From Elves for Dignity, a children’s book published in July by a workers’ cooperative currently operating the Hotel Bauen, in downtown Buenos Aires. Closed by its owners during the 2001 financial crisis, the twenty-story hotel was reopened by former employees in 2003 and is now one of 170 worker-run businesses in Argentina. Translated from the Spanish by Burke Butler.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a greedy and merciless King, whose only desire was to fill his chests with gold. One morning he awoke with the brilliant idea—he always considered his ideas unquestionably…