The Debate on Classes (Verso Classic)
by Erik Olin Wright
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Erik Olin Wright's Classes was hailed on publication, by the American Journal of Sociology, as "almost certain to be the most important book on social classes" of the decade. Wright presented a bold attempt--through the subtle use of the tools of analytical Marxism--to resolve some of the long-standing problems in contemporary class theory. The Debate on Classes brings together major critics of Wright's work to assess the adequacy of his theory. From differing perspectives, they deploy a show more range of empirical data--from studies undertaken in a number of countries--and they address questions as varied as the concept of "contradictory class locations," the continuing coherence of Marxist approaches to class, the relation between stratification and social development, as well as the contentious roles of gender and ethnicity in generating inequality, and the central problem of the import of "consciousness" and concrete political activity on class composition. Also included are Wright's own spirited responses and reformulations in the light of these criticisms, thereby presenting the reader with an open, scholarly discussion in which intellectual collaboration develops an understanding of the impact of class on the wider terrain of culture and politics. show lessTags
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Erik Olin Wright was born in Berkeley, California on February 9, 1947. He won first place in mathematics at the 1964 National Science Fair with a project on Möbius strips. He received a bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard University in 1968 and studied history for two years at Balliol College, Oxford. During the Vietnam War, he show more received a deferment from military service to attend a training school in Berkeley for Unitarian ministers. He also worked as a student chaplain at San Quentin State Prison. He received a doctorate in sociology in 1976 from Berkeley and became a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin. He spent his entire teaching career there. He was a Marxist sociologist who studied the complexities of social and economic classes and explored alternatives to capitalism. He wrote more than 15 books including Envisioning Real Utopias and How to Be an Anti-Capitalist for the 21st Century. He died from acute myeloid leukemia on January 23, 2019 at the age of 71. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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