Envisioning Real Utopias (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781844676170)

Rising inequality of income and power, along with the recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet there has been a global retreat by the Left: on the assumption that liberal capitalism is the only game in town, political theorists tend to dismiss as utopian any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations. As Fredric Jameson first argued, it is now easier for us to imagine the end of the world than an alternative to capitalism.

Erik Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. Building on a lifetime's work analyzing the class system in the developed world, as well as exploring the problem of the transition to a socialist alternative, Wright has now completed a systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors. Envisioning Real Utopias aims to put the social back into socialism, laying 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.

Author: Erik Olin Wright
ISBN-10: 184467617X
ISBN-13: 9781844676170
Publisher: Verso
Language: English
Published: 06/15/2010
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2011
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2011 pg. 143