Ask a communist economist

[The Barefoot Bum]

Do you think reading Das Kapital is too heavy for someone who had two classes of Introduction to economics (read - Introduction to capitalism) in uni?

Well, there's no doubt that Das Kapital  is heavy reading indeed. It took me the better part of a decade, several read throughs, a lot of secondary literature, and a college class to really begin to grasp it. A lot of it too is, understandably, a bit outdated: Marx is a good analyst of mid 19th century industrial proto-financial capitalism, but he is no seer, and capitalism has changed considerably (as Marx always notes) in the last fifteen decades.

I would start instead with the Communist Manifesto and Wage Labor and Capital, both available on the Marxists Internet Archive. David Harvey's book, A Companion to Marx's Capital, is also quite good. It is notable that modern liberal capitalist democratic republics have implemented about two thirds of the then radical proposals urged in the Manifesto.

Lenin is also good, and not too heavy. The State and Revolution and What Is to Be Done? are both good. If you like philosophy, Materialism and Emperio-Criticism is also worth reading.