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What's a better pamphlet to recommend to interested people? I agree that the Manifesto is very caught in the discourse of its time.
I like Why Socialism? by Einstein.
Engels' Principles of Communism is a better introductory summary of Marx and Engel's work, written when they were older and more experienced.
This is kind of a silly answer but I really like Lenin's A Liberal Professor on Equality, and I've used it to successfully explain a very American misunderstanding about the values of socialism.
Really, the best thing that you can do is just talk to people yourself, and the next best thing us to try to tailor your recommendations to their interests and level of enthusiasm. I don't hate the Manifesto or anything.
I personally also might try picking out parts of a text, like from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which is just my personal favorite of Marxist writing and a large reason that I'm a Marxist.
I apologize if this isn't helpful. I think some of the recommendations other people gave are also good, though personally I think Principles of Communism is iffy because catechisms are infamously prone to being a little tedious. Still, for some people it is a good recommendation.
Why Socialism is great, I think the answer is subjective to who and where though. Like if you're a teacher I would say Pedagogy of the Oppressed and not any pamphlet.
Do you think Pedagogy isn't too dense? I admire Freire but I think the book might be difficult to parse.
Like I said: "if you are a teacher".
Do you mean that you're teaching it to them? Sorry, I guess I misunderstood what you meant before.
Einstein was a broad progressive in today's terms.
To me, it's The Wretched of the Earth and Wage Labor and Capital.
People here could gang on me for that, but also Capital in the Twenty-First Century (it's a SocDem take but the analysis is good) and Cannibal Capitalism.
I'm not particularly sure "broad progressive" is accurate. The man defended Stalin's purges and trials so he would be called a hardcore tankie by any "broad progressive" today.
Capital in the 21st century radicalized me from progressive to socdem (later r/cth would radicalize me further). I wouldn't call it a good primer or pamphlet due to its length though
That's true. I wasn't really thinking about pamphlets.