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Envisioning Real Utopias
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Leading sociologist proposes a new framework for a socialist alternative
Rising inequality of income and power, along with recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet few are attempting this task—most analysts argue that any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations is utopian. Erik Olin Wright’s major new work is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. A systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors, Envisioning Real Utopias lays the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.
Reviews
[Wright] builds a strong case for an emancipatory social science.
A benchmark contribution to necessary radical thinking.
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.
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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.
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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.
, openDemocracy