My sibling likes to read fiction. They’re a comically basic-ass shit-lib. This person says that they don’t like to talk about politics. They always take the bosses side at work, basically a reincarnation of our Rachel Maddow-parroting boomer capitalist fucboi parent.
I know it’s a tall order but: What work of fiction can I gift them that will break them out of their capitalist complacency and remind them that they’re nothing more than a wage slave before they can even resist the indoctrination? I want to be subtle but effective; it has to fly to under their radar.
To give you an idea of how hopeless this little lemming is: this person has been reading Vonnegut lately and legitimately didn’t even know that Eugene Debs was a real person. This person figured it out when I informed them of Debs when they were telling me that no one has ever run for President from a jail cell. 🤦🏿♂️
Halp!
Unfortunately, I don’t think fiction is that great at this, but John Steinbeck has to be my pick. Grapes of Wrath is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read
I read Grapes of Wrath a few years ago after enjoying Of Mice and Men from school. I’m not bad with reading but I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with the thickness of it, then I finished it real quickly.
But it was a gripping book and is certainly upfront about the problems of capitalism. If your family is that politically illiterate then it may fly under the radar, as Steinbeck doesn’t use explicit capitalism/communism terminology, just more a factual description of what people/systems of people are doing.
Maybe The Dispossessed?
it is the best book I know of for showing what living in an alternative to capitalism could be like
A Bug’s Life
first of all be a lil nicer to them, they’re your family and you’re grown ups.
second of all philip k dick is the answer. no guarantees it will radicalize them, but it’ll limber up their gray matter.
What’s wrong with reading Vonnegut was is just normal. Most people can’t name an unsuccessful politician from 100 years ago.
I don’t think any text will do what you’re hoping, that kind of progress is usually made through conversation. But I’d recommend George Saunders’ In Persuasion Nation (2006), which is a short story collection about cranked up capitalist inconsistencies. He’s a lib but he’s got a good radar for the savage idiocy of a society under late stage capitalism.
Alternatively I might suggest The Fever (1991) by Wallace Shawn.
