Socialism Books - Page 2

The road to Wigan Pier (A Berkley Medallion book)

George Orwell

By: Berkley Publishing Corporation Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $3.90

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Unemployment
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Political Science -> Political Doctrines -> Socialism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

We have nothing to lose but our aitches 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Contrary to my expectations, this is Orwell's most personal book. He bares his soul to us. At least I think he seriously tries to be perfectly honest, if not complete.
After his success with Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell got commissioned by the influential Left Book Club (Victor Gollancz one of the editors)to write a book about unemployment in the industrial and empoverished northern part of England. This was the mid 30s, the recent depression had led to high unemployment and endless misery in England as elsewhere.
GO went there and dug in and lived with workers and in boarding houses and crawled through mines (though he was about twice as tall as a miner should be) and talked to people and read statistics and reports.
The outcome is an oddity. Part 1 is a solid piece of investigative reporting and journalistic sociology. Chapter 1 is along the lines of Down and Out, an account of life in a boarding house in the North. Start with chapter 2 if you are squeamish. The hygienic conditions are worse than anything in Down and Out.
The following chapters in part 1 give us decsriptions of the life of miners and work in the coal mines, of the miners' leisure time, health, work safety, accidents, the housing conditions in the fearful northern slums (worse than the slums in India and Burma, says GO, because of the cold dampness), of unemployment and malnutrition, of food and fuel, of the uglyness of industrial countries at the time. The strongest chapter in this part, in my opinion, is the one on unemployment and its psychology. This subject is timeless. Even if the slums have changed, the essential condition of unemployment is surely unchanged.
So far so good and in line with the job description.
But then the man went and added a second part which deals in first place with himself, an autobiography and history of the thought of GO. Having grown up as a son of shabby genteels, he was raised on contempt for the working class. Public school education enforced the attitude. After school and after WW1, GO took a job in the imperial police in Burma and there learned to hate the system. He quit after 5 years and went into a personal crisis, a kind of horror vacui and hatred against his self. He goes on search of redemption as told with some embellishment in Down and Out. He tries to anihilate his social persona, but learns it does not work that way. The North England job gives him a chance to reconsider his position. He philosophizes about socialism and the classes. Interesting to us (at least to me), but shocking to the Left Book Club.
They decide to publish it anyway, but Gollancz adds a foreword where he thinks he needs to warn his club members that here is somebody who does not walk the line of good doctrinarism. Very odd.
By the way, did you know that quite likely fish and chips and the football pools have averted revolution in England by providing 'panem and circenses'? Says Orwell, and I love him for that kind of insight.
(This concludes my Orwell cycle, unless I decide to re-visit Burma and Catalonia.)

Editorial Review:

As a result of his experiences living with industrial workers in the North of England in the 1930s, Orwell created this searing study both for and against Socialism.

The Road to Serfdom (Routledge Classics S.)

F.A. Hayek

List Price: $21.95 By: Routledge Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $15.54

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Economic History
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Theory
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 183 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Misses the real problem and solution 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

The only, effective way to reject socialism is by attacking it's fundamental philosophical ideas. That collectivism is good and the individual must be sacrificed for the "good of the people". Attacking a philosophy such as communism or socialism, because it is not "practical" is a contradiction and undercuts any argument against such a corrupt philosophy. These ideas are not good in theory but bad in practice. They are evil in theory and therefore evil in practice.

I would like to also recommend Ayn Rand's, "The Virtue of Selfishness". This is THE work to understand Man's Individual Rights based on His Rational Nature. It is from these fundamental Truths that the ONLY proper function of a legitimate government is derived - The protection of Individual Rights.

Editorial Review:

The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road to Serfdom was first published.

SOCIALISM (Lib Works Ludwig Von Mises PB)

LUDWIG VON MISES

Amazon Price: $10.80 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Liberty Fund Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 21 new & used starting at $8.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Theory
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Towering Intellectual Achievement 5 out of 5 stars.
26 of 27 people found this review helpful.

October 25th 1817- The Bolsheviks stage a coupe in Petrograd and overthrow the Kerensky regime. For the first time ever Marxists seize control of a major nation. It will be several years before the Bolsheviks overwhelm their opponents within Russia. However, one question demands an answer. Will it work? Can socialism at least match the results of capitalism? The full answer to this question came in 1922- the year that Mises published Socialism, an Economic and Sociological Analysis. Here Mises proved that socialism must fail.

