• da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    I gonna add one that I actually read in school and actually Am very grateful I read it.

    Its “Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” (The good human from Sezuan) by Berthold Brecht.

    The story is, that the gods try to fund a good human in the town Sezuan and disguise themselves as humans seeking shelter. No one wants to give them shelter except a prostitute name Shen-Te. As a reward for being a good person they give her gold in return, which she uses to open her own shop. However, her buisness is not very succesfull, since she wants to help as many people as possible which means a big financial burden. To help her out of this she invents her cousin (?) Shui-Ta who is cold and regularly saves the buisness by not helping people and demanding things. This way the buisness stays open and Shen-Te can continue to help her community.

    Basically the book is an analogism for why capitalism can not work, since the force to make a profit forces you to fuck over other people and it is not possible to not take part in this system on an individual level. I hated all other books we had to read in school, but I Am quite great I read that one. It also definitely played a role in my path towards becoming a communist.

    Another upside of it is, that its rather short and can be easily read in about 2-3h.