Understanding Marxism // Haymarket Books, December 2025 (Originally published with Democracy at Work, 2018)

“[T]o achieve liberty, equality, brotherhood, and democracy in any society, any exploitative productive relationship must be excluded” (pg. 22).

This book is part of Richard D. Wolff’s trilogy through Haymarket Books—Understanding Marxism, Understanding Socialism, and Understanding Capitalism. It is a fast, reader-friendly introduction to Marx’s critique of capitalism, providing the central tenets to Marxist thought in a series of short, accessible essays. It is a Marxism-is-for-everyone sort of book.

“Sooner or later, those serious about problems and finding solutions will, as they always have, find their way to Marx and the Marxist tradition a rich resource” (pg. 49).

In the Introduction, Wolff shares his own struggles as an undergraduate and graduate student in finding anyone who know something about Marxism—in twenty semesters of coursework (at Yale, Harvard, and Stanford), he found only one course which included Marxist thought and analysis. My own experience is similar—the only way I could study Marxism in undergrad was through an underground reading group led by a philosophy professor. In a free society, there would not only be Marxist courses available at many colleges and universities, there would be Marxist departments for coursework in philosophy, political theory, and economics. The absence of this says a great deal about our own society.

I have two trivial critiques of the book. First, anarchism is not mentioned anywhere. This is really a critique of the whole trilogy—while other forms of political theory are argued against, anarchism (as a possible alternative to Marxism) is left out. I would like to see an Understanding Anarchism (c.f. On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky, The New Press, 2013). The second critique is that the Introduction, lacking citations, reads more like an interview than a scholarly study. I don’t think either critique takes away from the book or it’s goal of being a wonderful introduction to Marxism.

Understanding Marxism—Read this book if you want a starting point to understand capitalism.