Why must socialism fail? The simple answer is because it lacks private ownership and a market for the means of production. As Mises put it "where there is no market there is no price system, and where there is no price system there can be no economic calculation". The full answer has several parts. First, economic calculation requires functioning financial markets. Second, economic calculation requires actual rivalry in markets. Third, economic calculation requires entrepreneurial alertness to profit opportunities. With these three elements in place monetary calculation of private profit reflects true economic costs. As Mises put it economic calculation "is essentially a matter for the capitalists- the capitalists who buy and sell stocks and shares, who make loans and recover them, who make deposits in the banks and draw them out of the banks again, who speculate in all kinds of commodities". Perpetually changing economic conditions mean that- "it is above all necessary that capital should be withdrawn from particular lines of production, from particular undertakings and concerns and should be applied in other lines of production, in other undertakings and concerns". Speculation in financial markets directs resources to the most urgent consumer demands because the most profitable ventures satisfy consumer demand at the least economic cost. Socialism fails because it lacks speculation that takes place only with entrepreneurial rivalry and exchange in financial markets.

The issue of economic calculation is economic, but Mises also inquired into the political and psychological reasons behind the socialist movement. He also discusses historical and cultural issues. Socialism is a full-scale treatise, comparable to Smith's Wealth of Nations. Some might think that a book from 1922 might have lost its relevance, but this is untrue. Mises explained principles that are as valid today as they were originally. In fact, Socialism is more relevant today than many recent books on economics. This is because Mises dealt with the real life problems of a dynamic economy, while much of modern economics focuses on static models that apply only to imaginary economic conditions.

Socialism is not only Mises' best book; it is one of the greatest works ever written on social theory. Mises addressed vital issues with penetrating analysis and delivered profound results. All those who are serious about political economy should read this book, but only after having read Menger's Principles of Economics, and before reading Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Those who are less ambitious should read a shorter book by Mises- Liberalism in the Classical Tradition. In any case, Socialism is a towering intellectual achievement. Were its arguments more widely understood many of the tragedies of 20th century state socialism might have been avoided. This book remains important today because it explains why we live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, and how we can achieve further progress. To put it simply Socialism is as indispensable to intellectual development as property rights are to economic development.

Editorial Review:

This is a newly annotated edition of the classic first published in German in 1922. It is the definitive refutation of nearly every type of socialism ever devised. Mises presents a wide-ranging analysis of society, comparing the results of socialist planning with those of free-market capitalism in all areas of life. Friedrich Hayek's foreword comments on the continuing relevance of this great work: "Most readers today will find that Socialism has more immediate application to contemporary events than it had when it first appeared."

Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?" and Other Writings

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dover Publications Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $6.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

You can't always get what you want! 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 26 people found this review helpful.

And way back in the bad old days before the Bolshevik Revolution, you couldn't even get what you needed. Or more to the point: if you weren't the Czar or Czarina, or any of his or her umpteen-bazillion inbred buck-toothed relatives, and weren't hooked up with royal favorites (did someone say Rasputin?)---well, just put to bed any thoughts of getting shoelaces for your galoshes.

Or for that matter, galoshes. Or anything, really. I mean, let's think of it this way: around 1916, there were *bread* shortages in Moscow. Think about that for a minute: bread shortages. People were rioting for a loaf of crummy, dimply, worm-eaten Russian bread.

There were long lines for everything; total tyranny and oppression; you couldn't say anything against the Czar, or you would get exiled to Siberia.

So along came Lenin, who broke a few eggs and made an omelette, and---voila!---Russia went all revolutionary. End result:

1) There were long lines, and shortages. No shoelaces, no galoshes.

2) Total friggin' tyranny, *again*. You couldn't say anything against the Secretary General of the Glorious Politburo, or you would get exiled to Russia.

3) At least somebody had the decency to do away with Rasputin.

Any way you stack it, though, Comrade Vladimir was onto something big: at the very least, he was way ahead of his time with the shaved head and goatee thing, you gotta admit it. If Lenin were alive today, he would give Moby a run for his money. And then, at the least, he would take the money and re-distribute it to the People.

