Readings

LUMPENPROLETARIAT

Here are some notable readings worthy of our critical attention, time, and consideration, listed by title:

Mosler, Warren. The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy. 2010. Valance Co Inc 7 AUG 2013 ISBN-10: 0692009590 ISBN-13: 978-0692009598 [Key MMT text.]

Griffin, David Ray. 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed. [R0]

Giroux, Henry. America At War With Itself. 2016.
Henry, Neil. American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media. 29 MAY 2007. University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520931541, 0520931548 [R0] Publisher description from Google Books (accessed 8 MAY 2023): “In this vividly written, compelling narrative, award-winning journalist Neil Henry confronts the crisis facing professional journalism in this era of rapid technological transformation. American Carnival combines elements of memoir with extensive media research to explore critical contemporary issues ranging from reporting on the Iraq War, to American race relations, to the exploitation of the image of journalism by advertisers and politicians. Drawing on significant currents in U.S. media and social history, Henry argues that, given the amount of fraud in many institutions in American life today, the decline of journalistic professionalism sparked by the economic challenge of New Media poses especially serious implications for democracy. As increasingly alarming stories surface about unethical practices, American Carnival makes a stirring case for journalism as a calling that is vital to a free society, a profession that is more necessary than ever in a digital age marked by startling assaults on the cultural primacy of truth.”
Pepper, William. An Act of State. 2003. Attorney for the King Family…
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society. 1958. Mariner Books; 40 Anv Sub edition 15 OCT 1998 ISBN-10: 0395925002 ISBN-13: 978-0395925003 [R0]
Gregg, Melissa (editor) and Gregory J. Siegworth (editor). The Affect Theory Reader. Duke University Press Books (12 NOV 2010) [R0]
Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. [R0]
Prins, Nomi. All the President’s Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power. [R0]
Scott, Peter Dale. The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack On U.S. Democracy (War and Peace Library series). 2014. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 30 OCT 2014 ISBN-10: 1442214244 ISBN-13: 978-1442214248 [R0] [preview]
Ryan, Kevin Robert. Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 14 JUN 2013 ISBN-10: 1489507833 ISBN-13: 978-1489507839 [R0]
Mises, Ludwig von. The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. [NB: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Scahill, Jeremy, the staff of The Intercept, with Edward Snowden (foreword) and Glenn Greenwald (afterword). The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program. 2016. Simon & Schuster 3 MAY 2016 ISBN-10: 1501144138 ISBN-13: 978-1501144134
Haas, Jeffrey. The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. 2009. Chicago Review Press 1 APR 2011 ISBN: 1569763658, 9781569763650 ISBN-10: 1569767092 ISBN-13: 978-1569767092 [R0]
Dinges, John. Assassination on Embassy Row (Pantheon 1980). 1980. With Saul Landau, on Orlando Letelier’s murder; finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award 1981 for “Best Fact Crime”. [R0]
X, Malcolm & Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. 29 OCT 1965.

Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. 2008.
MacLeod, Alan. Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting. 2020. Routledge. [R0]
Whitehead. Battlefield America: The War On the American People. 2015. [R0; via Guns and Butter]
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, With a New Introduction by the Author. 1991. Harper Perennial. 2002; 1991. ISBN: 0-06-051218-0 (pbk) ISBN: 0-06-051218-7
Chomsky, Noam. Because We Say So.
Rall, Ted. Bernie. 2016. Seven Stories Press. 19 JAN 2016 ISBN-10: 1609806980 ISBN-13: 978-1609806989
Black, William K. The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is To Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. 2005. University of Texas Press, First Edition, 1 APR 2005. University of Texas Press, Updated Edition edition, 15 JAN 2014. ISBN-10: 0292754183 ISBN-13: 978-0292754188
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. 2015. [R0]
Ogbar, Jeffrey O.G.. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Reconfiguring American Political History). 2005. Johns Hopkins University Press; 50600th edition 5 MAY 2005. ISBN-10: 0801882753 ISBN-13: 978-0801882753 [R0] [This book seems to cite Bobby McCall, a former Black Panther and father of rapper Money-B.]
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks.
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
Talbot, David. Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. [R0]
Rodriguez, Richard. Brown: The Last Discovery of America. 25 MAR 2003
Hudson, Michael. The Bubble and Beyond.

Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation. [R0]
Piketty, Thomas (translated by Arthur Goldhammer). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. 2014. Belknap Press (15 APR 2014) ISBN-10: 067443000X ISBN-13: 978-0674430006 [R0]
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Political Economy, Vol. I, Unabridged. Frederick Engels, editor. Samuel Moore, Edward Aveling, trans. (1967; 2003) International Publishers, N.Y. New World Paperbacks. ISBN: 0-71780621-9 [This book deserves to be required reading in secondary schools. Volumes II and III deserve to be included as part of the teaching standards for higher education. The “New World” edition was recommended by my colleagues at UMKC, who are experts on Marx’s work.]
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. The Process of Capitalist Production. Frederick Engels, Ernest Untermann, eds. Samuel Moore, Edward Aveling, trans. 1906. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved March 4, 2016 from the World Wide Web: http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Marx/mrxCpA.html
Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. [NB: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Benson, P., & Kirsch, S.. (2010). Capitalism and the Politics of Resignation. Current Anthropology, 51(4), 459–486. http://doi.org/10.1086/653091 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/653091
Wolff, Richard D. Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What To Do About It.
Joseph, Schumpeter. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (Third Edition). [NB: This is a neoclassical/quasi-rightist perspective.]
Simon, George. Character Disturbance: The Phenomenon of Our Age. [interview]
Jones, Owen. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. 2016. Foyles. [Foyles clip] [Amazon]
Smart, Teresa and Joseph Hanlon. Chickens and Beer: A recipe for agricultural growth in Mozambique. 2014.
Royce, Edward. Classical Social Theory and Modern Society: Marx, Durkheim, Weber. [R0]
Bacon, David. The children of NAFTA: labor wars on the U.S./Mexico border. 2003
Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
McCartin, Joseph A. Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America. [R0]
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. (2 MAY 2017)
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. 1776.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto.
Harvey, David. A Companion to Marx’s Capital.
Brown, Elaine. The Condemnation of Little B.: New Age Racism. 2003. [Amazon] [related link]
Dinges, John. The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents. 2003. The New Press 2003. Regarding Operation Condor.
Horne, Gerald. Confronting Black Jacobins. [R0] [Against the Grain feature?]
Lumumba, Patrice. Congo, my country. (1 JAN 1962) ASIN : B0006AY1S6 [reading list]
Goldwater, Barry Morris. The Conscience of a Conservative. [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.] [R0]
Wolff, Richard D. and Stephen A. Resnick. Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. 2012. MIT Press (7 SEP 2012) ISBN-10: 0262517833 ISBN-13: 978-0262517836 [R0]
Blakeley, Grace. The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism. (October 2020) Verso.
Sennet, Richard. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (1st Edition). W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition 17 JAN 2000.
Horne, Gerald. The Counter-Revolution of 1776. [R0]
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism.

Rodriguez, Richard. Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography. (26 AUG 2014) [R0]
Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. 1998. [This book deserves to be part of the teaching standards in secondary schools and higher education, given its importance to civic engagement, participation in the democratic process, the preservation of the rule of law, and the preservation of an open society.]
Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. 2016. Doubleday (19 JAN 2016) ISBN-10: 0385535597 ISBN-13: 978-0385535595 [R0]
Mayer, Jane. The Dark Side: How the War on Terror Turned Into A War On American Ideals. [R0]
Rodriguez, Richard. Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father.
Hedges, Chris. The Death of the Liberal Class.
Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. 2011.
Keen, Steve. Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned? (Revised and Expanded Edition). 2001 (First Edition). 2011 (Second Edition). Zed Books (2nd Edition, 1 SEP 2011) ISBN-10: 1848139926 ISBN-13: 978-1848139923
Lofgren, Mike. The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government. 2016. Viking (5 JAN 2016) ISBN-10: 0525428348 ISBN-13: 978-0525428343 [R0]
Wolff, Richard D. Democracy At Work: A Cure for Capitalism.
Tocqueville, Alexis de (full name: Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville). Democracy in America.
Talbot, David. The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. 2015. Harper (13 OCT 2015) ISBN-10: 0062276166 ISBN-13: 978-0062276162 [This book deserves to be part of the teaching standards in secondary schools and higher education, given its importance to civic engagement, participation in the democratic process, the preservation of the rule of law, and the preservation of an open society.]
Wallerstein, Immanuel. Does Capitalism Have a Future? 2013. [R0] [excerpt]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Dred: A Tale of the Dismal Swamp. 1856.
Arena, John. Driven From New Orleans: How Non-Profits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization. 2012. [R0, via Against the Grain]

