First Principles

A cited, systematic introduction built from the primary texts and the standard scholarship — not a summary of opinions. Every entry states what serious scholars actually disagree about, and the strongest argument against its own thesis.

Phase 1: 12 entries across 5 units. Read straight through in order, or jump to any topic from the contents. Sources are linked, never reproduced; public-domain primary texts are quoted directly.

1. Foundations: the idea

What the words mean, what Marx actually claimed, and the strongest case for it.

1.Definitions & taxonomy“Communism,” “socialism,” and “social democracy” name different things. Conflating them makes most public argument incoherent — and precision here is the precondition for every other question in this library.7 sources 2.Historical materialismMarx's claim that the mode of production shapes a society's law, politics and ideas, and that history moves through stages toward communism. This is the engine underneath every communist political program.7 sources 3.The strongest case for socialismThe socialist argument stated at full strength. An argument that only defeats a caricature persuades nobody who has actually read the other side — so this entry makes the case as its best defenders make it.6 sources

2. Economics: can it work?

The calculation and knowledge problems, the great debate, and what planned economies actually did.

4.The economic calculation problemMises's 1920 argument that a society without private ownership of the means of production cannot allocate capital rationally, because it has no prices for capital goods — and without prices, no way to compare alternative uses.7 sources 5.The knowledge problemHayek's 1945 refinement: even with perfect intentions and unlimited computing power, planners cannot obtain the knowledge they would need, because it is dispersed, local, tacit and constantly changing.6 sources 6.The socialist calculation debateThe twentieth century's central economic argument about socialism — and, for several decades, one the economics profession believed the socialists had won.8 sources 7.Shortage economics & the soft budget constraintKornai's account of how planned economies actually behaved. Chronic shortage was not bad management or sabotage — it was a systemic property produced by soft budget constraints and the drive for quantity.5 sources

3. Politics & power

How control of the economy becomes a monopoly on politics.

8.The vanguard party & the party-stateLenin's organisational innovation — a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries acting on behalf of the proletariat — is the hinge that converts Marxist theory into one-party rule.7 sources 9.Totalitarianism & its criticsThe theory that Nazi and Soviet regimes represented a genuinely new political form — not merely harsh autocracy but a total claim on society — and the long scholarly fight over whether the concept illuminates or obscures.7 sources

4. History & cases

What happened, where, and what the evidence shows.

10.Divided nations as natural experimentsGermany and Korea split populations sharing language, culture and history, then ran opposite systems on each half. This is the closest thing social science has to a controlled experiment on economic systems.5 sources

5. Debates & historiography

Where serious scholars disagree — and how they argue it out.

11.Counting the dead: methodologyHow historians actually count the human cost of communist regimes: where the widely-quoted ~100 million figure comes from, what it includes, and why serious scholars dispute both the total and the method.Contested7 sources 12.“Real communism has never been tried”The most common defence of communism, taken seriously: its weak form is unfalsifiable, but its strong form has real content and deserves a real answer.6 sources