The real genius of Lenin is that he was the ultimate in niche marketing. Go figure: around about the 19th century, a bunch of smelly, constantly drunk, terminally unemployed guys, headed up by Hegel, Marx, and Engels, wrote reams---huge filing cabinets full of stuff---on how nasty and horrible society was. How unfair, how inhumane, how increasingly terrible and blood-hungry the Cavern-Mawed Beast of the Industrial Revolution had become.

And back then, they really did have a point: 'strikes' broken up by firebombs and gunfire, a 'living wage' paid out in company scrip, which you could spend in the company store for a book of matches, and of course, no dimply, lumpy, worm-eaten bread. Oh, and children getting snatched into the grinding gears of stinking, dirty, smoke-belching factories.

Problem was, nobody cared what these guys thought. They were smelly, and hairy, and had bad teeth, and were probably crazy.

And that might have been the end of that, had it not been for the spike-helmeted Prussian militarists to the west in Germany. Germany was, at the time, in really deep sh*t: enmired in a two-front war of sheer, bloody attrition, the Kaiser needed something that would take the Czar out of the war.

So the German invented Lenin! And because every shiny new product needs a major rollout, they booked him on a train and sent him East!

So drink deeply of our buddy Vladimir Ilyitch, and see what he had that you don't---and frankly, what Karl Marx, with his bushy ugly beard and nasty temper, did not: he was a marketer, baby! He was in SALES! Lenin's chief accomplishment is not his writing (Lenin's writing make cereal box contents read like Hemingway) it was the way he hooked it all up, got the message to the masses, spread the virus!

Let's face it: without "What is to be Done", a night-train to Moscow set up by German agents, and cuddly-bald Lenin, the Czar and his fat, pampered descendants would still be kicking it large in St. Petersburg and yachting off Yalta.

Lenin proved that you don't have to have David Hasselhoff hair to rock the world! And best of all the story of Lenin---never mind "What is to be Done", which talks a good game about the Labor Theory of Value and a Classless Society in which everybody goes in at 10, leaves at 12 for 'noonsies', and takes the rest of the week off---is pure crapola---best of all, Lenin was a custom-designed Capitalist roll-out, a total marketing triumph! Hundreds of millions of Soviet Comrades can't be wrong!

Workers of the World, unite! And grow a goatee, too: you never know, you might get to run a glorious Peoples' Republic too, someday---and get some bread, shoelaces, and galoshes.

JSG

Editorial Review:

Four most significant works, also including "The Development of Capitalism in Russia"; "Imperialism, the Highest State of Capitalism"; "The State and Revolution".

Karl Marx: Selected Writings

Karl Marx

Amazon Price: $43.15 List Price: $47.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $23.78

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent Selection of Marx's Writings. 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 19 people found this review helpful.

This is an excellent selection of the writings of Karl Marx. This includes many writings which do not make it into the usual Marx/Engels Readers; Writings including Marx's Letters, his criticism of Bakunin, more writings on economics than in the usual Reader, and so on. One flaw of it, though, is that it does not contain the later writings of Engels writen after Marx's death. I suppose this is to be expected; It is after all *Marx's* writings, not Engels. However, the loss does not affect it much, and the book is still one of the most valuable tomes of Marxism I've bought. I'd recommend anyone interested in the thought of Karl Marx to get this book; If one is interested in both the writings of Marx and Engels, I'd recommend they get this book and the Marx/Engels Reader to supplement it. I have both, and both are fascinating.

Editorial Review:

This second edition of McLellan's comprehensive selection of Marx's writings includes carefully selected extracts from the whole range of Marx's political, philosophical, and economic thought. Each section of the book deals with a different period of Marx's life, allowing readers to trace the development of his thought from his early years as a student and political journalist in Germany up through the final letters he wrote in the early 1880s. A fully updated editorial introduction and bibliography has been included for each extract in this new edition.

Main Currents of Marxism (v. 1)

Leszek Kolakowski

By: Oxford University Press Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $26.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Political Science -> Political Doctrines -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Political Science -> Political Doctrines -> Socialism

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The commanding study of Marxism, now in one masterful volume with a new preface and epilogue by the author.

From philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, one of the giants of twentieth-century intellectual history, comes this highly influential study of Marxism. Written in exile, this "prophetic work" presents, according to the Library of Congress, "the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the twentieth century." Kolakowski traces the intellectual foundations of Marxist thought from Plotonius through Lenin, Lukacs, Sartre, and Mao. He reveals Marxism to be "the greatest fantasy of our century...an idea that began in Promethean humanism and culminated in the monstrous tyranny of Stalinism." In a brilliant coda, he examines the collapse of international Communism in light of the last tumultuous decades. Main Currents of Marxism remains the indispensable book in its field.

