If you’ve been putting off reading Capital because it’s an intimidating read here are a few suggestions to make it less daunting:

—Read it book-club-style with a group of friends and discuss sections with each other before moving on
—Get an audiobook version if that’s easier for you to digest (it was for me!); there’s an excellent version of all three volumes narrated by Derek Le Page available on Audible

—Read/listen to secondary and companion literature, including David Harvey’s “Companion to Marx’s Capital” which is incidentally based on two series of lectures he did on Capital’s first two volumes (and some of volume 3) all of which are available for free! online! as podcasts!

—Read some of that secondary literature before diving right into Marx; it’ll familiarize you with the concepts/arguments you’ll find and prime your brain for the text. Take others’ interpretations of Marx with a grain of salt but they’re still super helpful to examine first.

—AND plenty of the best and most accessible secondary literature is also to be found in works that themselves are part of the Marxist theory canon (Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Luxemburg, Gramsci, Federici, Robinson, the Black Panthers, Davis, Parenti, etc.)

—Ask comrades for help! I don’t know any self-respecting Marxists who don’t feel an obligation to explain theory when people ask questions in good faith, myself included. I’ll be honest with you about my own limitations but I’m happy to share what I do know.

—Just start reading it. Most of the fear associated with the reading is from reputation alone; the actual text, while difficult in some areas, is pretty accessible in general, particularly with the help of secondary literature to refer to when you come across a difficult passage.

—Listen to any number of good podcasts with an emphasis on leftist theory. My main plug at the moment would be the @ploughandstars but there are plenty of others, too.

If you’ve managed to start and/or finish Capital please feel free to share additional things that helped you in the replies here. And if you’re still struggling to read it for reasons not addressed here, please feel free to ask about those in the replies as well.

Full disclosure: I’m still about halfway through Volume II and made several abortive attempts at Volume I over the years before finally finishing it last year with the help of the audiobook and companion literature mentioned above, as well as helpful conversations with comrades.

I’m so insistent on this because actually understanding Marxism is such a beautiful gift to yourself, I’m unable to articulate just how much I got out of reading him. Knowledge of power is power and I want everyone to be able to learn this no matter their particular barriers.

Oh and @RevLeftRadio and @Red_Menace_Pod are also good podcasts in this particular vain of theory-centric analysis and commentary. Proles of the Round Table was excellent too but apparently disbanded, if the episodes are still available somewhere I’d check them out though.

There has never been a better time to read Marx, Lenin and the rest of them. There is an urgency to increase class consciousness right now that our generation hasn’t seen before, and that class consciousness, while social in nature, depends first on our own personal education.

I can be very busy at the moment but I am committing myself to fielding questions about Marx to the best of my ability to anybody who cares to ask. DMs are best if I’m not following you because I have to mute notifications but I do check my DM requests.