Love and Marxism*

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0032329220966074
• Subject Matter: Special Issue Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329220966074

Politics & Society

2020, Vol. 48(4) 495 –504

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0032329220966074

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Special Issue Article

Love and Marxism*

Greta R. Krippner

University of Michigan

Abstract

Erik Olin Wright’s scholarship is often considered to be formed by two entirely

disjoint projects represented by his early work on class analysis and his later writings

on “real utopias.” This essay uses Michael Burawoy’s recent formulation of the “two

Marxisms” thesis as a foil to argue for the continuities rather than discontinuities in

the body of work produced by Wright. More particularly, the critical spirit of the

real utopias project infused Wright’s work on class analysis from its inception. It

is further argued that the limitations Wright encountered in realizing those critical

aims directly seeded the search in his later work for institutional design principles

and an explicit articulation of normative values that could undergird alternatives to

capitalism.

Keywords

Erik Olin Wright, Marxism, class analysis, real utopias

Corresponding Author:

Greta R. Krippner, Sociology Department, University of Michigan, 4146 LSA Building, 500 S. State Street,

Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Email: krippner@umich.edu

*This essay is part of a special issue of Politics & Society celebrating and examining the life and work of

longtime board member Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019).

966074PASXXX10.1177/0032329220966074Politics & SocietyKrippner

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