Leading sociologist proposes a new framework for a socialist alternative.
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.