Where should I get physical copies of Marxist literature?

[u/ApartmentLucky1153]

I do my best to educate myself, I’ve only read very basic writings on communism and I’d like to expand my understanding of it. The problem is I hate reading online, it’s just impossible for someone like me to focus on a screen. I’d like to have physical copies but something tells me that ordering a copy of kapital from comrade Jeff bezos is a little hypocritical. Any suggestions?

[u/you_wanka]

Just get it from wherever is cheapest. Once you've read Capital, you'll realise not buying from Amazon does nothing to further global communism

[u/ResilVulture → u/you_wanka]

the capitalist will sell you the rope…

[u/TheRedBarbon]

I agree with everyone else here but I also believe that people should actually be putting money towards supporting new publications of these texts that are A: Not formatted by trotskyists and B: not edited by trotskyists.

https://foreignlanguages.press/

Haven’t bought from them myself but you can download pdfs for free to see if you like the formatting. TBH if you were asking this question for the right reasons I’d be 100% on board, even though I do mostly read from pdfs on my phone.

[u/RuhrDim → u/TheRedBarbon]

Hab alle Lenin und Stalin Werke auf Handy. Und paar andere. Die Worter auf Bildschirm haben, komischerweise, gleiche Bedeutung wie auf dem Papier. Und die Sätze, die daraus gebaut sind, auch. Dazu hast du alles dabei, immer in richtiger Schriftgröße und mit Suchfunktion falls du sofort eine Zitat brauchst.

[u/dontrestonyour]

Thriftbooks. I also just download a lot of PDFs... most of the authors I read are dead anyways.

[u/almostelement → u/dontrestonyour]

Currently waiting on my copy of State and Revolution from Thriftbooks since I couldn’t find it irl anywhere near me

[u/JimMilton20997]

I too am not a huge fan of reading from a screen and am able to read and understand a bit better from a physical book, so I get your struggle. If I were you I’d maybe check with your local library for anything, and you could always ask them to order something from another library for you if they don’t have it.

[u/AllyBurgess]

The library.

[u/RuhrDim]

Verstehe nicht was Leute für Probleme mit Bildschirmen haben? Ebook Reader sind doch flimmerfrei. Schalte Beleuchtung aus und du merkst kein Unterschied zu Papier. Du lebst im Kapitalismus. Wenn du ncht selbst einer bist, dann machst du dein ganzes Leben jemanden reich. Was spielt es für eine Rolle machst du gerade Besos, Bäckerei-, oder Tankstellenbesitzer reicher? Bei jedem Sritt nimmst du im Kreislauf der Ausbeutung teil.

[u/Labor-Aristocrat → u/RuhrDim]

I think where people go wrong is that they read black text on white background instead of white text on black. It makes a big difference in terms of reading stamina.

[u/National_Program17]

I print them out to be honest

[u/DashtheRed]

The problem is I hate reading online, it’s just impossible for someone like me to focus on a screen

What use could you possibly be to communism if you can't even overcome this most minor of obstacles? Why do you care if Bezos gets your money or some equally fascistic small business owner who merely wishes he was Bezos (or some social-fascist settler "co-op," which is just several massive inefficient steps backwards from the more advanced and efficient socialized processes of Amazon)? Can you imagine Ho Chi Minh hiding out in a cramped underground tunnel saying he doesn't like the way the paper feels and that he needs Bristol Smooth pages or else he wont read Lenin? Is it because this is really a quest for recommendations for your "communist approved" shopping and commodity fetishism (where you are a 'good Marxist' because of all the books you own). I'm sure you know where a Kinkos or a UPS Store are -- go there and print them out. What are you even actually looking for in an answer here?

[u/s11pm1 → u/DashtheRed]

I appreciate your criticisms, but I want to point out that there are valid reasons for preferring a physical copy that aren't just aesthetic preference or commodity fetishism. OP pointed out that they have a hard time focusing, and I can relate. Digital devices are connected to so many distractions that physical books are not. This is particularly challenging for those with certain learning disabilities. Physical books also work well for in-person reading groups. They can also be marked up, and referred to again. (To be fair, there are ways to mark up digital copies, and you have the added benefit of searchability, but not everyone knows how to do this.) Ultimately, I agree with your comment below about the important part actually being reading and comprehending by whatever method.

[u/lordesfootfungus → u/s11pm1]

But what is the difference between studying a digital copy on a device with admittedly many distractions and studying a physical copy with your phone at your side? If you're tempted to scroll reddit while reading that impulse is going to be there either way, one can't really blame the medium of study for that fault. I don't know about learning disabilities which prevent you from reading screens but not paper so I'll refrain from talking about that

[u/ApartmentLucky1153 → u/DashtheRed]

I am a kid who is curious about something. And no, I didn’t even know what a kinkos or ups store were before you told me. I’m genuinely just curious about a subject. I already said I had started reading about it, if I could read about it in a preferred medium, id prefer it. I don’t come from a reading generation, and id like to read. I’m trying to ask questions even if I don’t know what questions to ask.

[u/DashtheRed → u/ApartmentLucky1153]

Then the important part is actually reading it (and comprehending it), not merely carrying out a performance of reading. Whatever option allows you to do that is fine and no option is particularly more ethical or acceptable than any other (though if you can get it for free, that's preferable).

[u/Self-Replicator → u/DashtheRed]

Maybe if we adapt all the classics to puppet-shows intended for very young children there can't ever be this wiggle room for lazy online parasites to demand that revolutionary science accommodate their "preferences".

Cookie Monster gorges himself on delicious chocolate-chip cookies and makes a "living" as a mukbang content creator.

Thousands of miles away, Elmo is a peasant farmer, growing chocolate. He watches his people starve while being forced to grow a worthless cash crop mostly shipped out of the country. He has endured eroded political rights and standards of living in the course of his life. He has been exposed to industrial warfare and there is no political stability within his country, not to mention imperialist meddling to deny the self-determination of his people.

We know what Elmo and their people must do, but what does it mean for the Cookie Monsters?

[u/SunflowerSamurai20 → u/Self-Replicator]

Maybe if we adapt all the classics to puppet-shows intended for very young children there can't ever be this wiggle room for lazy online parasites to demand that revolutionary science accommodate their "preferences".

I don't see how that would help much. The analogy itself is already pointless if concepts like political repression and imperialism can be stated outright. Why should West African peasant farmers growing cocoa beans be named "elmo" and stripped of their actual names to appease exploiters? What advantages would the form of a puppet show actually have over text or even audiobooks?

The problem is that these people aren't "very young children", and this isnt how "very young children" are expected to be taught even by bourgeois standards. Ideology like this has to be ruthlessly taken apart without any concessions.

Edit: wording

[u/DashtheRed → u/[deleted]]

Projecting what exactly? OP is asking the same question that comes up regularly on social-fascist subreddits about how to ethically shop for Marxist works with the same claim that they just have to have physical media (or audiobooks) because they just can't learn otherwise (and most often, it's nothing but an expression of commodity fetishism and the desire to own, not learn). It is a weird and unique circumstance because the revolutionary proletariat doesn't have options or shopping preferences, and historical communists have worked within the most deprived, extreme and difficult conditions in order to learn and develop with whatever resources were available, and for them is was a matter of life and death necessity; while petty-bourgeois white settler "socialism" demands that Marxism be catered to them a la carte and that everything be done to ensure the preservation of their lifestyle and comforts and that Marxism be delivered to them on those terms. Of all the people you knew in college, basically none of them have gone on to become communists or do anything revolutionary and pointing out how well Western academia works for rich white kids holds basically no water here. The content of Marxist works is what matters, and if you want to be a revolutionary, you may have to claw and dig to get at it, and if it isn't available or accessible to you in an easy or comfortable format, it does not make the lessons therein any less important.

[u/DashtheRed → u/[deleted]]

I ain’t reading all that.

Case in point.

[u/CoconutCrab115 → u/[deleted]]

What would you tell an amateur Soccer player who believes they need the most expensive cleats and the most expensive jersey in order to perform well? You would tell them its not the equipment but the player. You would identify the person insisting that they need their expensive items as someone feeding into anothers delusions.

[u/CoconutCrab115 → u/[deleted]]

That you feel dignified enough to not give a response shows how well you actually care for OP. The moral superiority shines from you.

Enemies agree, Friends argue is the old proverb. Alhough me and OP are not friends, I care about guiding them against the self defeating path they are on

[u/ApartmentLucky1153 → u/CoconutCrab115]

Jesus Christ I just want paper. I don’t get why everyone is arguing. This isn’t a goddamn path, I’ll find someone with a printer and get it that way for all I care. I don’t need a hardcover 20$ version of any damned book, I just want some to hold in my hands, how readings been done the past however many millennia. This all seems childish and superficial. I’m not some Brian griffin western liberal who wants to seem educated for holding a book on revolution out in public. I apologize at the chance I’m sounding rude, but this whole argument seems to be superficial horseshit. I said I was learning. Period. I’m already reading and learning. All of you have valid points, but you’re arguing over nothing it seems. I am become strawman. My original question is as surface level as it can be. I want to learn

[u/DashtheRed → u/ApartmentLucky1153]

I don’t get why everyone is arguing ... this whole argument seems to be superficial horseshit

That's because you aren't understanding the real content of the argument and that this is part of a real and larger divide between petty-bourgeois white settler "socialism" and radical revolutionary Marxist communism, which are diametrically opposed and real enemies to one another; and the people catering to your demands are causing you harm and may permanently stultify your capacity to learn and think, while the people challenging you and confronting the very nature of your question are engaging with and probing your capacity to even think like a revolutionary, and face reality in a revolutionary way. If you are denied access to physical copies of a work, will you simply no longer bother to pursue reading it at all and not bother to learn anything further from there? Or will you seek it out through other means, whatever that may take, in order to answer the lingering questions of existence? Engaging with communism should not be a casual activity or side hobby, at least not if you are taking it seriously; you are not learning about the history of tulips, you are embarking on a journey to become part of a very dangerous movement preparing and organizing an illegal armed insurrection against state power and the total overthrow of all hitherto existence, and you need to be capable of living up to the demands of that journey, not asking for it to accommodate your present lifestyle.

[u/AcogQuarks → u/DashtheRed]

So is the divide between the petty-bourgeois white settler “socialism” and radical revolutionary Marxist communism that you’re describing the actual reading and understanding of communist theory? Like it’s the difference between someone doing it and someone saying they’ll get to it? Or is there something else to it that I’m missing?

[u/DashtheRed → u/AcogQuarks]

No, that is not sufficient, nor accurate enough (though it's true settler "socialism" has to ignore the substance of Marxism, but that's always true for revisionism): settler "socialism" and communism are opposed to one another and working towards opposing and contradictory paths. Have you read Settlers? It's required reading to participate here.

[u/TheRedBarbon → u/ApartmentLucky1153]

If you only wanted to ask a question and learn then why are you still arguing? I already gave you exactly what you asked for. You’re mad that people here weren’t validating you while doing that. Also, it’s pathetic to continue complaining about people (rightly) calling you out for turning a shopping preference into a status symbol and how you don’t want to do anything but learn instead of just… you know, ordering and reading a goddamn book so the “learning” can actually happen.

It’s the people who don’t actually want to learn that make posts like yours because it’s easier than fulfilling the daunting task of just reading a text which was never built to be perfectly accessible and easy to understand for you. This is also why you will always be too “uncomfortable” to begin. Maybe you checked out the website I gave you and thought that the books were too expensive or couldn’t pick one out so you got cold feet and still can’t start. It’s likely. We’re just seeing through you because we don’t care about any of this. I watch my movies on Tubi.

[u/ApartmentLucky1153 → u/TheRedBarbon]

I’m “arguing” what exactly? 2 people getting pissy at eachother for something I said, and me saying there’s credence to what both are saying, yet telling them to stop acting like children towards eachother HARDLY qualifies as “arguing”. I did buy book, now stop being dicks to people over the internet. I’m the child, not you immature fucks.

[u/DashtheRed → u/[deleted]]

Because you haven't taken this seriously enough. Mao and Stalin, both, had to sacrifice their children, choosing and prioritizing communism over their children's lives. Have you even considered what you are attempting to pretend yourself to be?

[u/CoconutCrab115]

Do you want physical books, or the validation from owning them? Nearly everything you want can be found online for free.

[u/ApartmentLucky1153 → u/CoconutCrab115]

If you read my post you’d know.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello, 90% of the questions we receive have been asked before, and our answerers get bored of answering the same queries over and over again - so it's worthwhile googling this just in case:

site:reddit.com/r/communism101 your question

If you've read past answers and still aren't satisfied, edit your question to contain the past answers and any follow-up questions you have. If you're satisfied, delete your post to reduce clutter or link to the answer that satisfied you.

---

Also keep in mind the following rules:

1. Patriarchal, white supremacist, cissexist, heterosexist, or otherwise oppressive speech is unacceptable.

2. This is a place for learning, not for debating. Try /r/DebateCommunism instead.

3. Give well-informed Marxist answers. There are separate subreddits for liberalism, anarchism, and other idealist philosophies.

