• Juice@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    Hey so the barter system never really existed, not in any real way. There were absolutely communal living pockets, like peasant villages in Russia, but barter would not work as a basis for a socialist society. You seem to have some interest in this stuff, so I think you should read Marx and Engels, and work your way through some of their economic stuff till you can work through Capital. Its a fucking fantastic book, but its pretty difficult, especially solo. Lots of great resources out there though, like David Harvey’s lectures and the Reading Capital With Comrades podcast. But start with Socialism: Utopian and Scientific which will prepare you for their analytical style, then read Wage Labor and Capital, or Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Sorry if you’re already familiar with some of this work but I figured from reading your comment that this stuff might still be new to you.

    It sucks we were taught about the barter system in school, but that’s just some shit Adam Smith made up, he didn’t have any historical or material basis for it. Yet they still teach it as part of the liberal illusions about capital and private property.