angles, from social-liberal keynesians who think it should be regulated to communists who think it should be abolished.

Basically, focus more on the diagnosis than the medication.

[OP No.5183139]

Libertarians stay here.
Others are welcome in the new thread: >>5183133

[Anonymous No.5183143]

>>5183139
There aren't any libertarians ITT, it's a bunch of fascists and neoreactionaries arguing about which political groups that are included on the right in everyday conversation are actually secretly leftists

[Anonymous No.5183151]

>>5183139
Das Kapital should really be the first thing in any Marxism category.

[Anonymous No.5183823]

>>5182302
Needs the Crisis of Neoliberalism

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5183915]

>>5182841
>What makes the left "the left" is the fact that we don't have a single concept to oppose
That I am well aware of, part of why I suggested categories, but a little chart of some strategically selected books isn't going to change the progression of any of that.
>there's already a potshot at lenin
Bolshevik authoritarianism sucked.

>>5182859
NO. "Progress" to the 1800s liberalism isn't progress

>>5182948
5/10
They're regressive and counterrevolutionary.

[Anonymous No.5183936]

>>5182841
Besides applying a dichotomous left/right paradigm, without regard for the authoritarism/anarchy continuum, you claim that "we don't have a single concept to oppose", other than capitalism, economic freedom, property rights, right of association or legal certainty.
Consciously failing to define your stance will inexorably create a shifting position with ad hoc reasoning to justify whatever you feel like. (pic very related)
Also, "vague principles", need to have a practical and everyday association, and you fail to establish these because you know that most people can get behind "Let's make our country better for everyone", yet you will find resistance when you go "I'm taking your money away for these indolent poor"

> tl;dr this better be bait

[Anonymous No.5183966]

>>5182938
According to your own definition, Fascism and G.W. Bush's would be economically left, because of all of their economical interventionism and public expenditure. Dirigisme is not exclusive to the left.

[Anonymous No.5184011]

>>5182841


>criticises 'the right' for being multivariant
>adulates 'the left' for being multivariant

this is an example of what rationalization looks like in the wild kids, where the subject disingenuously grasps for post-hoc justifications for a conclusion he had already supposed by other, often more banal means (which is why disguising this is attractive).

[Anonymous No.5184145]

WHY DO YOU HAVE TWO THREADS FOR THIS SHIT YOU FAGGOTS?

MODS MODS MODS