What Shall We Do?

About this film

LibriVox recording of What Shall We Do? by Leo Tolstoy. (Translated by Vladimir Chertkov.) Read in English by Joanna Michal Hoyt. A vivid description of wealth and poverty in Russia in Tolstoy's day, an inquiry into the root causes of economic inequality, and a vision of a more just way of living. Tolstoy recounts his own disturbing encounters with extreme poverty in Moscow, his initial idea of making the problem disappear by generous financial contributions, and his subsequent realization that the problem of poverty was much more intractable than he had imagined. He concludes that poverty is fundamentally linked with the luxurious lifestyle to which he and his class were accustomed, and that both are detrimental both to the rich and to the poor. He goes on to investigate the roots of power imbalances, both in the state and in markets, and to make suggestions for a fundamental social and economic reform in the interest of justice and well-being. Both his social critique and his proposed reforms are grounded in a deeply held and somewhat unorthodox religious faith, as well as in a vigorously applied but somewhat unconventional view of science. Unfortunately he also expresses some vi…

Directors & creators

Leo Tolstoy

Subjects

librivox; audiobooks;poverty; ethics; economic justice

View on archive.org ↗