How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century

by Erik Olin Wright

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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Theory, Social Justice

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

About the author

Erik Olin Wright was an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism. He was the (2012) President of the American Sociological Association.
Erik Olin Wright received two BAs (from Harvard College in 1968, and from Balliol College in 1970), and the PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. Since that time, he has been a professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
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.

Reviews

[Quin Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so terrible and unnecessary that it almost turned me into a Marxist Leninist out of spite.

Wright has the audacity to redefine socialism to include markets, private ownership, and wage labor. He dismisses the possibility of a revolutionary break from capitalism in favor of petite bourgeois, reformist social democracy which has failed every time. He asserts without any argument that markets are a necessary feature of any non-capitalist economic order despite them being one of the primary sources of capitalism’s irrationality and inequality. He asserts without argument that all socialist experiments following from revolutionary breaks with capitalism were total failures and that’s why only reform is possible. His analysis of capitalism itself has been surpassed by Marxist feminists and third world Marxists who acknowledges the central role of gender (social reproduction) and race (colonialism/imperialism) in capitalism’s functioning. There is nothing to be gained from this book, although it might be viewed as symptomatic of the Western left’s current state of disarray and confusion.

Skip this book. Read Nancy Fraser, Silvia Federici, Tithi Bhattacharya, or any other actual Marxist who know what they are talking about.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm pleased that this was the last book I finished in 2019. It was another Christmas present and I found it an excellent train read. There is a definite sadness to 'How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century', though, as Olin Wright died of leukaemia very shortly after finishing it. He'd intended to support this short, accessible primer with a longer, more academic work exploring the issues in much more detail, with references. Sadly, he never had the chance to write this latter work, which I would very much have liked to read. The book he did write provides a very clear and well-structured summary of what's wrong with capitalism, forms of anticapitalism, forms postcapitalism could take, and how change might come about.

The calm and reasonable tone belies the wonderfully radical content. I found Olin Wright's concepts of a mixed economy in which capitalist elements might eventually form the minority uplifting and encouraging. His arguments that capitalism could be eroded into something else are thought-provoking, although his mentions of technology underplay the effects of surveillance capitalism in my opinion. That is perhaps more detail than is appropriate for such a book, though. Olin Wright talks about the importance of deeper democratic involvement to the erosion of capitalism, while acknowledging that the opposite is taking place. Nonetheless, I found his calm, hopeful, and convincing writing made me feel a little happier about the prospects of something beyond capitalism. Most importantly, he rejects unhelpful dichotomies, such as absolutely capitalist vs absolutely socialist, instead embracing complexity and nuance. An impressive feat in such a short book.

My favourite paragraph concerned libraries. I'd never quite realised what anticapitalist institutions they are before! No wonder I love them so.

Some things, of course, could be effectively provided by both state and markets, and so the issue becomes the mix between the two. Consider access to books. Bookstores and libraries readily provide both. Commercial bookstores distribute books to people on the basis of their ability to pay; libraries distribute books to people on the principle 'to each according to need'. In a library, if a book is already checked out, the person wanting the book is placed on a waiting list. Books are rationed on deeply egalitarian principle that a day in every person's life is of equal value. A well-resourced library will then use the length of waiting list as an indicator of the need to order more copies of a book. Libraries often also distribute other important resources: music, videos, access to computers, tools, toys, meetings rooms, and, in some libraries, performance spaces. Libraries thus constitute a mechanism of distribution that embodies the egalitarian ideal of giving everyone equal access to the resources needed for a flourishing life. In a democratic socialist economy, there would be an expansion of nonmarket, library-like ways of giving people access to many resources.

'How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century' whetted my appetite the book Olin Wright did not get the chance to write. I found the structure enlightening, although the content was not new to me. It seems like an excellent thing to lend to friends who listen to me complain about capitalism and dare to appear interested. Such quick and accessible introductions that avoid reductive oversimplification are unusual and valuable, given the academic jargon that can dominate this topic.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a product of old age. In the same sense as Kant's Critique of Judgement. Erik Olin Wright had spent the first half of his career laying out an analytic study of classes and the second half of his career identifying pockets of real-world utopian practices. In this book, which was supposed to be a popularization of the latter, he proceeds to summarily transcend the practices and categories he spent decades researching and laying out. The title is probably the worst thing about it. What I like about it, is that he is here presenting his best case for how to go about solutions to the problems and ills of our economy and society. Everyone and their mother seems these days to have their own definition of the problem and wants to spend so much of their time telling us about it. So few are able to come up with solutions and an approach that makes sense. This is what Erik Olin Wright tries to do. Is it perfect? Certainly not. Nevertheless, it's a start and a pretty good one at that. I wish this book was around in the early 1990s. It would've saved us a lot of angst and given us a roadmap of how to direct it towards something productive.