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays on How to Change the World

Ernesto Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg

Amazon Price: $11.65 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ocean Press Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $9.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Political
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 20 people found this review helpful.

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays On How To Change The World collects "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxemburg, and "Socialism and Man in Cuba" by Ernesto Che Guevara. All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark; here are ideas that transformed the world, with repercussions resonating to the modern day and beyond. A preface, introduction, and brief notes on the contributors round out this vital collection concerning political power, social consciousness, and the need for societal transformation, especially recommended for library and educational reference shelves.

Editorial Review:

"Let's be realists, let's dream the impossible." Che Guevara's words summarize the radical vision of the four famous rebels presented in this book: Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution and Che Guevara's Socialism and Humanity. Far from being lifeless historical documents, these manifestos for revolution will resonate with a new generation also seeking a better world.

"The world described by Marx and Engels . . . is recognizably the world we live in 150 years later."-Eric Hobsbawm

"Rosa Luxemburg was a brilliant, brave and independent woman, passionately internationalist and antiwar, a believer in the people's 'spontaneity' in the cause of freedom; a woman who saw herself as Marx's philosophical heir."-Adrienne Rich

Utopia (Norton Critical Editions)

Thomas More

Amazon Price: $11.81 List Price: $13.25 By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 80 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Foreign Language Fiction -> French
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> Marxist

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great translation of a timeless classic 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This edition of Thomas More's Utopia is expertly translated by Adams from the Latin and easy to read. Adams' footnotes are informative and often times a hilarious addition to More's work.

Taking a more modern approach to More, Adam's footnotes suggest that perhaps More does not take his perfect society literally, and expects the reader to read between the lines and see that such a society is obviously not possible. This is a theory of More's thought processes that I agree with, so I found this translation and Adam's thoughts quite welcome and agreeable.

However, there are many schools of thought on the issue as to whether More was completely serious about the suggested society in Utopia, although a knowledge of More as a person would suggest that he employed a subtle sarcasm throughout his life, and therefore it is not a stretch to suggest that Utopia was laced with this same humor and etched with ironic impossibilities that More hoped an educated person would be able to see.

Additionally, the fact that More places himself as a character in the book, and narrates through the use of a man whose name literally translated means "nonsense-peddler" leaves little doubt in my mind that to take More's Utopia at face-value is to do a disservice to More, the intellectual scholar that he was, and Utopia itself.

Editorial Review:

This edition has been revised with new annotations, including a criticism section which contains essays and selections from two modern Utopias - Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and B.F. Skinner's "Walden Two" - plus extracts from Edward Bellamy's futuristic "Looking Backward".

Utopia (Norton Critical Editions)

Thomas More

Amazon Price: $11.81 List Price: $13.25 By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 80 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Foreign Language Fiction -> French
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> Marxist

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great translation of a timeless classic 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This edition of Thomas More's Utopia is expertly translated by Adams from the Latin and easy to read. Adams' footnotes are informative and often times a hilarious addition to More's work.

Taking a more modern approach to More, Adam's footnotes suggest that perhaps More does not take his perfect society literally, and expects the reader to read between the lines and see that such a society is obviously not possible. This is a theory of More's thought processes that I agree with, so I found this translation and Adam's thoughts quite welcome and agreeable.

However, there are many schools of thought on the issue as to whether More was completely serious about the suggested society in Utopia, although a knowledge of More as a person would suggest that he employed a subtle sarcasm throughout his life, and therefore it is not a stretch to suggest that Utopia was laced with this same humor and etched with ironic impossibilities that More hoped an educated person would be able to see.

Additionally, the fact that More places himself as a character in the book, and narrates through the use of a man whose name literally translated means "nonsense-peddler" leaves little doubt in my mind that to take More's Utopia at face-value is to do a disservice to More, the intellectual scholar that he was, and Utopia itself.

Editorial Review:

This edition has been revised with new annotations, including a criticism section which contains essays and selections from two modern Utopias - Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and B.F. Skinner's "Walden Two" - plus extracts from Edward Bellamy's futuristic "Looking Backward".