De lezing is gebaseerd op Wright’s laatste boek met dezelfde titel, dat in 2010 verscheen. Zijn bedoeling is een denkkader te presenteren voor bevrijdende alternatieven voor het kapitalisme.
Over het boek:
“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.”