The Communist Manifesto

The 1848 pamphlet Marx and Engels wrote for the Communist League: history as a sequence of class struggles, the bourgeoisie credited with dissolving every older social form and building a world market, and the proletariat cast as the class whose interest is the abolition of class itself. It ends in a programme — abolition of landed property, centralised credit and transport, free public education — and a call to unite.

Why it’s on the list: It sits in the Marxism and Collective Psychology section next to Aron, Hayek’s The Intellectuals and Socialism, and Chang’s Wild Swans. The section reads the doctrine in the original before reading its critics and its consequences, which is the only honest way to study it.

Where I saw it: On Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Marxism and Collective Psychology, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 211-entry transcription lives on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Karl Marx — the co-author.
• Socialism — the tradition this text founded politically.
• Capitalism — the system it diagnoses.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the list this came from.