He proposes a novel way of thinking about the economy,ecology,and political governance nicely bundled in a meta epic about terraforming Mars.

For me while reading it was the first time I thought "hey nations are purely social/political constructs and not set into stone at all". Sounds trivial but that book changed my perspective on that matter.

I suppose that the cultural background (Old World here) might play a role here - I can imagine an American thinking "of course you can just get rid of the people exploiting your kind, we did that before already".

He introduced me to the idea of worker cooperatives (businesses/organizations owned and run by the workers themselves) and I wish I could like in a world where they were more normal.