Wright, Erik Olin: Envisioning Real Utopias

A comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. Building on a work analyzing the class system in the developed world, as well as exploring the problem of the transition to a socialist alternative, it reconstructs the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors.“[Wright] builds a strong case for an emancipatory social science.”—E. Kingsolver, Choice

“A benchmark contribution to necessary radical thinking.”—Göran Therborn

“Encyclopedic in its breadth, daunting in its ambition, this is the culmination of Erik Olin Wright’s revamping of Marxism ... Only a thinker of Wright’s genius could sustain such a badly needed political imagination without losing analytical clarity and precision.”—Michael Burawoy, UC Berkeley

“Hugely rich and stimulating ... An incisive diagnosis of the harms done by capitalism; a masterful synthesis of the best work in political sociology and political economy over the past thirty years; and innovative theoretical framework for conceptualizing both the goals of progressive change and the strategies for their achievement; and inspiring survey of actually existing challenges to capitalism that have arisen within capitalism itself; and a compelling essay on the relation between the desirable, the viable and the achievable. Anyone interested in the future of leftist politics has to read this book.”—Adam Swift, Balliol College, Oxford

“This book is both a manifesto and a guidebook: an argument for taking institutional design seriously, and a guide to how to do that. It’s a book that sociologists will want to read, but also, frankly, that everyone in political theory and philosophy should be reading too.”—Crooked Timber

“A fascinating book.”—Guy Aitchison, openDemocracy