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 ...

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, asses...

El capitalismo ha transformado el mundo y aumentado nuestra productividad, pero a costa de un enorme sufrimiento humano. Nuestros valores compartidos –igualdad y equidad, democracia y libertad, comunidad y solidaridad– pueden proporcionar la base para una crítica al capitalismo y ayudar a guiarnos hacia una sociedad socialista y democrática.Erik Olin Wright ha compendiado décadas de trabajo en este manifiesto conciso y estrictamente argumentado: analizando las variedades de anticapitalismo...

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 theoris...

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-replicat...

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 ...

One of the major works of the new American Marxism, Wright's book draws a challenging new class map of the United States and other, comparable, advanced capitalist countries today. It also discusses the various classical theories of economic crisis in the West and their relevance to the current recession, and contrasts the way in which the major political problem of bureaucracy was confronted by two great antagonists - Weber and Lenin. A concluding essay brings together the practical lesso...

Questions of class, power and distribution have reemerged as central concerns in the public discourse. When we talk about class, we don't always know what is meant. Is class about income or affect or the ownership of the means of production? Perhaps it is about authority or autonomy? But what happens when, as is often the case in complex advanced economies, people can occupy social and economic roles that seem to indicate membership in more than one class? And what does this mean for the s...

Pourquoi et comment sortir du capitalisme ? Quelles sont les alternatives d'ores et déjà présentes ? Peut-on, doit-on réinventer les socialismes par des réalisations concrètes ? Avec quels outils, quelles formes d'action, quelles institutions ? Telles sont les vastes questions, solidaires les unes des autres, auxquelles répond ce livre original et magistral, synthèse d'une enquête internationale et collective de plusieurs années sur les théories les plus actuelles de l'émancipation ainsi q...

No hay concepto hoy por hoy, tanto en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales como a pie de calle, más controvertido que el de "clase social". No son pocos los teóricos, analistas y políticos que han decretado su muerte en la sociedad actual, mientras que otros insisten en su trascendencia y centralidad a la hora de comprender el capitalismo contemporáneo. Entre afirmar que su relevancia se limita a su uso para explicar las oportunidades económicas individuales y argumentar que es también una c...

En una situación en que las desigualdades, tanto socioeconómicas como en lo que a las relaciones de poder respecta, crecen sin tregua ni control, la búsqueda de alternativas al capitalismo desenfrenado se convierte en un deber imperioso. Pocos son, sin embargo, quienes han abordado esta apremiante tarea, escudados en que cualquier tentativa de repensar las relaciones establecidas linda con la utopía. Esta magistral obra constituye un ataque en toda regla contra cierta complacencia que domi...

這裡就是烏托邦，就在這裡跳舞吧！【當代階級研究最重要的左派社會學家自述日誌】補齊E. O. Wright 所思、所想、所感完整面貌直擊社會學大師的真實「裡面」　　艾瑞克．萊特是當代美國最重要的社會學家之一，本書彙集了他生前因罹患急性骨髓性白血病（Acute myeloid leukemia, AML）住院治療時，為了讓關心他的朋友能夠得知近況，並與大眾交流互動的部落格日記。本書經萊特家人的選編，加上重要社會學家與畢生摯友布若威（Michael Burawoy）的前言，繁中版並收錄兩位學生黃崇憲與陳婉容的重要文字點滴，以及萊特二○一四年來台留下的身影。　　日誌內容完整、真摯且細膩地呈現萊特接受治療、逐日不同的反思軌跡，以及靠近死亡時的生活點滴、思緒與情感，包括觀察與思考自己的治療遭遇、對疾病的恐懼、夜裡的夢、對書寫與分享的熱忱、與家人的愛，並連結到他的智識思考與學術關懷；也談及當時他正努力收尾的《如何在二十一世紀反對資本主義》論著，以及著手兩項重要寫作計畫……誠摯推薦 （依姓氏筆畫...