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Thoughts on reading Non-Marxist political works alongside Marxist theory? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 hours ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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So obviously it's good to read Communist works. Lenin, Engels, Marx, Stalin, Mao, etc. But I'm curious how many people have ventured out into other things? I think personally that it can be useful when you are doing a materialist analysis of the real world to have different frameworks to pull from as well. Even if they aren't communist, and at times the methods within are used as tools of oppression by the capitalist class. Some still have useful knowledge and insights, or at the very least aid you in analyzing the way an enemy might think.

Have you/would you see value in reading these sorts of texts?

Some examples: The Art of War, The Arthashastra, The Analects, Meditations, The Prince, Discourses on Livy, The Book of the Five Rings, Common Sense, Candide, etc

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[โ€“] [S] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

I wanted to gauge like how much people read outside the main ML theory. I have dozens of books like this physically on my bookshelf myself. But I've never heard like an ML mention the Art of War when recomending things to read. So was curious what people thought about it. One reason I find it interesting is modern China actually does incorporate a lot of Sun Tzu and Confucian style thinking into how they do things and it works quite well for them, but it's not something I see highlighted often.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 17 minutes ago*

    Lenin and Stalin both read Clausewitz and Jomini, it's important to extract the useful information from others and adapt it for the struggle.

    I would say that the majority of mirror of princes books are not really that useful, it's better to read modern critical management studies and cooperative management from my experience

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