Engaging Erik Olin Wright
About This Book
The sociologist Erik Olin Wright died in 2019, leaving unfinished a project that joined class analysis with the idea of utopia. His sociological Marxism began with an original analysis of class, including the concept of contradictory class locations, which was used to map class structures empirically across the globe. After the collapse of communism and the rise of neoliberalism, Wright turned to the question that class analysis rests on, namely whether socialism is possible. Setting aside Marxism's wariness of utopian thinking, he searched the world for institutions that might plant the seeds of socialism, such as cooperatives, participatory budgeting, and basic income grants. He saw them as ways to erode capitalism and, with it, racial, gender, and class inequalities. His last book, How to be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, appeared after his death in more than a dozen languages and has become a manifesto for social movement activists. This volume gathers essays by close colleagues and former students who pay tribute to his theory, his teaching, and his personal warmth. The authors wrestle with how his two growing research programs, class analysis and real utopias, relate to each other. They approach the question from both ends, drawing on Wright's vision to reinvent Marxism.
ISBN: 9781804294727
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