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.

【作者簡介】

Erik Olin Wright

1947年出生於美國加州，1976年獲加州大學柏克萊分校博士學位，長期任教於威斯康辛大學麥迪遜分校社會學系，曾獲選為2012年度的美國社會學會理事長。Wright為結合博弈理論與馬克思主義的「分析馬克思主義」學派代表人物之一，也是著名的左派學者及公共知識分子。早年知名研究集中於社會階層化領域，《階級》（Classes）與《階級很重要》（Class Counts）為其重要著作。Wright的研究興趣在1990年代中期逐漸轉向「真實烏托邦」計畫，並在花費四年巡迴世界各地與群眾交流後，完成《真實烏托邦》一書。

【譯者簡介】

黃克先

譯著多本社會學專書，包括群學出版的《自由之夏》、《泰利的街角》、《柏格歐吉桑的社會學奇幻旅程》。現任教於臺灣大學社會學系。

【校訂者簡介】

林宗弘

中央研究院社會學研究所副研究員（與國立清華大學合聘），畢業於香港科技大學，研究興趣為貧富差距、社會階層化、災難社會學與勞動研究等。與洪敬舒、李健鴻、王兆慶、張烽益等合著有《崩世代：財團化、貧窮化與少子女化的危機》，此書曾獲2012年金鼎獎。