this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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For discussing books by socialists or about socialism.

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Pro-socialist/Anti-Capitalist fiction books (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I am looking for fiction books where the message is explicitly socialist or anti capitalist, sorta like Animal Farm, but against Capitalism.

Not really required, but it would be helpful if those books have easily accessible PDF copies of it.

Thanks in advance.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Some of these have already been mentioned but I would suggest the following:

  • What Is To Be Done by Chernyshevsky. Lenin read it five times in a summer and named his pamphlet after that. Xi Jinping lists it as a fave too. It was huge in the years leading up to the October Revolution. It has better credentials as revolutionary socialist literature than probably anything else. It is a cozy read, and i think the narrator is funny.
  • The Dispossessed by Le Guin. Yeah it is anarchist, but i think it's interesting how she explores both liberalism and anarchism, and imagines how things like language change when your mode of production do. I have a twitter thread on some highlights/questions it explores (spoilers though).
  • Babel by RF Kuang. This is not socialist, IMO, and its anti-capitalism is more anti-imperialism rather than taking the form of moving past capitalism. Still it's a fun read; the world building replaces mechanization with magic, and explores how industrialization/capitalism leads to imperialism (eg Opium Wars). I have a thread on some of the world-building in it and why it's neat from a socialist angle here (again, some spoilers).

I did read The Jungle too, but i thought it was kinda dated, miserable and uninspiring. Maybe you like it better than I did.