Wolff, Richard D. Economics: Marxian Versus Neoclassical. [R0]
Murray, Michael J. Employment Guarantee Schemes: Job Creation and Guarantee Policy in Developing Countries and Emerging Markets. 2013. 17 MAY 2013 [Key MMT text.]
Wolf, Naomi. The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. 2007. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN: 978-1-933392-79-0
Minsky, Hyman. Ending Poverty: Jobs, Not Welfare. 2013. [Key MMT text.]
Wright, Erik Olin. Envisioning Real Utopias. [R0]
Ali, Tariq. The Extreme Centre: A Warning. [R0]

Hayek, Friedrich August von. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. [NB: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Featherstone, Liza. False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton. [R0]
Hamilton, Alexander. The Federalist Papers. [R0]
Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City. [reading list; see Letters and Politics interview]
Lacan, Jaques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1978). 1978 English language translation of the 1973 French language original text. [Wikipedia] [R0]
Meaney, Thomas (2019), “Frantz Fanon and the CIA Man”, The American Historical Review 124(3): 983–995. [R0]
Davis, Angela Y. Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of A Movement.
Williams, Jakobi. From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago. UNC Press Books. (28 FEB 2013) ISBN: 9781469608167. [R0]

Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
Engels, Friedrich. The German revolutions: The Peasant War in Germany, and Germany: revolution and counter-revolution (Classic European historians). 1967 (textbook binding). [R0]
Whitehead. A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. 2013. [R0; via Guns and Butter]
Lazzarato, Maurizio. Governing by Debt (Semiotext(e) / Intervention series). Semiotext(e) (23 JAN 2015) [reading list]
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard. 1997. [R0]
Polanyi, Karl Paul. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. 1944. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
Pollin, Robert. Greening the Global Economy. [R0]
Taibbi, Matt. Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History. 2011. Spiegel & Grau; 8.7.2011 edition edition 6 SEP 2011 ISBN-10: 0385529961 ISBN-13: 978-0385529969 [R0]
Bridges, G. (2002). Paper: “Grounding Globalization: The Prospects and Perils of Linking Economic Processes of Globalization to Environmental Outcomes“. Economic Geography. 78 (3): 361–86. doi:10.2307/4140814. JSTOR 4140814 [R0]
Marx, Karl. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy.

Camus, Albert. A Happy Death. 1971. Alfred A. Knopf. (1971, 1971) Vintage International. ISBN: 0-679-76400-3 [fiction]
Best, Gary. Harold Laski and American Liberalism. 2017.
Hunt, E.K. and Lautzenheiser, Mark. History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective, Third Edition. (2011) M.E. Sharpe [Taught at UMKC Economics Department circa 2013-2015 by Dr. John Henry.]
Rodney, Walter with Foreword by Angela Davis. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. 2018. Verso.
Kendi, Ibram X. How to be an Anti-Racist. 13 AUG 2019
Greenwald, Glenn. How Would a Patriot Act.
Mises, Ludwig Heinrich Edler von. Human Action. [NB: This is a neoclassical/right-wing perspective.]
Rosenberg, Ross. The Human Magnet Trap: The Codependent Narcissist Trap. 2019. Morgan James Publishing N.Y. ISBN: 978-16835-0867-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-06835-0868-7
Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez.

