IMRA NetworkInternational Marxist-Leninist Research & Action Network

Topic Map · 4 of 10

Class and Labor

Class formation, labor process, workers’ movements, and social relations.

阶级劳动工人classlaborworkers

Open Topic WorksBack to Map Overview
249Related works
5Study stages
8Related authors
Covered study stages

01 Class Intuition: Seeing Capitalism in Everyday Life; 02 Method: From Experience to Historical Materialism; 03 Political Economy: Understanding the Motion of Capital; 04 State, Class Rule, and the Question of Revolution; 08 Internationalist Collaboration and Contemporary Tasks

Related authors

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V. I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukács, IMRA Editorial Collective

Reading Path

From questions to texts, station by station

Start with the core questions, then follow the entry, core, and advanced readings into concrete book and article pages.

Core Questions

  1. Why is class not income stratification but position in production relations?

  2. How do wages, hours, housing, debt, and platform management shape everyday control of workers?

  3. How can workers’ experience become public documentation, theory study, and lawful mutual aid?

Entry Reading

4 texts
1845 · Karl MarxFull textTheses on FeuerbachA compact statement of the standpoint of practice and a gateway to Marxist philosophy.1845-1846 · Karl Marx, Friedrich EngelsFull textThe German IdeologyDevelops historical materialism, ideology critique, and analysis of social relations.1847 · Karl MarxFull textWage Labour and CapitalAccessible explanation of wages, capital, labor power, and wage labor.1848 · Karl Marx, Friedrich EngelsFull textManifesto of the Communist PartyProgrammatic communist text on class struggle and proletarian political tasks.

Core Reading

5 texts
1844 · Karl MarxFull textEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844Classic early text on alienated labor, private property, and human emancipation.1852 · Karl MarxFull textThe Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis BonaparteClassic political analysis of class, state, masses, and leadership.1859 · Karl MarxFull textA Contribution to the Critique of Political EconomyIts preface gives a classic formulation of social being, production, and historical change.1847 · Friedrich EngelsFull textPrinciples of CommunismDirect preparatory text for the Manifesto and a useful programmatic primer.1886 · Friedrich EngelsFull textLudwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German PhilosophyExplains Marxist philosophy's relation to classical German philosophy.

Advanced Reading

5 texts
1845 · Karl Marx, Friedrich EngelsFull textThe Holy FamilyCritique of the Young Hegelians, marking the approach to historical materialism.1847 · Karl MarxFull textThe Poverty of PhilosophyCritiques Proudhon and clarifies class struggle, value, and political economy method.1850 · Karl MarxFull textThe Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850Analyzes revolution, class alliances, state power, and political conjuncture.1864 · Karl MarxFull textInaugural Address of the International Working Men's AssociationProgrammatic First International text linking labor movements, internationalism, and politics.1867 · Karl MarxFull textCapital, Volume ICore work on capitalist production, commodity, value, surplus value, and accumulation.

Common Misreadings

  • Treating class analysis as identity labeling.
  • Reducing labor issues to individual effort or consumer choice.
  • Separating documentation from mass experience.