One of the 21st century's most brilliant sociologists confronts his own mortality.
Erik O. Wright Boeken
Erik Olin Wright was een invloedrijke analytische marxistische socioloog, gespecialiseerd in sociale stratificatie en egalitaire alternatieve toekomsten voor het kapitalisme. Zijn werk richtte zich voornamelijk op de studie van sociale klassen en op het actualiseren en uitwerken van het marxistische klasseconcept. Wright trachtte klassencategorieën te ontwikkelen waarmee klassenstructuren en -dynamiek in verschillende geavanceerde kapitalistische en postkapitalistische samenlevingen vergeleken en gecontrasteerd konden worden. Zijn doel was te begrijpen hoe klasse de materiële belangen, geleefde ervaringen en collectieve actie van mensen beïnvloedt.
The Debate on Classes
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- 13 uur lezen
An attempt to resolve long-standing problems in contemporary class theory. The text brings together major critics of the author's work, and Wright's own responses and reformulation in the light of the criticisms.
Erik Olin Wright, one of the most important sociologists of his time, takes us along on his intimate and brave journey toward death, and asks the big questions about human mortality. Human life is a wild, extraordinary phenomenon: elements are brewed in the cen-ter of stars and exploding supernova, spewed across the universe; they eventually clumped into a minor planet around a modest star; then after some billions of years this "stardust" became complex molecules with self-replicating capacities that we call life. More billions of years pass and these self-replicating molecules join together into more complex forms, evolve into organisms which gain awareness and then consciousness, and finally, eventually, consciousness of their consciousness. Stardust turned into conscious living matter aware of its own existence. And with that comes consciousness of mortality. . . . That I, as a conscious being will cease to exist pales in significance to the fact that I exist at all. I don 't find that this robs my existence of meaning; it 's what makes infusing life with meaning possible.
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 Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century
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- 7 uur lezen
What is wrong with capitalism, and how can we change it?
The foundational sociological text on class in a modern capitalist economy