Bacon, David. Illegal people: how globalization creates migration and criminalizes immigrants. 2008
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. 1996.
Tubergen, Frank Van. Introduction to Sociology, 1st Edition. 2020. Routledge. [R0]
Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media. 1986. GoodReads review by Jana (accessed 8 MAY 2023): “If you‘re thinking about reading Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, read this instead – it’s written on the same subject, 2 years earlier, and by someone far more knowledgeable. Honestly, Parenti’s writing style is phenomenal. He argues really concisely, anticipating every counterargument, and exposing the reader to a radical new world view, but he never loses himself in technical jargon. He engages the reader with his wit and humour and I‘ve honestly never read a non-fiction book as quickly as I do Parenti’s.”
Srnicek, Nick. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. [R0]

Murray, Michael J. and Mathew Forstater. The Job Guarantee: Toward True Full Employment. 2013. Palgrave Macmillan (7 JAN 2013) ISBN-10: 1137286105 ISBN-13: 978-1137286109 [Key MMT text.]

Wapshott, Nicholas. Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics. [reading list; see Letters and Politics interview]
Skidelsky, Robert. Keynes: The Return of the Master. [Key Post-Keynesian text.]
Hudson, Michael. Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy. 2015. ISLET (20 AUG 2015) ISBN-10: 3981484282 ISBN-13: 978-3981484281

Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century; Foreword by Paul M. Sweezy, New Introduction by John Bellamy Foster, 25th Anniversary Edition. (1974; 1998) ISBN: 0-85345-940-1 [Taught in Judy Ancel’s UMKC Labor course series, circa 2013.]
McCartin, Joseph A. Labor’s Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-21. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8078-4679-1 [R0]
Bastiat, Frédéric. The Law. [NB: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Kennedy, Jr. Robert F. A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals (Children’s Health Defense). 2 AUG 2022. Skyhorse. [R0]
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (full title: Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil). [NB: This is a neoclassical/quasi-right-wing perspective.]
Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. 1995 (First Edition). 2007 (Revised Edition). Touchstone; Revised edition 16 OCT 2007. ISBN-10: 0743296281 ISBN-13: 978-0743296281 [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
Frank, Thomas. Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? 2016. Metropolitan Books (15 MAR 2016) ISBN-10: 1627795391 ISBN-13: 978-1627795395 [R0]
Leopold, Les. The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do about It. 2009. Chelsea Green Publishing (2 JUN 2009) ISBN-10: 1603582053 ISBN-13: 978-1603582056 [R0]

