From factory workers to the king, members of all social classes in an industrialized society are distraught with their way of life and desire socioeconomic change. In scheming to join the revolution they deem inevitable, everyone struggles to be the first to initiate the highly desired change.

Workers at an American franchise restaurant located in southern China learn of the different ways American capitalism exploits them and creates food waste, leading them to rebel against their bosses.

Protagonist Leo Gold attends the annual Anarchists’ Convention in New York City, a spectacle predictably filled with divisions and subcommittees and impassioned debates over topics as banal as the order of events and whether dinner should be self-serve. But when the hotel manager asks the party to vacate the room as previously booked, the group unites to build barricades and sing protest songs to defend their noble cause.

In the early 1970s, a listless radical must decide what to do with his life as his social circle of grassroots activists dwindles.

A Jewish communist quit working at an editorial bureau where his co-workers are bothered by his leftist ideology because of his boss' praises of him.

A group of working class people run a dangerous path toward a promised Elysium, and those who survive are rewarded with nothing they can appreciate or comprehend.

A young boy tries to help his parents make money by selling ice cream at his mother's work at a Snow White Laundry. An accident with one of the machines causes chaos and the narrator is forced to leave.

To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

As the People's Liberation Army ravages China, a resentful young woman charged with a strange mission leaves home to work in the city. Once there, she discovers terrifying connections between her rich new employer and the village she left behind.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.