[Matt McGorry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Super clear and broken down into all of its parts. Highly recommend for clarity around the problems with capitalism and how we get to socialism.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘How to be an Anticapitalist in the 21st century’ (VERSO, 2019) is Erik Olin Wright’s (EOW) last book, written in 2018 when he was already battling with cancer from which he died eventually in January 2019 :(

The idea of the 150-page ‘booklet’ was to reproduce (updated) core arguments of EOW’s earlier work on strategies for 21st century socialism for a non-academic audience, no footnotes, no fancy words but still able to make complex ‘no-bullshit Marxism’ arguments. Initially, he planned to write two versions, one accessible to the non-academic public and one more traditional academic standard one which he wasn’t able to write before his death. As we Marxists know better than anyone, methodology matters and it really made me think about ways to popularize and simplify core elements of theories of capitalism beyond populism (focus on 1%) and jargon (‘seizing the means of production’).

Obviously, for the Marxist nerd 🤓 familiar with EOW’s work (I only read ‘Envisioning Real Utopias’ not his earlier more sociologic stuff on class) there’s not a ton of new stuff although this book does summarize some key updated thoughts on socialist strategy. I don’t know many other contemporary thinkers who go about transitioning out of capitalism so concretely and it’s important to lay out the various anticapitalist strategies to make clear that 21st century socialism is not a re-run of 20th century strategies to ‘smash’ capitalism through capturing state power and remodeling society from above. Democratic socialism is also not a continuation of 20th century social democracy’s attempts to ‘tame’ capitalism with an environmental twist. 21st century democratic socialism aims to ‘erode’ capitalism, combining bottom up civil society centered initiatived of resisting and escaping capitalism (cooperatives etc) with top-down, state centered strategies of taming (eg social security, minimum wage, bank regulations, UBI) with transcending capitalism (public credit institutions, investments in noncapitalist relations of production, workplace democracy etc).

EOW points out that some of the strategies to transcend capitalism in the long run will address capitalism’s crises and contradictions in the short term. For instance, according to EOW (I don’t necessarily agree) a universal basic income could address the insecurity in the ‘gig economy’ and unemployment as a result of automation in the short term but would also fundamentally change capital-labour power relations. In order to transcend from within capitalism some strategies will necessarily stabilize capitalism in the short term. This will also be key to ensure support for these strategies by the capitalist class. However, and I cannot stress this enough my social democratic friends, this is not an endorsement of luke warm reformism. Social democracy remains a 20th century project with no relevance for today.

Importantly, an economy is always a hybrid combination of capitalist and non-capitalist elements, but in which one logic dominates. Eroding capitalism is a straregy to expand and deepen socialist elements of the economic system in such a way as to undermine the dominance of capitalism. This includes to deepen and expand diverse ways in which economic activities are democratically organized. This also raises the question of the role of the market in a noncapitalist economy and while there’s fairly amazing stuff out there in terms of big data and planning, it appears evident that the market (price, supply, demand) will continue to play a role with the difference that democracy wont have conform to ‘the market’ but the other way around and that certain parts, such as essential services (water, education, arts, public transport) are also outside the market and organized through other democratic means.

There’s an interesting - and very timely - chapter on state power and the relationship between socialism and democracy. In order to build a democratic socialist alternative to capitalism, we need to ‘democratize democracy’. We can see in the US that any future socialism would require primarly a ‘political revolution’ to bring power back from the elites under democratic control. This of course also points to the fact that in the event of capitalism being under threat, the ‘ruling class’ may as well get rid of democracy altogether, literally reducing democracy to a shambolic fight between billionaires.

[June · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst book I've ever read and I've read Elon Musk's biography, Erik either rejects or has no comprehension of anything socialists stand for so he ended up making a distillation of everything currently wrong with the mainstream left.

Right off the bat Erik admits his vision is for 'democratic market socialism', making the title completely false advertising as 'market socialism' is not anti-capitalist as Erik claims. As long as production is for the sale of commodities in a market for profit rather than for use, workers will remain servants to capital alienated from their work, the planet will be exploited for the sake of firms competing with each other for profit and the capitalist present state of things will be maintained.

