Erik Olin Wright

What is wrong with capitalism, and how can we change it? Capitalism has transformed the world and increased our productivity, but at the cost of enormous human suffering. Our shared values - equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, community and solidarity - can both provide the basis for a critique of capitalism, and help to guide us towards a socialist and democratic society. In this elegant book, Erik Olin Wright has distilled decades of work into a concise and tightly argued manifesto - analyzing the varieties of anti-capitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. How to Be an Anticapitalist in the 21st Century is an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and a unparalleled guide to help us get there. Another world is possible.

How to Be an Anti-Capitalist for the 21st Century

Envisioning real utopias

Robin Hahnel

What would a viable free and democratic society look like? Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and power--it is not difficult to list capitalism's myriad injustices. But is there a preferable and workable alternative? Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy presents a debate between two such possibilities: Robin Hahnel's "participatory economics" and Erik Olin Wright's "real utopian" socialism. It is a detailed and rewarding discussion that illuminates a range of issues and dilemmas of crucial importance to any serious effort to build a better world.

Proposals for a Democratic Economy

Alternatives to Capitalism

Leading sociologist proposes a new framework for a socialist alternative.

Envisioning Real Utopias

Reflections on Living and Dying

Stardust to Stardust

Wright norteia sua crítica ao capitalismo pelos conceitos de igualdade e justiça; democracia e liberdade; comunidade e solidariedade. Esses conceitos permitem a conexão entre noções abstratas em sua sociologia e sua experiência comunitária, com leitores, pesquisadores, estudantes e militantes. Não perde de vista a crítica da exploração e do poder econômico, além de destacar a destruição ambiental associada ao funcionamento do capitalismo. Como ser anticapitalista no século XXI? é um livro com forte ênfase no ativismo e na militância, pouco afeito a academicismos e voltado para os problemas reais da construção de uma alternativa anticapitalista hoje. Nele, o anticapitalismo é possível como uma defesa moral contra as injustiças e como uma instância prática e alternativa para um maior desabrochar de talentos humanos.

Como ser anticapitalista no século XXI?

This textbook provides a lively and penetrating exploration of the concept of class and its relevance for understanding a wide range of issues in contemporary society. The book presents a sophisticated account of the theoretical foundations in an accessible and engaging manner. It then explores class using cross-national comparative data on topics such as social mobility, housework, friendship patterns, class structure and class consciousness. This Student Edition of Class Counts thus combines Wright's sophisticated account of central and enduring questions in social theory with practical analyses of detailed social problems.

Class Counts Student Edition

Archon Fung

Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance (Real Utopias Project)

Deepening Democracy

Clases

Joel Rogers - undifferentiated

How It Really Works

American Society

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.

How to be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century

John Gastil

Democracy means rule by the people, but in practice even the most robust democracies delegate most rule making to a political class The gap between the public and its representatives might seem unbridgeable in the modern world, but Legislature by Lot examines an inspiring solution: a legislature chosen through “sortition”—the random selection of lay citizens. It’s a concept that has come to the attention of democratic reformers across the globe. Proposals for such bodies are being debated in Australia, Belgium, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and many other countries. Sortition promises to reduce corruption and create a truly representative legislature in one fell swoop. In Legislature by Lot, John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright make the case for pairing a sortition body with an elected chamber within a bicameral legislature. Gastil is a leading deliberative democracy scholar, and Wright a distinguished sociologist and editor of the Real Utopias series, of which this is a part. In this volume, they bring together critics and advocates of sortition who have studied ancient Athens, deliberative polling, political theory, social movements, and civic innovation. Without obscuring its limitations, the contributors offer a wide variety of ideas for how to implement sortition and examine its potential for reshaping modern politics. Legislature by Lot includes sixteen essays that respond to Gastil and Wright’s detailed proposal. Essays comparing sortition to contemporary reforms see it as a dramatic extension of deliberative “minipublics,” which gather random samples of citizens to weigh public policy dilemmas without being empowered to enact legislation. Another set of essays explores the democratic principles underlying sortition and elections and considers, for example, how a sortition body holds itself accountable to a public that did not elect it. The third set of essays considers alternative paths to democratic reform, which limit the powers of a sortition chamber or more quickly establish a pure sortition body. With contributions by Arash Abizadeh, Tom Arnold, Terrill Bouricius, Deven Burks, Lyn Carson, Dimitri Courant, Donatella della Porta, David M. Farrell, Andrea Felicetti, James S. Fishkin, Brett Hennig, Vincent Jacquet, Raphaël Kies, Tom Malleson, Jane Mansbridge, Christoph Niessen, David Owen, John Pitseys, Min Reuchamps, Yves Sintomer, Graham Smith, Jane Suiter, and Pierre-Étienne Vandamme.

Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance

Legislature by Lot

Class Counts combines theoretical discussions of the concept of class with a wide range of comparative empirical investigations of class.

Comparative Studies in Class Analysis

Class Counts

Leading sociologist examines how different readings of class enrich our understanding of capitalism Few ideas are more contested today than “class.” Some have declared its death, while others insist on its centrality to contemporary capitalism. It is said its relevance is limited to explaining individuals’ economic conditions and opportunities, while at the same time argued that it is a structural feature of macro-power relations. In Understanding Class, leading left sociologist Erik Olin Wright interrogates the divergent meanings of this fundamental concept in order to develop a more integrated framework of class analysis. Beginning with the treatment of class in Marx and Weber, proceeding through the writings of Charles Tilly, Thomas Piketty, Guy Standing, and others, and finally examining how class struggle and class compromise play out in contemporary society, Understanding Class provides a compelling view of how to think about the complexity of class in the world today.

Understanding Class

Class Crisis & the State

Cómo ser anticapitalista en el siglo XXI

Class analysis and class struggle are central concepts in Marx's social theory yet, notoriously, Marx never wrote a systematic exposition of these terms during his lifetime, and succeeding generations have had to piece together interpretations from his many scattered references and discussions. The problem of trying to develop a Marxist class analysis on this basis has been made all the more acute by changes in the class structure of advanced capitalism, for these have thrown up a bewildering range of new social strata which seem to be difficult to reconcile with the many traditional understandings of class. In Classes, Erik Olin Wright, one of the foremost Marxist sociologists and class theorists, rises to the twofold challenge of both clarifying the abstract, structural account of class implicit in Marx, and of applying and refining the account in the light of contemporary developments in advanced capitalist societies. Recentering the concept of class on the process of exploitation, Wright discusses his famous notion of "contradictory class locations" in relation to the empirical complexities of the middle class, and he provides an analysis of class structure in "post-capitalist" societies. Wright then goes on to draw out the implications of his approach and to submit it to detailed empirical testing with the use of a trans-national survey of class structure and consciousness.

Classes

Few themes have been as central to sociology as class and yet class remains a perpetually contested idea. Sociologists disagree not only on how best to define the concept of class but on its general role in social theory and indeed on its continued relevance to the sociological analysis of contemporary society. Some people believe that classes have largely dissolved in contemporary societies; others believe class remains one of the fundamental forms of social inequality and social power. Some see class as a narrow economic phenomenon whilst others adopt an expansive conception that includes cultural dimensions as well as economic conditions. This book explores the theoretical foundations of six major perspectives of class with each chapter written by an expert in the field. It concludes with a conceptual map of these alternative approaches by posing the question: If class is the answer, what is the question?

Erik Olin Wright

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