Just before reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, I’d read her 1973 short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

Both were good. The Dispossessed shows two contrasting worlds - one society run on an exploitive capitalistic system - like our real world has. The other a fledgling anarchist society, with its freedoms and failures. Sort of like Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but with less Mary Sue’ing of the author’s ideas. And also obviously different that the ideas are not disgustingly selfish and overly simplified.

Those Who Walk Away from Omelas works on the device of the scapegoat. I’d recommend reading the Wikipedia entry for exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, specifically the section: René Girard’s Scapegoat Theory, which has a different use of the idea than le Guin’s, but I think pair well together.

Recently, Clarksworld published Isabel J. Kim’s Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, which I feel is a terrific continuation of the ideas from the original short story.

I recommend you take time to read both.