Classes (Verso Classics) - Softcover

Erik Olin Wright

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1804290483 ISBN 13: 9781804290484

Publisher: Verso Books, 2023

Synopsis

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 supposed relationship between class and potential political capacity and affinity?
In Classes, Erik Olin Wright, the greatest American Marxist sociologists, rises to the twofold challenge of both clarifying the abstract, structural account of class implicit in Marx, and of applying and refining the account in the light of contemporary developments in advanced capitalist societies. What Wright calls “contradictory class locations” can make the class landscape appear much more complex than the simple model presented in Marx. Despite this complexity, common interests and therefore political alliances can still be found. In a society, like the US, characterized by extreme inequality, Classes provides not just a useful descriptive account of the operation of class but also the tools to understand the interplay of class interests and political (re)alignment.

About this title

About the Author

Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019) was Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin and former president of the American Sociological Association. He authored many books, including Classes, Interrogating Inequality, Class Counts, Deepening Democracy (with Archon Fung), and Envisioning Real Utopias

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 1804290483
• ISBN 13: 9781804290484
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352