Blumenthal, Max. The Management of Savagery. 2020. Verso. (20 JUL 2020) 9781788732307 [R0]
Chomsky, Noam and Edward S. Herman. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. 1988. [This book deserves to be required reading in all schools.]
Lee, Frederic; edited with Tae-Hee Jo. Marx, Veblen, and the Foundations of Heterodox Economics: Essays in Honor of John F. Henry (2015). 2015. London: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138797796. Routledge Series in Advances in Heterodox Economics. [R0]
Hudis, Peter. Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Historical Materialism Book series). [R0]
Lee, Frederic S., edited by Tae-Hee Jo. Microeconomic Theory: A Heterodox Approach (2018). 2018. Routledge. ISBN: 9780415247313 (Hardback in 2018) 9781351265270 | ISBN:9780367356842 (Paperback in 2019). [eBook] [publisher website][flyer-with 20% discount code] [Request a review copy]
Bagdikian, Ben. The Media Monopoly. 1983, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2000. Beacon Press. [This book deserves to be required reading in all schools.] NB (8 MAY 2023): Your scribe first heard about Ben Bagdikian, along with Dr. Michael Parenti, Dr. Noam Chomsky and other important figures associated with First Amendment issues, on free speech radio KPFA (Berkeley, CA; Pacifica Radio Network) back in the 1990s, when it was still a predominantly free speech radio station. Without the First Amendment, we risk losing all human rights. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and others have emphasized, since the COVID-19 bioweapons attack and psyop (psychological operation), we have lost almost our entire Bill of Rights, even the freedom of religion, as churches were forced to close during the nonsensical COVID-19 lockdowns. Post-9/11, we lost the writ of habeas corpus, the right to a speedy trial; the state set a precedent for extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention without due process, extrajudicial executions and/or assassinations, and embedded journalism (as opposed to independent journalism in war-torn regions). All of these dystopian developments have been, and continue to be, facilitated, aided and abetted, by media/press monopolization, manufacturing consent, censorship, and censorship by proxy. It’s probable that today’s Pacifica Radio listeners are unaware of the important work by Ben Bagdikian or Michael Parenti. And they probably only have a shallow awareness of Dr. Noam Chomsky’s most important work. Of course, Dr. Chomsky has become much less critical of the power elite establishment in his older years and has completely betrayed his audience on certain issues, as independent journalist Whitney Webb has remarked (“Whitney Webb | The Scramble To Push A CBDC Future” by TFTC [via YouTube], 5 MAY 2023, c. 1hr 26min 30sec): “[Dr. Chomsky’s] definitely very different now in his later years than he was in his younger years. ‘Send the unvaccinated to camps.’ Right? I mean, okay, so, if you’re an anti-imperialist and an anarchist, and you’re going to advocate sending one side of a polarized debate, the side you don’t agree with, to camps, you’re not an anarchist anymore. And [Dr. Chomsky’s position on the COVID-19 issue] doesn’t sound like the stuff, that people think he stands for.” No, it doesn’t, Whitney. The same can be said about free speech radio KPFA’s news bosses and overall editorial direction, with a few exceptions, such as Project Censored with Mickey Huff. Your scribe first became immensely disappointed with Dr. Chomsky after the 9/11 false flag attacks and, over time, also became disappointed with Dr. Chomsky’s Democrat Party apologism. As opposition candidates, such as Ralph Nader, were prevented from debating in the presidential elections and as the two-party dictatorship (as Ralph Nader once described the ‘completely rigged’ US two-party system), Dr. Chomsky refused to acknowledge this honestly. In the same interview, Whitney Webb also noted other retrograde positions taken by Dr. Chomsky in his golden years, such as “his gatekeeping on the role of the [Federal Reserve] creating financial crises, for example, on [the assassination of] JFK, on 9/11, and also on [Jeffrey] Epstein’s ties to intelligence, which he said were a conspiracy theory before these recent revelations [of Dr. Chomsky’s meetings with Jeffrey Epstein].” So, it’s important to avoid viewing anyone as some sort of demigod beyond reproach. Character matters. But we must focus on whether or not someone’s ideas or analyses make sense to us, as individuals, according to lived experience and background knowledge. So, let’s return to Ben Bagdikian. The point is your scribe seeks to help others, especially younger generations, who no longer have the more honest version of Pacifica Radio available to them (and who must deal with a much more corrupt establishment media than ever before bombarding them with propaganda, and an atomized internet media/press), become aware of a body of knowledge and wisdom-cultivation, which once was only housed in a few places, like the temple of free speech KPFA radio and the Pacifica Radio Network. But, after the 1999 KPFA Lockouts and attempts to sell off and destroy free speech radio, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club partisans and other Democrat partisans have been corrupting the editorial direction of KPFA and Pacifica Radio. So, much of this knowledge, like the work of Michael Parenti, Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, et al., is being forgotten, such that younger generations may not even be aware anymore of just how serious an issue corporate consolidation of media/press actually is. This problem must be reversed. The airwaves and the internet belong to the people. We must never forget those facts. Yet, that’s rarely even discussed anymore. Okay, back to Ben Bagdikian. Here’s a quotation, which is helpful, but notably leaves out Michael Parenti’s important work, probably because Parenti is more radical, an omission which reminds us we must always read between the lines, read critically, and always look for alternative perspectives. Wikipedia quotation accessed 8 MAY 2023:”In 1983, Bagdikian authored a widely cited and acclaimed work,[52] The Media Monopoly, which was published by Beacon Press after it was rejected by Simon & Schuster.[53][54] Richard E. Snyder, Simon & Schuster’s president, was, according to Bagdikian, “vehemently opposed to the manuscript, because, among other reasons, [Snyder] felt it made all corporations look bad.”[55] The book examines the increasing concentration of the media in the US in the hands of corporate owners, which, he argued, threatened freedom of expression and independent journalism. He wrote that some 50 corporations controlled what most people in the United States read and watched.[8] Bagdikian argued that “media power is political power.”[56] The book went into 5 more editions—in 1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2000. In 2004, The New Media Monopoly was published, essentially the 7th edition of the original.[14] In 2000 Bagdikian stated, “Every edition has been considered by some to be alarmist and every edition ends up being too conservative.”[57] In this latest version, Bagdikian wrote that the number of corporations controlling most of the media decreased to five: Disney, News Corporation, Time Warner, Viacom, and Bertelsmann.[58] He argued, “This gives each of the five corporations and their leaders more communications power than was exercised by any despot or dictatorship in history.”[8]
“The book became a “standard text for many college classes”[59] and, along with Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in the opinion of Neil Henry, is a work that is the “most widely cited scholarly work about the effects of economics on modern news media practices, including market and political pressures that determine news content.”[60] The book was criticized by Jack Shafer for alleged bias.[61] The Christian Science Monitor, though accepting such problems, declared that it is a “groundbreaking work that charts a historic shift in the orientation of the majority of America’s communications media—further away from the needs of the individual and closer to those of big business.”[62]
Wilford, Hugh. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. [R0]
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. [R0]
Mitchell, W.F., L. Randall Wray, Martin J. Watts. Modern Monetary Theory and Practice: An Introductory Text. 2016. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform (10 MAR 2016) ISBN-10: 1530338794 ISBN-13: 978-1530338795 [Key MMT text.]
Wray, L. Randall. Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems. 2012. Palgrave Macmillan (7 AUG 2012) ISBN-10: 0230368891 ISBN-13: 978-0230368897 [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.] [Key MMT text.]
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System. 1974.
Godley, Wynne and Marc Lavoie. Monetary Economics: An Integrated Approach to Credit, Money, Income, Production and Wealth (Second Edition). [Key MMT text.]
Friedman, Milton. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Lehmann, Chris. The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream. 2016. [reading list]

