How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century

by Erik Olin Wright

Overview

What is wrong with capitalism, and how can we change it?

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 provide both the basis for a critique of capitalism and help to guide us toward a socialist and democratic society.

Erik Olin Wright has distilled decades of work into this concise and tightly argued manifesto: analyzing the varieties of anticapitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century is an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and an unparalleled guide to help us get there. Another world is possible. Included is an afterword by the author’s close friend and collaborator Michael Burawoy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781788739559
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	473,157
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 Why Be Anticapitalist? 1

What is capitalism? 3

Grounds for opposing capitalism 5

Normative foundations 9

Equality/fairness 9

Democracy/freedom 15

Community/solidarity 18

2 Diagnosis and Critique of Capitalism 23

Equality/fairness 24

Class and exploitation 25

Competition and risk 25

Disruptive economic growth 26

Democracy/freedom 28

Community/solidarity 31

Skepticism 35

3 Varieties of Anticapitalism 37

Strategic logics 38

Smashing capitalism 38

Dismantling capitalism 42

Taming capitalism 44

Resisting capitalism 49

Escaping capitalism 51

Strategic configurations 53

Eroding capitalism 59

4 The Destination beyond Capitalism: Socialism as Economic Democracy 65

A power-centered concept of socialism 65

Building blocks of a democratic socialist economy 71

Unconditional basic income 73

The cooperative market economy 75

The social and solidarity economy 79

Democratizing capitalist firms 81

Banking as a public utility 83

Nonmarket economic organization 85

State provision of goods and services 85

Peer-to-peer collaborative production 88

The knowledge commons 90

Back to the problem of strategy 92

5 Anticapitalism and the State 95

The problem of the capitalist state 96

Internal contradictions of the state 98

Contradictory, contested functionality 100

Prospects 105

Democratizing the state 111

Democratically empowered decentralization 113

New forms of citizen participation 113

New institutions for democratic representation 115

Democratizing electoral rules of the game 116

6 Agents of Transformation 119

Collective actors for eroding capitalism 120

The problem of collective agency 122

The concept of "agency" 122

Identities 125

Interests 129

Values 131

From identities, interests and values to collective actors 133

Overcoming privatized, lives 134

Fragmented class structures 135

Competing sources of identity 137

Real politics 139

Afterword Michael Burawoy 147

Editorial Reviews

Deserves to be widely read. In 150-odd pages, Wright makes the case for what’s wrong with capitalism, what would be better, and how to achieve it. This is the rare book that can speak to both the faithful and the unconverted. You could buy it for your skeptical uncle or your militant cousin: there is something here for the reader who needs persuading that another world is possible, and the reader who wants ideas for bringing that world into being.”
—Ben Tarnoff, Guardian

“His ideas captured the imagination of audiences, intellectuals and activists across the globe … Wright reinvented the meaning of socialism.”
—New York Times

“Erik Olin Wright was a visionary writer gifted with the imagination to foresee what life after capitalism might look like, but he was much more than that. He embodied an entire way to think about capitalism and the world: clear, precise, and free of bullshit. This book, his last, should be an indispensable reference point for those who want to change the world for the better.”
—Bhaskar Sunkara, founder and publisher of Jacobin magazine

“Erik will be remembered as the most important theorist of class in the second half of the twentieth century, and the greatest Marxist sociologist of his time.”
—Vivek Chibber, author of Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital

“Possessed of an unlimited capacity to render his ideas precise and simple, without diluting them, Erik gave activists a vision of a collective project to which each could contribute. Given the resurgent interest in ‘socialism’ among a new generation of thinkers and activists, Erik had an ever-increasing following.”
—Michael Burawoy, from the afterword

“[An] eloquent and accessible volume.”
—Tom Mayer, Colorado Daily

“An urgent and powerful case for socialism, Wright analyses different sorts of anticapitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the groundwork for a society dedicated to human flourishing.”
—Dazed

From the Publisher