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Demystifying Economics: Former Greek Finance Minister and left-wing economist Yanis Varoufakis explains capitalism in the form of a letter addressed to his daughter Xenia in his book Talking to My Daughter about the Economy. The book, which he wrote in just nine days, ditches the complex economic terms for layman’s terms, making it accessible to anyone regardless of their level of economic knowledge. He believes that every citizen should have a basic understanding necessary to talk about the economy as a prerequisite to authentic democracy.

Varoufakis explains how modern finance works using various stories including, for example, how German camps in World War II used cigarettes as currency to explain supply and demand, inflation, deflation and the role of banking. The Red Cross would send packages with goods and every once in a while the package would contain more cigarettes, meaning they were worth less, so more would be required to purchase the same amount of goods — inflation — and conversely after a raid when supplies were short cigarettes they were worth more — deflation.