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow.
Pilger, John. The New Rulers theWorld.the
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America. 2001.
Greenwald, Glenn. No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. 2014. [reading list]
McAlevey, Jane. No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. 2016.

Wolff, Richard D. Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism.
Sinclair, Upton. Oil! [reading list]
Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. [reading list]
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/quasi-rightist perspective.]
Ricardo, David. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 1817.
Montesquieu, Charles Baron de. On the Spirit of Laws. 1748.
Galeano, Eduardo. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of A Continent, Foreword by Isabel Allende. 1973. Monthly Review Press. (1973, 1997) ISBN: 978-0-853-45991-0 (pbk ; alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-85345-990-3 (cloth)
Pepper, William. Orders to Kill.
Stewart, Kathleen. Ordinary Affects. 2007. Duke University Press Books (20 SEP 2007) [reading list]
Said, Edward. Orientalism. 1979. Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (12 OCT 1979)
Reséndez, Andrés. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. 2016.
Dinges, John. Our Man in Panama (Random House 1990). 1990. Regarding Manuel Noriega.

McChesney, Robert and John Nichols. People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and A Citizenless Democracy. [R0]
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. 1980. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
Hegel. Phenomenology of Spirit. [R0]
Camus, Albert. The Plague. 1948. Stuart Gilbert. (1948, 1975, 1991) Alfred A. Knopf; Vintage International ISBN: 0-679-72021-6 (pbk) [fiction]
Mikovits, Dr. Judy and Kent Heckenlively, JD. Plague of Corruption: Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science. Foreword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Publisher: Skyhorse (April 14, 2020) Length: 272 pages Hardcover
Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media. 1992. Wadsworth Publishing; 2nd Edition. (Goodreads link) [This book is probably more important than Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky and Herman]
Pepper. The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 2016.
Roy, Arundati. Public Power in the Age of Empire.
Morris, Monique W. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. 2016. [R0]
Standng, Guy. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. [R0]
McSherry, J. Patrice. Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America. 2005. [R0]
Stiglitz. Joseph. The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future. 2012. [R0]
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. 1532.
Weeks, Kathi. The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. 2011. Duke University Press Books (9 SEP 2011) [R0]
Chomsky, Noam. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and the Global Order.
Huff, Mickey and Andy Lee Roth. Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2023. 2022. Seven Stories Press.
Desmet, Mattias. The Psychology of Totalitarianism. 23 JUN 2022. [hardcover] [audiobook]
Franko, Patrice. The Puzzle of Latin American Development, Third Edition. 2007. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-5353-1 ISBN-10: 0-7425-5353-1 [Taught at UMKC’s heterodox Economics Department circa 2013-2015]

