Once you learn how to understand and apply historical materialism and break out of capitalist canards like the myth of barter, it becomes much easier to come up with the things that make societies feel evolving, nuanced, and alive: internal struggles, subcultures and countercultures, political movements, economic bases, social mores and customs. That, plus having a variety of real-world examples to draw from to avoid falling into the trap of capitalist realism.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    24·
    6 months ago
    • Debt: The First 5000 Years, which has a good deal of information about the economies of ancient societies, including their economic models and the factors leading to things like the rise and decline of currencies.
    • The Origins Of The Modern World, which goes into great detail about the staggering violence and brutality capitalism inflicted in building the wealth of Europe, and demonstrates that capitalism is and always has been a state enterprise.
    • Caliban And The Witch, a feminist Marxist work that details the material circumstances that drove witch hunts and suppression of women’s rights in early modern Europe. Disclaimer: I haven’t read very far into this one yet, but what I’ve seen is good.
    • The State And Revolution - where Lenin details his model of the state as a means by which one class imposes its will on another.
    • Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism - Another Lenin work, in which he describes the processes by which capitalism leads to concentration in production, which in turn leads to the dominance of finance capital, which in turn engenders imperialism.
    • Podcast rather than a book, but Hell On Earth is a series about the Thirty Years War that highlights the economic power struggle of what is often seen as a strictly religious conflict, co-hosted by our own large adult son. large-adult-son