Envisioning Real Utopias

The published version can be ordered directly from Verso

Table of Contents

[Analytical table of contents]

Contents and Preface
Chapter 1     Introduction: Why Real Utopias?
Chapter 2     The Tasks of Emancipatory Social Science

Part I. Diagnosis and Critique
Chapter 3     What’s so Bad about Capitalism?

Part II. Alternatives
Chapter 4      Thinking about Alternatives to Capitalism
Chapter 5      The Socialist Compass    
Chapter 6      Real Utopias I: Social Empowerment and the State    
Chapter 7      Real Utopias II: Social Empowerment and the Economy

Part III. Transformation
Chapter 8      Elements of a Theory of Transformation
Chapter 9      Ruptural Transformation
Chapter 10    Interstitial Transformation
Chapter 11    Symbiotic Transformation

Conclusion     Making Utopias Real
Bibliography and Index

Other Writing on Real Utopias

Early paper summarizing themes of the book: "Compass Points: towards a socialist alternative", New Left Review 41 September-October, 2006, pp. 93-124

Spanish translation of New Left Review essay:  "LOS PUNTOS DE LA BRÚJULA: hacia una alternativa socialista" 

"Guidelines for Envisioning Real Utopias" Soundings

Discussions of Envisioning Real Utopias, Berkeley, October 2007; Ankara, Turkey, November 2007

"Imaginando Utopías Reales", lecture at the University of Buenos Aires, 2007

“Real Utopias,” Contexts, Spring, 2011

"In defense of Genderlessness", in Axel Grosseries and Yannick Vanderborght (eds), Arguing about justice: essays for Philippe van Parijs (Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2011), pp. 403-413)

"Real Utopias in and beyond Capitalism: taking the social in socialism seriously,"  Fifth Annual Nicos Poulantzas Memorial Lecture (Athens, Greece: Nissos, Nicos Poulantzas Institute, 2012)

“Taking the social in socialism seriously”, Socio-economic Review, 2012. 10:286-402

"How to be an Anticapitalist Today", Jacobin, December, 2015. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-democracy/

Miscellaneous Readings on themes in Envisioning Real Utopias

G.A. Cohen, "Back to Socialist Basics"

Philippe van Parijs and Robert Van der Veen, "A Capitalist Road to Communism"

Erik Olin Wright, "Why Something like Socialism is needed for the transition to something like communism"

Erik Olin Wright, "Basic Income as a Socialist Project" (Basic Income Studies, issue #1, 2006)

Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, Associations and Democracy. Chapter 1 "Secondary Associations and Democratic Governance"

Jean-Louis Laville, Benoît Lévesque and Marguerite Mendell "The Social Economy, Diverse Approaches and Practices in Europe and Canada."

Nancy Neamtam, "The Social Economy: Finding A Way Between The Market And The State"

Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright, Deepening Democracy.

            Chapter 1. Thinking about empowered participatory governance

            Epilogue. Countervailing power in empowered participatory governance

Harry Brighouse and Erik Olin Wright, "A proposal to Transform the House of Lords into a Citizens’ Assembly"

Harry Brighouse and Erik Olin Wright, "Strong Gender Egalitarianism" (paper for the real utopias conference on gender equality)

Amy Lang, "But is it For Real? The British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly as a model of state-sponsored citizen empowerment" (forthcoming, Politics & Society)

Three papers from the Real Utopias Project conference on Pensions and the Control of Capital:

Erik Olin Wright, "Making Capital Socially Accountable: An Introduction to Robin Blackburn and Ewald Engelen"

Robin Blackburn, "The Global Pension Crisis: From Gray Capitalism to Responsible Accumulation"

Ewald Engelen, "Resocializing Capital: Putting Pension Savings in the Service of 'Financial Pluralism'?"

A Twentieth Anniversary symposium on van Parijs and van der Veen, "A Capitalist Road to Communism", Basic Income Studies volume 1:1, June 2006. http://www.bepress.com/bis/vol1/iss1/

Figures for Reimagining Society ZNET posting