Asklemmy

All of Marx' writings are worth a read even if you're a dumbass capitalist.

The holy scripture should only be read in the original German /s

It is meant to be an accessible reading, meant for working class people. Go for it. I personally recommend Rosa Luxemburg's writings.

Sure the Manifesto is short and easily understood so why not?

Assigned reading in macroeconomics when I took it in college. Not a particularly left leaning course, nor cohort.

The manifesto isn't even particularly long or difficult to read. Das Capital by Marx is really where his economic theories are actually presented. It is an extremely difficult read.

Someone suggested critique of the gotha program and someone else said capital (four volumes!).

Those are good alternatives to the communist manifesto which is basically a handbill for convincing people to go learn more.

Of course they’re both super old and many people have written about their contents since their publication.

Being interested in politics is maybe not the best reason to be reading about communism.

It's always good to read more! Just like, in general. You should read the communist manifesto and then go on to read other things too, anything you fancy

Economical books of Lenin may also be of interest, Henri Ford studied them while he never was a communist. It is a bit harder to read than the manifesto of Marx and Engels, but it doesn't require to be an economist.

I'd honestly probably start with Lenin. Or at least not the Manifesto if you want anything more than, well, a Manifesto. If you wanna start with Marx/Engels then I would say Engels "On Authority" might be a good place to start. Or perhaps "The 18th brumaire of Louis Napoleon" by Marx.

They derived their political ideology from their economic analysis, so it’s probably a good idea to read the context of world operating under the classical economic theories of those times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_the_Gotha_Programme also worth reading. note that because these are 19th C documents written in that particular context, it's also helpful to read about the docs in addition to their text

There are audio books.

Yes. As much as Marx set the foundation for these ideas, the people parroting these ideas today often clash with a lot of what he believed in. So it's important to understand what he was saying vs what those people tell you he was saying.

It's good, it's def on the list. You'll be surprised by how moderate-seeming of Reforms it actually calls for, while being a revolutionary program.

Also read "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Wage Labor and Capital, and Critique of the Gotha Program. State and Revolution by Lenin and Reform or Revolution by Luxemburg are other great foundational works.

This is a good theory foundation to begin reading socialist history books: Wretched of the Earth, Black Reconstruction in America, Hammer and Hoe, Black Jacobins, History of the German Revolution, History of the Russian Revolution, etc.,

Also big recommendation for Ten Days that Shook the World by Jack Reed, it's legit one of the most exciting books you'll ever come across. It's better than any action fiction book, and it's just straight journalism of the actual October Russian revolution.

If you like podcasts, Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast is pretty good, his last season on the Russian revolution is a good primer for the years prior to the 1917 revolutions, and the first fiveish episodes are pretty good historical and theoretical primers on various revolutionary movements and theorists. Season 10 episodes 2 and 3 are about Marx and Engels specifically, and I know lots of people who had their eyes opened to M&E by these episodes. I think Duncan ends the series on a sour note wrt Lenin that lacks real complexity and depth, but those early episodes are pretty good as an entry-point to Marx&Engels and socialist theory.