This is the reading list that I followed when studying capitalism. Apart from the books listed here I read countless articles online but didn't track them.
👌 Essential reads
Capitalism: A very short introduction – This is the perfect place to start an inquiry into capitalism. It gives you a solid grounding.
Labour and Monopoly Capital – This will give you a good understanding of the importance of labour in capitalism. It's important because it's central. This 500ish page book is a good shorthand for reading Carl Marx's Capital, which is much denser. To understand capitalism you have to understand Marx.
Postcapitalism – A brilliant book that builds on the theories from the previous two books and builds a theory for the future of capitalism.
Factfullness – By now you are totally pessimistic about the future, before you go ranting to you friends about the need to revolutionise capitalism, read this one book.
This Changes Everything – After getting an understanding of the bigger picture and interplaying parts, this book will rip our your soul and stomp on it. Hopefully that suffering will cause you to get off your ass and do something about it.
👎 Good but not
These ones are important for one reason or another but not necessarily worth reading.
Inventing the Future – Similar to Postcapitalism but focused a little more on the solution and not as thorough about the history.
Capital and Freedom – This will give you a good understanding of the neoliberal view of capitalism. I couldn't stand it.
Small is Beautiful – Another liberal view on economics and how keeping them small is inherently better. It's an interesting read, but not really founded in science, more opinion.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century – People will tell you that this is the most important book in economics right now. It's important but not readable. Read some essays online instead, this book was never intended to be read.
🤓 Synthesised into articles
Here are all the articles I wrote, capturing the essence of what I read:
- Capitalism is Beautiful
- In 40 Seconds: Capitalism
- A Brief History of Capitalism
- Effects of Capitalist Production
- In 40 Seconds: Debt
- In 40 Seconds: Money
- Why GDP Must Always Go Up
- Do Banks Create Money?
- In 40 Seconds: Neoliberalism
- The Emotions of Climate Change
- The Problems of Capitalism
- The Profit Motive
- Ideological Thinking
- Flipping the Employment Table
🤷♂️ Others
I didn't read these but they came up when I did my research on best books.