Perhaps Erik doesn't understand this because, as he sets out in the first chapter, his entire way of thinking is based around simplified moral guidelines of equality/fairness, democracy/freedom and community/solidarity, practically a mirror of the liberal ideals espouted by bourgeois revolutions of liberty, equality and fraternity, which should say enough about who Erik's rhetoric aligns with. There's no problem with appealing to ideals in a piece of agitation propaganda but when a supposedly socialist theoretical text starts from ideals and builds it's analysis up from there, rather than using a materialist analysis such as the one established by Marxists, that is the problem. If a Marxist analysis was used then he would be able to recognise the contradictions in capitalism, between classes and inherent in markets, and realise class struggle and a resulting dictatorship of the proletariat (the revolutionary working class organising themselves as the ruling class) is the only way to overcome capitalism.

Instead throughout the book Erik lays out 5 different methods of supposedly overcoming capitalism, and only one he outright rejects, that being revolution. The one method that has historically provided some hope of an alternative to capitalism, despite how those revolutions may have been bastardised down the line, and the one method that actually has the potential of overcoming the contradictions in class that Erik is unable to recognise. And his only reason for this, rather than any attempt at an analysis of why he thinks revolutions are inadequate, is that the revolutions of 1917 and in China ended in 'brutal regimes' and 'economic failures' according to Erik. While I'm no admirer of either country beyond around 1928, it's really important that as socialists we analyse past attempts at socialism so we can learn from their mistakes instead of mindlessly parroting talking points from the CIA. As long as past socialist states are not properly and openly analysed for their failures by socialists we will always be tainted by their legacy. In the case of the USSR, conditions such as the first world war followed by a brutal civil war against the armys of the capitalist world and the failure of revolution to spread to Germany lead to paranoia and a distortion of Leninist ideas, leading to a rule of the singular party rather than the whole working classes and eventually counterrevolution. This revisionist ideology of the rule of one party has been cemented into 'Marxism'-'Leninism', and is far from the only ideology to result from the work of Marx. The failure of Marxism-Leninism is irrelevant to the necessary method of a revolution in the working class being able to suppress the bourgeoisie in the first place. And besides all that, to assert these countries as 'economic failures', despite their failures in many aspects, is a blatantly false lie that even bourgeois economists could hardly get away with considering the rapid growth of industrialisation and the economy seen in the USSR and the resulting plummet with the return to liberalism in the 90s. It's a pathetic concession to the narrative of capitalists to attempt to distance yourself from past attempts at socialism. Not that that's a problem for Erik in the first place since his narrative of rejecting class struggle is perfectly palatable to the capitalist class anyway.

The idealism doesn't stop there, Erik's method of toppling capitalism amounts to building supposedly 'anti-capitalist' institutions such as worker co-operatives until they are dominant in the economy, conveniently ignoring the tendency of capital to accumulate and consolidate itself within the capitalist class and therefore enabling monopoly capitalism to develop, the stage of capitalism we are currently living under. No co-operative firm is going to be able to compete Google, Facebook or McDonalds out of the market for profit while holding itself to Erik's ideals of equality and democracy, and to believe so is idealism to the absurd. This is the reason why revolution is only the more necessary today in the world of monopoly capitalism we live in compared to the only developing imperialist capitalism Marx and Lenin saw. The world we live in demands state power and capital be seized, since reform has been made impossible by the increasing absurdities of capitalism

TL/DR- Do not bother with this book, it will only serve to subdue any socialist movement. If you want to gain an understanding of the problems of capitalism, sure starting with Marx is difficult, but at least go for writers that understand his importance and the contradictions of capitalism and how they are overcome that he set out. Don't let the failures of the USSR put you off reading Lenin, he's a much easier read than you might think, or for a bit more modern fun you can give Mark Fisher a go. Anyone but this ignorant author.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

This pithy primer for democratic socialism is a perfect excuse to plug my suggestion for improving the world by having the Scandinavians shadow everyone in our debased deregulated dystopias. From Scotland Before the Bomb:

For decades, commentators had used the countries of Sweden, Norway, and Finland as exemplars of liberal, well-educated societies uncorrupted by big business that treated their citizens in a fair and dignified manner. Since Argyll & Bute had been hitting the skids corruption-wise, with thousands set aside for forest conservation siphoned into ministers’ trousers, and millions set aside for mental health provisions wired to a Swiss bank account, the populace voted that Scandinavians come to the country and shadow everyone, from ministers to trash collectors, and teach them how not to be complete pricks. Colin McGregor, a baker, was shadowed for two months by Kjell Eriksen, who lectured him on not helping himself to cream puffs, charging the same for day-old pastries, or masturbating in the back room. Iain Macquarrie, the finance minister, was shadowed by Linnéa Nyberg, who lectured him on not pocketing the OAP winter heating allowance to build an extention on his seafront cottage so his son Malcolm could move in with his new partner. Alasdair Adair, a single parent of two, was shadowed by Aki Heikkinen, who lectured him on not singing unionist folk songs to his seven-year-old son, thereby implanting a factually incorrect history of the trade union movement into his baby’s ears. Erin Stewart, a reporter, was shadowed by Jørgen Solberg, who lectured her on not arriving too early at crime scenes and interrogating traumatised victims minutes after their ordeals. Arlene Galt, a hairdresser, was shadowed by Tove Ek, who lectured her on not leaving people too long in the dryers, causing acute burns on their scalps, and not trimming her nails to a tolerable length for washing procedures. Callum Brotchie, a GP, was shadowed by Armo Järvinen, who lectured him on not letting off stink bombs under the table to force his chattier patients to leave. Iona Archie, a shepherdess, was shadowed by Aku Hämäläinen, who lectured her on not whipping the sheep with her riding crop when her patience with the flocculent ruminants was tested on windy, rainy afternoons. Jimmy Crae, a hobo, was shadowed by Alfhild Rønning, who lectured him on his poor begging technique and limited repertoire on the zither. Helen Galloway, a senior management accounts executive, was shadowed by Ake Larsson, who lectured her on not talking complete bollocks from the minute she entered the office to the minute she left the office. The scheme was scrapped after the Scandinavians had substantially improved the populace. (p.12-13)

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020 continues strong - Wright's How To Be An Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century feels like an answer or an extension to Fisher's Capitalist Realism. Fisher posited that it has become impossible to think of alternatives to capitalism as capitalism has pervaded through all strands of life.
Wright kind of starts where Fisher ended, by actually finding alternatives to capitalism. Like Judt in Ill Fares The Land he is a huge fan of social democracy, and that is what we should work together,

(as I am, being from the last generation in Germany which got all the benefits of social democracy before neoliberalism started to erode everything)

but it's not just a book about 'hey let's go back to social democracy', Wright goes a bit further. He lists and defines several ways to work around capitalism - smashing capitalsim (didn't work out so well in the past), dismantling capitalism (building a mixed economy top-down style), taming capitalism (what many social democracies tried - use laws to tame), resisting capitalism (collective organisations outside of the state, i.e., what grassroots activists are doing), and escaping capitalism (what hippies do).

Part of the book is discussion and critique of these approaches, after which Wright merges them into eroding capitalism, and that is at the heart of the book: Wright treats a state's economy not as 'one thing' (e.g., 'this state has a capitalist economy') but as an ecosystem where one economic approach can be dominant (capitalism) but where many alternative economies can thrive too in their niches (think libraries, co-ops, etc.). I really like this kind of biological view of an economy - an ecosystem that thrives, develops, where some species are sometimes more abundant than others, not a single thing set in stone forever.

The last chapter is more rudimentary and feels unfinished, probably because Wright was hurrying up as he was dying of cancer. The last chapter is about finding, helping, growing into agents of change, people who will work towards eroding capitalism. It's not really a how-to chapter though, it's much drier and academic, talking about how the terms identities, interests, values differ exactly and how they motivate people to become politically active. Wright correctly identifies many problems that never crossed Marx' mind. For example, we now have fragmented class structures, no 'one big working class', the 99% do not have a shared living experience. Privatized lives of those people make organising on a large scale very difficult.

But this is not the only possibility. Capitalism as it currently exists need not be our future. Popular disaffection with capitalism is widespread even in the absence of confidence in the viability of an alternative system. Resilient efforts at escaping the depredations of corporate capitalism by building new ways of organizing our economic life can be found everywhere. And there are serious efforts at creating new political formations, sometimes within traditional parties on the left, sometimes in the form of new parties. The potential for constructing a broad social base for a new era of progressive politics exists. The contingencies of historical events and the creative agency of activists and collective actors will determine whether this potential is realized.

Both Fisher and Wright died far too young - Fisher to suicide, Wright to cancer - what a loss.

P.S.: I really like this simile:

The idea of taming capitalism does not eliminate the underlying tendency for capitalism to cause harm; it simply counteracts that effect. This is like a medicine that effectively deals with symptoms rather than with the underlying causes of a health problem. Sometimes that is good enough. Parents of newborn babies are often sleep-deprived and prone to headaches. One solution is to take an aspirin and cope; another is to get rid of the baby. Sometimes neutralizing the symptom is better than trying to get rid of the underlying cause.