Johnstone, Diana. The Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. 2015. [R0]
Said, Edward. The Question of Palestine. [R0]

Shilliam, Robbie. Race and the Undeserving Poor: From Abolition to Brexit. 6 JUL 2018
Fox Gotham, Kevin. Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development: The Kansas City Experience, 1900-2000. 2002. State University of New York Press.
Brick, Howard. Radicals In America: The U.S. Left Since the Second World War (Cambridge Essential Histories series). [R0]
Perelman, Michael. Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology. 2006. [R0]
McAlevey, Jane F. Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement. 2012.
Kennedy, Jr., Robert F. The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense). 16 NOV 2021. Skyhorse.
Gordon, Liahna E. Real Research: Research Methods Sociology Students Can Use. [R0]
Plato. The Republic.
Boyle, Francis A. Resisting Medical Tyranny: Why the COVID-19 Mandates Are Criminal. 17 APR 2022. Waterside. [R0]
Chomsky, Noam. Essay: The Responsibility of Intellectuals.
Paul, Ronald Ernest “Ron”. The Revolution: A Manifesto. [NB: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Engels, Friedrich. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany. 1896 (1st book form edition).
Federici, Silvia. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. [R0]
INCITE! Women of Color Against Racism (editor). The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. 2009. South End Press (1 MAR 2009, unknown edition). ISBN-10: 0896087662 ISBN-13: 978-0896087668 [R0]
Bacon, David. The right to stay home: how US policy drives Mexican migration. 2013
Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man.
Gordon, Robert J. The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World series). [R0]
Dale Scott, Peter. The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future ofAmerica. [audiobook]
Hayek, Friedrich August von. The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents (The Definitive Edition). [NB: This is a neoclassical/right-wing perspective.]
Alinsky, Saul David. Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. 1971. [R0]
Leopold, Les. Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice. The Labor Institute Press 28 OCT 2015 ISBN-10: 0692436308 ISBN-13: 978-0692436301 [R0]

Bills, E.R.. The San Marcos 10: An AntiWar Protest In Texas.
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. 1991. [required reading, i.e., you must read this]
Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration.
Talbot, David. The Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love. 2012. The Free Press; reprint edition 8 MAY 2012
Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. 2007.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. 2014. [R0]
Edited by Frederic S. Lee, Wiley-Blackwell. Social Costs of Markets and Economic Theory. Social Costs of Markets and Economic Theory. January 2014. ISBN: 978-1-118-86940-6 (hardcover), 978-1-118-86938-3 (paperback). | [website] [R0]
Mosler, Warren. Soft Currency Economics II. [MMT text.]
Lebowitz, Michael. The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now. [R0]
Hancock, Ange-Marie. Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics. [R0]
Johnson, Chalmers. The Sorrows of Empire [reading list; cited by Peter Dale Scott in The Road to 9/11]
Ness, Immanuel. Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class. 15 NOV 2015 [R0]
Pickett, Kate. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. 2009. [R0; see Against the Grain interview]
Ellman, Michael. Discussion Article: Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932 – 33 Revisited. 2007. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 59, No. 4, June 2007, 663-693. Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). [R0]
Edele, Mark. Stalinist Society 1928-1953. 2011. Oxford Histories. Oxford University Press.
Minsky, Hyman Philip. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy. [Key MMT text.]
Bookchin, Murray. State Capitalism in Russia. 1950. Contemporary Issues 7, Autumn 1950 (under pseudonym M. S. Shiloh). [R0]
Howard, M.C. & J.F. King. ‘State Capitalism’ in the Soviet Union. History of Economics Review, 110-126. [R0]
Rothkopf, David. The Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. 2008. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. (MAR 2008) [R0]
Hudson, Michael. Super Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance.

Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. 1993. Anchor Books 1 DEC 1993. ISBN-10: 0385471076 ISBN-13: 978-0385471077 [R0]
Wray, L. Randall. Theories of Money and Banking (International Library of Critical Writings in Economics series). . [Key MMT text.]
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class, Introduction by C. Wright Mills. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools. Taught at UMKC Economics Department, course on Institutional economics, circa 2013-2015, by Prof. Jim Sturgeon.]
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.] [Key history of economic theory text.]
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. 2011. [R0]
Twiss, Thomas M. Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy. [R0] Worldcat: “In Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy, Thomas M. Twiss traces the development of Trotsky’s thinking on the issue of post-revolutionary bureaucracy from the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution through the Moscow Trials of the 1930s.”
Friedman, Milton and Rose Friedman. The Tyranny of the Status Quo. [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Scheer, Robert. They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy. 2015. Nation Books (2015). [R0]

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 1852.
Foley, Duncan K. Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory. [R0]
Bennis, Phyllis. Understanding ISIS and the New Global War On Terror: A Primer. [R0]
Wray, L. Randall. Understanding Modern Money: The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.] [Key MMT text.]
Newton, Michael. Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 1934-1970. 14 JAN 2016 ASIN : B01B6KV0ME. ISBN: 9780786498956, 0786498951 [R0]

Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. 1964 [NB: This is, obviously, a neoclassical/rightist perspective with surprisingly flimsy philosophical arguments given its hyperbolic influence on the Right.]

Hedges, Chris. Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt. [R0]
Schoup, Laurence H. Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council On Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014. 2015. Monthly Review Press 22 AUG 2015 ISBN-10: 1583675515 ISBN-13: 978-1583675519 [R0]
Halper, Jeff. War Against the People: Israel, Palestinians and Global Pacification. [R0]
Scott, Peter Dale. The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. 2013. Skyhorse Publishing; 1 edition 3 SEP 2013 ISBN-10: 1626360952 ISBN-13: 978-1626360952 [R0]
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations (full title: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations). 1776. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.]
[Key history of economic theory text.]
Kennedy, Jr. Robert F. The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense). 14 FEB 2023. [R0]
Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth About Our Racial Divide. 31 MAY 2016 [R0]
Eddo-Lodge, Reni. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. 1 JUN 2017 [R0]
Wray, L. Randall. Why Minsky Matters. [Key MMT text.]
Friedman, Milton. Why the Government is the Problem (Essays in Public Policy series). 1993. Hoover Institution Press (1 FEB 1993) ISBN-10: 0817954422 ISBN-13: 978-0817954420 [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.]
Robinson J., Nathan. Why You Should Be a Socialist. (10 DEC 2019) [preview]
Lordon, Frederic. Willing Slaves to Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire. [R0]
Grauerholz, James and Silverberg, Ira. The William S. Burroughs Reader, Introduction by Ann Douglas. Grove Press N.Y. (1998) ISBN: 0-8021-3694-X
Greenwald, Glenn. With Liberty and Justice for Some. [R0]
Morris, Richard B. Witnesses at the Creation: Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and the Constitution. Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (1 SEP 1985) [R0]
Kissinger, Henry. World Order. [N.B.: This is a neoclassical/rightist perspective.] [Kissinger, a mentor of Klaus Schwab, is, perhaps, one of the most important war criminals, economic criminals, deep state criminals, U.S. power elite criminals, and global power elite criminals, whom the working class must investigate and bring to justice for engaging in covert and overt class warfare from above against the working class, specifically, and humanity, generally. Members of the power elite and others, who identify with capitalist class interests, will only cover for Kissinger and shield him from scrutiny; so, it must be working-class people or defectors from the capitalist class or the power elite class, who must bring Kissinger to justice for his many crimes.]
Heilbroner, Robert L. The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers. [This book deserves to be required reading in schools.] [Key history of economic theory text.]
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth.

[3 MAR 2016]

[NB: It is important to keep in mind that Wikipedia links are only as good as the sources they cite. Some Wikipedia articles provide useful summaries of common knowledge, which doesn’t need much source citation. On the other hand, Wikipedia has become notoriously heinous when it comes to controversial topics and public figures, especially regarding dissenting ideas, perspectives, and persons. With that in mind, your scribe uses Wikipedia links cautiously, reminding readers to read critically and to participate frequently, including pushing back against bad faith Wikipedia editors. Your scribe made it a habit, at one point, to edit as many Wikipedia articles as possible, as time constraints allowed.]

[Last modified/edited/updated on 8 MAY 2023 at 10:46 PDT]

Lumpenproletariat

~ free speech

Readings

Share this: