No.1871
Alright, so I want to start reading Capital, and I know of the marxist supplements to Capital (David Harvey, Wolff's lectures, the study guides, etc), but what I want to know what should I read before reading Capital so I could get a good background on Marxist Economics, Historical Materialism, Dialectics, and Marx's(and Engel's) writings in general as well as better understanding Capital when I get to it.
You know, stuff by Feuerbach, Hegel, Ricardo, and the Utopian Socialists, to name a few.
No.1872
This may contain some useful background:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygodsky/1975/everlasting/ever1.htmI don't think you need to study hundreds of books or anything like that, but you should get a decent grounding in pre-Marxist economists: Smith, Ricardo, Petty, Quesnay, Turgot, etc., whom Marx mentions over and over in his economic writings.
As for dialectics and whatnot, you should probably save that for a second or third reading of Capital. For your first time you should grasp the basic points first, then go into it in detail later.
This might also help you since much of its discussion on capitalism basically summarizes Capital:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/ No.1874
>>1872In my opinion it's somewhat more important to understand dialectical materialism than the detailed economics expounded upon in Capital. Accordingly I'd reccomend checking out the literature thread and reading a bit of the shorter works listed there.
>>386