Greetings, gunner2-ga!
In addition to the link pinkfreud-ga provided, I will provide some
other Websites that may help you on your quest to understand Marx's
early writings.
This Website at Stanford offers insight into Marx's early writings
including "On the Jewish Question", "Contribution to a Critique of
Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction", "1844 Manuscripts", and
"Theses on Feuerbach".
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Karl Marx
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
The Marxists Internet Archive offers full text of many of Karl Marx's
writings. It also features an Enclyclopedia of Marxism whose
description reads:
"The Encyclopedia of Marxism aims to be the most complete reference
guide to Marxism, the working class, and revolution in the world. We
present these words uniquely with a Marxist analysis & critique, and
we try to lay bare these words so there can be a shared understanding,
a lucidity that exposes our diverse roots of thought and history, and
explainations that are readily comprehensible..." [sic]
The Encyclopedia of Marxism
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/about/writers.htm
The Marxists Internet Archive
http://www.marxists.org/
The Unknown Marx is an essay on reading Marx's texts and examines
Marxist thought:
"People need to read these texts closely and not read backwards into
them presuppositions that come from a century and more of other
people's political sins. One must recognize that the young Marx was
already an opponent of we now think of as collectivism. There is no
subordination of the individual to the collective in Marx's thinking.
Furthermore, Marx's positive attitude towards individual development,
including the positive aspects of individualism unleashed but also
thwarted by capitalism, needs to be emphasized after a whole century's
experience of regimentation and mass manipulation."
The Unknown Karl Marx by by Ralph Dumain
http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/marx1.html
Here is a review by Jim Framelant of a book that looks helpful. It's
entitled, "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx" by Sidney Hook:
Book Review of Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx
http://www.crimsonbird.com/history/hook.htm
This Website offers a series of essays by various authors on Marxism
and Marxist Theory:
Syetems Theory on Karl Marx
http://econc10.bu.edu/economic_systems/Theory/Marxism/Classics/karl_marx.htm
Socialism From Below by David McNally is an eight chapter pamphlet
available online that investigates Socialism and Marx's contributions
to the theory:
"...Tracing the fate of revolutionary socialism through the past 100
years, David McNally shows that there are two currents in the
socialist tradition. One is "socialism from above," that of the "leave
to us" reformers in the West and the anti- democratic bureaucracies of
the East. Neither has brought the world any closer to socialism. The
other is socialism from below, the living tradition of workers'
struggle which has been hidden in the years of compromise and
betrayal..."
Socialism From Below by David McNally Main Page
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/socfrombel/sfb_main.htm
"The young Marx came increasingly to believe that no society which was
divided into exploiting employer and exploited worker could ever
achieve full democracy. So long as the capitalists held the bulk of
economic power in society, they would continue to dominate political
life. Full democracy, Marx argued, required the overcoming of class
division in society. Only then could each individual fully and equally
participate in social and political affairs. Unlike the utopian
socialists, Marx insisted that socialism had to represent a higher
stage of democracy than anything yet seen. He opposed all socialist
and communist views that involved a curtailing of democracy..."
Marx: Socialism From Below by David McNally Chapter 4
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/socfrombel/sfb_4.htm
I hope these Websites prove useful to you. You may want to look into a
few published works on the subject of understanding Marx's writings as
well, such as the publication above by Sidney Hook.
Sincerely,
Filian-ga
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Clarification of Answer by
filian-ga
on
23 Sep 2003 09:24 PDT
Hello gunner2-ga,
I apologize -- I left off a couple of links I wanted to include in
this answer.
John Keller has an essay that deconstructs the Community Manifesto and
make it more palatable for laymen:
A Layman's Look at the Communist Manifesto
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/keller5.html
This site breaks down some of the terms used by Marx in his works:
English 495: Marxist Theory
http://www.english.ilstu.edu/strickland/495/labor.html
I think this Glossary of Marxist Terms will help you greatly in
figuring out a lot of the early writings and his writings in general.
Here are a couple of examples from the contents:
"Empiricism - A teaching on the theory of knowledge which holds that
sensory experience is the only source of knowledge and affirms that
all knowledge is founded on experience and is obtained through
experience. The opposite to rationalism. The main failing of this is a
tendency to reject reason as a means of deduction in favour of a
metaphysical exaggeration of the role of experience alone."
"Lumpenproletariat - Roughly translatable as "slum proletariat,"
covers the outcast, degenerated, and submerged elements such as
beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, petty criminals, the chronically
unemployed, the old and broken, to be found in all modem industrial
cities. The ranks of these poor non-producers are swelled by the
addition of the unemployed in times of social crisis. Reactionary and
fascist demagogues have found some of their mass base in the
lumpenproletariat - whose atomized condition militates against their
adopting class-conscious, proletarian attitudes."
Glossary of Marxist Terms
http://www.newyouth.com/archives/theory/marxismglossary.asp
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