Erik Olin Wright
| Erik Olin Wright | |
|---|---|
Erik Olin Wright giving a lecture at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (March 13, 2013)
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| Born |
February 9, 1947 Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | Analytical Marxism, Class analysis |
| Influences |
Karl Marx Max Weber Göran Therborn |
| Influenced | Tom Malleson |
Erik Olin Wright (born 1947 in Berkeley, California) is an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism. He is noted for his divergence from classical Marxists in his breakdown of the working class into subgroups of diversely held power and therefore varying degrees of class consciousness. Wright has introduced novel concepts to adapt to this change of perspective including deep democracy and interstitial revolution.
Erik Olin Wright, born on 9 February 1947 in Berkeley, California, received two BAs (from Harvard College in 1968, and from Balliol College, University of Oxford in 1970), and a PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. Since that time, he has been a professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Wright began making contributions to the intellectual community in the mid-1970s, along with a whole generation of young academics who were radicalized by the resistance to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Since that time, he has distinguished himself from his generation by his steady commitment to research for more than a quarter century.
In 2012, Wright was elected President of the American Sociological Association.
Wright has been described as an "influential new left theorist." His work is concerned mainly with the study of social classes, and in particular with the task of providing an update to and elaboration of the Marxist concept of class, in order to enable Marxist and non-Marxist researchers alike to use 'class' to explain and predict people's material interests, lived experiences, living conditions, incomes, organizational capacities and willingness to engage in collective action, political leanings, etc. In addition, he has attempted to develop class categories that would allow researchers to compare and contrast the class structures and dynamics of different advanced capitalist and 'post-capitalist' societies.
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