Books to be more free

Capital in the 21st Century, by French economist Thomas Piketty, was a sensation when it was published in 2014. Piketty speaks of the dramatic rise in inequality and the contrast between the slow growth in income of the majority of the population and the exorbitant increase in income of the richest. But what most shocked conservatives was that it debunked a conservative myth, especially in the US: meritocracy, that is, that great fortunes are earned and deserved. Western societies before the First World War were dominated by an oligarchy that had inherited their wealth, and in his book, Piketty presents solid arguments indicating that we are heading back towards this situation.

Zuboff warns of the new era of capitalism. If first there was industrial capitalism, then corporate and financial capitalism, now we find ourselves immersed in surveillance capitalism, in which various means are used to modify our behavior. Surveillance capitalism, according to the author, dismantles the original digital dream that imagined the internet as a liberating and democratizing force. On the contrary: digital connection is a means to someone else's commercial goals. The new capitalists enrich themselves by betting on our future behavior. Thus, for example, the rewards and punishments of Pokémon Go were used to draw people into restaurants, bars, fast food outlets, and shops.

French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz is a leading figure when it comes to dissecting love and sex in the capitalist world. She has tackled major issues that have made her uncomfortable in her country: fear, the dehumanization of the enemy, antisemitism, employment... jealousy, pride, rage, shame, and love, and how they are used by economics, politics, and culture. She has also explored the transformation of these issues.

Judith Butler revolutionized gender theory and turned feminism upside down three decades ago withGender issues(1990). He argues that all lives have equal value, and that is what the political imagination should reflect. Who's afraid of gender? It offers a response to the conservative anti-feminist and transphobic backlash. It does not seek to offer a new theory of gender, but rather to examine how "gender" has become a phantom for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and trans-exclusionary feminism. It calls for rejecting alliances with authoritarian movements and for forming a broad coalition in the fight for equality.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o is one of the greatest exponents of contemporary African literature. He is one of the few who, writing in Kikuyu—one of the languages of Kenya, the country where he was born in 1938—has had an international impact. In this work, the writer addresses the redistribution of power and class struggle, delving into concepts such as neo-slavery, imperialism, and neocolonialism, treating them from a cultural perspective. Drawing on personal experience, Thiong'o explains that weapons conquer the country, but it is colonial and neocolonial cultural policies that subjugate the people.

The current political-economic system is a form of plutocracy very different from democracy, understood as a political organization in which the popular will significantly influences policies, lament Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone. The book warns of the potential consequences of the interests of those who own the economy and the political system, who want us to become "an ignorant people, not to be led astray by science and rationality, but to muddy the consequences." The authors argue that it is not possible to remain on the sidelines. Choosing not to act is, essentially, choosing the worst that can be expected. This book articulates, in the authors' view, what the most effective actions could be and how they could be implemented.

Both authors address a fundamental issue: time and how to enjoy it in freedom. They argue that it is necessary to reduce unpaid labor not simply so that people have more time to take care of the home, children, or parents. They propose changes to ensure that we have truly free time, an absolutely essential issue for any meaningful idea of freedom. Among other issues, they address the communization of care and sovereignty over time. For these thinkers, it is not enough to reduce the most intense, thankless, and precarious work or create decent working conditions. A post-labor feminist politics is necessary.

The French thinker Bruno Latour, who died in 2022, always anticipated climate challenges and problems. One of the issues he addresses is how to create projects that mobilize the population to maintain the habitable conditions of our planet. He eschews any concept of ecology that has to do with moral issues. Latour alludes to the exercise of creating a better, more just, and livable shared world. He defends classical philosophy, that is, the art of creating a good shared world.

Hate doesn't arise from nowhere, nor is it an individual and isolated sentiment. Hate is built and nurtured. Emcke has made this clear in many of her works. In this book, the German thinker advocates the need to address the complexity of violence. Emcke questions why violence sometimes silences us. According to Emcke, we can't delegate everything to politicians; we must also participate in the fight against anti-democratic movements and regimes, on the one hand, and curb climate change, on the other. What's new about the climate emergency, she believes, is that it affects all of humanity and, therefore, fosters the emergence of a truly global struggle.

Snyder is one of the leading experts on European history, especially on the Holocaust, World War II, and totalitarian regimes. In the book, he reminds us that freedom begins within each of us, that it is a constant process of improvement, and that it has to do with the way we act, also based on past mistakes that should allow us to improve. When we think we are free if we are not oppressed, we reduce freedom to negativity. The author reflects on the dangers that threaten today's democracies, from authoritarianism to misinformation, and analyzes how the control of history and the manipulation of the past can limit our ability to freely decide the future.

Other titles to question the world

• The identities that kill, by Amin Maalouf (1998; The Bell, 1999)
• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (Deusto, 2012)
• The challenges of education in liquid modernity, by Zygmunt Bauman (Arcadia, 2007)
• King Kong Theory, by Virginie Despentes (2006; La Otra Editorial, 2018)
• Dysphoria Mundi, by Paul B. Preciado (Anagrama, 2022)
• Vita contemplativa. In Praise of Inactivity, by Byung-Chul Han (2022; La Magrana, 2023)
• This changes everything: capitalism versus the climate, by Naomi Klein (2014; Empúries, 2015)
• Too late to wake up, by Slavoj Žižek (2023; Anagrama, 2024)
• Orientalism, by Edward Said (1978; Paper Tiger, 2024)
• Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, by Julian Assange and other authors (2012; Deusto, 2013)
• The World After Gaza: A Brief History, by Pankaj Mishra (Gutenberg Galaxy, 2025)
• Science, cyborgs and women: the reinvention of nature, by Donna Haraway (1976; Cátedra, 1995)
• Politics of Enmity, by Achille Mbembe (2016; Alfonso the Magnanimous, 2019)