A couple of years ago, I wrote one of my most widely read posts on this blog – a list of anti-capitalist films! In this post, I’ll take a look at 5 anti-capitalist books. I’m limiting the list to anti-capitalist books beginners will find useful.
Enjoy!
5 Anti-Capitalist Books
As I wrote above, these anti-capitalist books are useful to newer leftists. But each one holds at least some value to some of you veteran leftists. Especially if it covers a topic outside your main area.
So, veteran leftists can enjoy, too!
Angela Davis – Women, Race & Class
In this book, Davis gives us a set of Marxist-feminist essays from the more explicitly Marxist phase of her career. She writes about the intersections of class, gender, and race before ‘intersectionality‘ became a widely used term. And Davis’s Marxist-feminism differs in major ways from Kimberlé Crenshaw’s approach, which she grounds in critical race theory rather than Marxism.
Davis points to the role of black women in households in the U.S. South during the era of slavery. She finds that black women played a certain intersectional economic role – containing elements in common with white women (domestic role) and black men (slave). But black women combined these roles in a way that created a new role above and beyond the sum of its parts. Davis thereby uses some of the same methods as critical race theorists. But she links them in ways informed by a better ‘big picture’ of society.
And so, anyone who uses the language of ‘privilege’ or ‘social justice’ should read this book. She brings great explanatory power to the table.
David Graeber – Debt: The First 5000 Years
In his short life and period of work, Graeber started with concepts most of us take for granted and turns them into something more complex. In this book – one near the start of this career that made his reputation – Graeber works his magic with debt.
He shows that for most of human history, debt was informal and social. It wasn’t so punitive and official. People used debt to build social bonds. By contrast, in modern economics we use it as a system of rewards, punishment, and profit. And society now enforces debt with acts of violence, notably in policing and prison.
The book has critics – critics who object to its broad account of human history. But in its big picture, Debt reminds us that things haven’t always been the way they are. And we can make them different in the future.
Daniel Guérin – Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
As a brief, single volume work on anarchist thought and practice, one likely can’t do much better than Guérin’s little book. He compiles a history of anarchism and its basic principles in about 150 pages. And he integrates into it an insightful history of anarchism in the Russian revolution, Italian council socialism, and the Spanish revolution.
He explains very nicely the link between anarchism and socialism – showing the reader that anarchism typically combines with some form of socialism or another. In addition, he does so without notably privileging any single strand of anarchist thought. Anyone who needs an overview of anarchist thought would do great to read this book.
Hadas Thier – A People’s Guide to Capitalism
Thier published this book not long ago. And so, it’s the newest book on the list (before the added postscript, anyway). But she does all of us a great service in this book. She takes the basics of Marxist economics – as well as Marxist arguments about capitalism and history – and presents them to a modern audience in an easily digested modern context. And she does so without losing the main points and themes.
I’ve obviously written about Marx before. When it comes to Marx, I’d still say to begin with David Harvey, especially Harvey’s Companions to Capital. Why? I still think Harvey is the best at getting at Marx’s methods and arguments. But it makes for crunchy reading. Thier does a great job making the ideas accessible to people getting started.
Erik Olin Wright – How to Be An Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century
Olin Wright is a Marxist sociologist who wrote at the transition from social democracy to socialism.
In moving from our current society to a socialist one, it’s likely we’ll have to move past a social democratic phase. While the first half of that transition (from now to social democracy) presents major issues, socialists have long failed to prepare for the second half (social democracy to socialism).
Olin Wright points out many of the troubles that lie ahead.
This book isn’t his best piece of writing. Nor does he lay out his best or most detailed arguments here. However, it’s his most useful book. In it, he gives an overview of a wide range of key topics. And he does so in a way that younger and/or newer leftists can follow.
In short, he’s a great theorist to read, and reading this book is probably the best way to begin doing that. Readers can use this general overview of his thought to decide what to read next in order to go into greater detail.
Postscript (May 2021) – A Bonus!
Last, but not least, I might mention that I recently released a book! It’s a guide for leftists interested in having conversations about foreign policy – issues of war and peace, as well as globalization, immigration, trade, et al. The book is called Left Foreign Policy: An Organizer’s Guide.
It makes a great add to our list of anti-capitalist books.
Postscript 2 (January 2024) – Another Bonus!
So, I return to this post, having read a number of additional anti-capitalist books worth discussing.
What book is that, you ask? I’m talking about Dirtbag, by Amber A’Lee Frost.
Best known for her links with the Chapo Trap House podcast and the term ‘dirtbag left,’ this book is a memoir focused on activism in the long 2010s.
At first, the memoir struck me as a bit late to the game. The broader Bernie electoralist movement, we might argue, came and went. But that first impression doesn’t cut it. As a memoir should, Frost’s discusses her compelling background. Like me, she grew up in southern Indiana and experienced its particular blend of poverty and conservative politics. And like me, she moved to Bloomington.
Beyond that, Frost delivers genuine insights into how ‘normies’ approach politics. On the left, we often overlook this valuable skill.
Not that Frost always gets positive marks. She picks seemingly random fights, often reading rivals wildly and/or uncharitably. She also idolizes the ‘industrial worker’ over and against other workers (e.g., health care workers, the ‘downwardly mobile PMC,’ and so on). This is both unhelpful and theoretically misguided.
Then again, the book is called Dirtbag.