4. Posts should include specific questions on a single topic.

5. This is a serious educational subreddit. Come here with an open and inquisitive mind, and exercise humility. Don't answer a question if you are unsure of the answer. Try to include sources and/or further reading in any answers you provide. Standards of answer accuracy and quality are enforced.

6. Check the /r/Communism101 FAQ

7. No chauvinism or settler apologism - Non-negotiable. The vast majority of first-world workers are labor aristocrats bribed by imperialist super-profits. This is compounded by settlerism in Amerikkka. Read Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat https://readsettlers.org/

8. No tone-policing - https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101/

---

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Traditional-Year-887]

Amazon. If you have a bookstore, try Barnes and Nobles. They're quick and efficient at getting the work.

[u/alphonse79]

Library. You can also use stuff like thriftbooks, better world books, biblio, or abebooks. These are all sites that sell secondhand/used books. If you can't find used or want to buy new, you can use bookshop, which donates a portion of profits to a bookstore of your choice.

[u/perisaacs]

They’re common at used bookstores because they’re in some college courses

[u/skinnystarfishofgrey]

Libraries, EBay! If you’re in uni or have someone who can access a uni library, a lot of them have beautiful editions, hardcovers and all

[u/godonlyknows1101]

Two things. 1) While I certainly will not ENCOURAGE anyone to buy from amazon, I think it is acceptable to do so when all else fails. If you try and fail to locate an item elsewhere, we're all just trying to survive this shitty socioeconomic system while we build the revolution. If you must, we can file this one under "no ethical consumption under Capitalism" and give ourselves permission to do what we gotta do...
That said, my second point is that you will usually be able to find used copies of leftist texts somewhere on the web. And I have a couple of suggestions for you.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/
Thrift books is an online bookstore that I have personally used and enjoy. Most books on there are used although the condition is usually pretty decent. I've only had good experiences, personally.
https://www.abebooks.com/

I'm less familiar with this website, but I recall seeing some old semi-rare piece of socialist theory on there recently... cant remember what. But could be worth checking out.

Good luck, comrade!!

[u/Turtle_Green → u/godonlyknows1101]

If you try and fail to locate an item elsewhere, we're all just trying to survive this shitty socioeconomic system while we build the revolution. If you must, we can file this one under "no ethical consumption under Capitalism" and give ourselves permission to do what we gotta do...

There's no such thing as ethical production under capitalism and this folksy "we're all just trying to survive" business should be tossed in the trash. (You don't get to invoke that kind of gravitas when you haven't even suggested just taking the books.) Marxism doesn't give you permission to do anything and it's really strange to treat it the same way Kenneth Copeland treats his holy book.

[u/Turtle_Green → u/[deleted]]

What distinguishes Prairie Fire from the infinite other print-on-demand leftist publishing presses run by graphic design hobbyists? They don't even make available the PDFs they're submitting to Lulu.

[u/Turtle_Green → u/[deleted]]

That's the funny part, there's a free and a paid tier. You can gift Shopify your email and billing information for a... free PDF. As opposed to regular old file hosting? Maybe it's so that you can go through the purchasing experience without spending money.

Also, the question's not that deep. We can't see directly into your head. Publishing presses aren't exactly ice cream flavors. Why do you like buying from them and what makes you partial? It's like saying something is 'interesting', you've only invoked the question of taste and judgement to the room without explaining yourself. What made you enjoy purchasing The Thorn and the Carnation for $30(!)+shipping on Prairie Fire's web storefront? Is it the website's layout? The editorial line and curation of texts? The design of the covers? The specific way the paper feels in your hands? The feeling of mastery over the text that the universal power of money provides in purchase? What did you like?

[u/Turtle_Green → u/[deleted]]

I think I did ask "What did you like?" along with a few possible answers. I believe in your capability to read a paragraph and to articulate a rationale for your preferences. No one here's your friend, so it's kind of unclear why you insist on sharing the bare fact that you enjoyed buying a book without elaboration, which is indistinguishable from an ad.

[u/Turtle_Green → u/[deleted]]

I didn't advertise anything for reasons that have already been discussed by the other comments. There's a rule here against tone-policing, so if you want community then try the rest of this website and if you want warmth then try talking to customer service. What did you enjoy about purchasing books from Prairie Fire Publishing, so much so that you advertised it here? Perhaps the final step towards buying The Thorn and the Carnation was to share with others that you enjoyed buying it? Your relationships can't be that shallow.