Ursula Le Guin’s Radical Utopias Still Resonate Today

Ursula K. Le Guin was born on this day in 1929. She used science fiction to explore the failures of capitalist society — and the alternative worlds we could build in its place.

You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution.” This is the core of the message that the anarchist Shevek proclaims to a mass demonstration of syndicalist and socialist workers gathered in Capitol Square in the city of Nio Esseia on the planet of Urras in Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic 1974 utopian novel The Disposessed. Read more