Where to start with 19th century socialists? Is there a reading guide or something
Some might say the Communist Manifesto, a light read compared to Das Kapital, but I'd go with the Origin of Family, Property and State by Engels because it is more interesting and you don't need to be an ideologue to enjoy it.
>>18406549Idk really but Marx and Engels are interesting because a lot of their writing is as much a critique of socialism of the time as it was capitalism (and classical liberal political philosophy). There were other socialists like Robert Owen and Henri de Saint-Simon and there was a socialist/communist movement already underway. They weren't "against" those guys but saw them as up in the clouds or mistaken in some important ways. Also they critiqued "reactionary or conservative" socialism which sought to restore a more traditional community being ground up by capitalism, since they didn't think socialism was possible before capitalism. "Marxism" as a mode of politics emerged more in the 1870s and then "Marxism" split during World War I and the Russian revolution and civil war. This guy is an anarchist who dunks on Marxism but this is a pretty fair and accurate intro:https://youtu.be/Fuo5uAZW0Jo
>>18406549>Where to start with 19th century socialists?Read "Socialism : utopian and scientific" by Engels. It covers everything you need to understand socialism>who were the utopists>how marxism views reality>how it could lead to the USSRThe brief tldr is that utopian socialists didn't have coherent and structured understanding of capitalism and had to rely on morals and spontaneity to achieve socialism. Engels says this doesn't apply to marxism because it has understood the inner logic of capitalism and why is systematically produces contradictions which gives rise to the opportunity for socialism through dialectical and historical materialism. There's also a brief excerpt iirc where he talks about his ideal planned economy with labor vouchers.
>>18406549Just read Value Price and Profit and The Communist Manifesto and you will probably know more than any modern Marxist.
>>18407026second this. it describes how Marx and Engels located their theory within the broader history of philosophy, what inspired them etc.
>>18406552In fact, one book that is rarely mentioned is Friedrich Engels's *The Principles of Communism*. This is the one that speaks most directly about communism itself, since *The Communist Manifesto* is more of a political pamphlet (and some of its points, at least those in Chapter 2, are outdated; see the 1872 preface). The manifesto remains more of a "historical curiosity to read."
>>18407538Once, while talking to some critical-practical communists, one mentioned that you become more of a communist not by reading Marx, but by talking to other communists xd.
