books to inspire your anti-capitalism; a mix of short introductory economics nonfiction and books that bridge anti-capitalism with your other interests
created by BooksErgoSum
last updated October, 2025




As the target audience (the baby) I appreciate the list đâĽď¸
i had to pause reading it, but i would also recommend Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back for this list. it's ~300 pages, but feels like a good intro to a subject i had very little familiarity on beyond news headlines.
That is a great suggestion! Adding it
A People's Guide to Capitalism might be a good fit for this list.
Thatâs a great one to add! Adding it rn đ
Not sure if this fits, but Iâd also recommend, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.
I havenât read this one! Iâll put it on my TBR. I tried to avoid long books for this list and this book looks like a long one (~690 pages).
What was your favourite part about reading it?
I should make an âintermediate anti-capitalismâ book list and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism might be a good fit for that list đ¤
I like the idea of an intermediate list. I found the book eye opening. It is dystopia in the making. We all think about data scraping of our use patterns for what we search up on the web, and the data scraping, so that companies can make and market products we want but we donât realize the degree to which it is happening (wearables, robotic vacuums that feed maps of homes to the cloud, products that canât be used unless you agree to using the app), that the selling of this data happens even if promise not to sell it, and that they are now using it to exploit extreme vulnerabilities to create needs and change thinking. She provides lots of research, data and examples of what has happened, and what is about to happen and beyond. Considering that ChatGPT wasnât introduced until 2022 and the book was written in 2019, itâs pretty remarkable how relevant the book still is. While she doesnât focus on AI, which is more of a means not an end, the outcomes sheâs predicted are coming true.
That sounds really good! It sounds like a good ânext stepâ book for someone dips their toe into this topic with a book like Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis. He introduces this idea but he doesnât do into the details of data and things like roombras so The Age of Surveillance Capitalism sounds perfect!