[Andrew Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave it five stars because of the sheer number of new ideas introduced to me in this book. For people with strong backgrounds in socialism, socialist theory, or whatever, they may not be as excited by the eye opening ideas and find it to be less than five stars.

For example, the book really clarified to me the many plausible forms of non-capitalist systems. Solutions like the USSR - where the state owns everything, bureaucrats make business decisions, and there are not markets - these are clearly bad ideas and undemocratic. But mixed economies, where the state owns some companies, raw capitalism constrained by regulation runs other companies, and socialist mechanisms govern yet more companies - this is a pragmatic mixed economy we can look forward to. In fact, it is our current system. We call it capitalist because private ownership dominates the economic system, but as a democratic society we get to pick and choose which parts of the economy will be run most effectively by the state, by private ownership, or by socialist mechanisms.

I also really enjoyed the value based argument for a more socialist system. The value most emphasized was an appeal to democracy. Privately held companies are not run democratically, nor do I think workers should vote on all decisions. But, in countries like Germany, workers have representatives on the board of directors. It’s a clever mechanism to insure employees have representation and don’t rely solely on the good will of their management.

Overall very interesting. Some dense writing. Some arguments were weak.

[Wendy Liu]

I'm a fan of Erik Olin Wright generally, but this book didn't really speak to me as much as I expected. Maybe I'm not the right audience; maybe our current moment is the wrong time to read a book like this. It's useful as a survey of anti-capitalist theory and praxis, but I'm not sure what else it's accomplishing besides that.

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK it was intellectually amazing but of course sometimes harder to read cuz ESSAY.

To me, a person with next to no education on economics/politics/social sciences, this book was SO NICE - it gently takes you by the hand and tells u: honey, I'm going to tell you all about this, first I'll explain this and then that, so that at the end you'll get a nice understanding of what I'm trying to say, get a warm blanket, sit back and relax, hope u like it.

I mean I clearly enjoyed it cuz I have the same political inclinations but in a very vague, almost emotional kind of way. Erik Olin Wright tells you why such political inclinations actually make sense! They're feasible, they can happen, and we can make them happen if we approach it like this. Basically he walks you through 1) why capitalism is problematic, 2) existing approaches to anti (or non) capitalism, and 3) actual anticapitalist practices that can occur both at state and societal level, which would result in a socialist state where capitalist practices exist but are not THAT mainstream and problematic.

Honestly it's so good that I want to get a copy for my neoliberal, capitalist dad, hoping itll change his mind. Pls borrow it from me. Also spoiler alert: WE NEED UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME

[Rosa K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book (almost guide) gave great clarity into how we can truly achieve an anti-capitalist vision through various avenues: from organizing/protesting to using electoral politics to achieve a truly anti-capitalist reality.

An excerpt from the afterward explained it best "One of the Erik's most remarkable traits was the capacity to persuade through logical argument. Famous for the speed and clarity of his mind, Erik achieved a rare following-an academic-among activists, who saw in his real utopias affirmation for their arduous projects. Possessed of an unlimited capacity to render his ideas precise and simple, without diluting them, Erik gave activists a vision fo a collective project to which each could contribute".

As an individual, especially within capitalism where individualism and the mental orientation to simply think for oneself are rewarded greatly, it's hard not to be overwhelmed with how to truly be anti-capitalist. Erik lays it down, with succinct clarity and logic, of how we can do exactly that. Also, I'm not too well versed with all of Marx+Lenin texts, so to have a distilled almost palpable way to process the texts was extremely useful to me.

[Ingrid Wergeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring and easily read, well composed and good written, from a true intellectual. I’ll get back to this book for political examples and pass it on to fellow socialists. 🚩

[Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid primer. he lays out step by step concepts and players involved in dismantling capitalism, good explanations and definitions.

[Ezgi]

Wright kitabı kanser teşhisi konduktan sonra tedavi sürecinde yazıyor. Bahsettiğine göre daha büyük bir proje olacakmış. Başka ciltler de yazmak istiyor. İstediği gibi olmuyor apar topar son halini veriyor. Wright’ın son ürünü olduğu için okumak istedim. Kitap küçük bir giriş kitabı. Wright’ı okuyanlar için bir tür hafıza tazeleme olur. Okurken sürekli Sınıflar kitabında bahsettiği konuları hatırladım. Ama lise ve üniversite düzeyinde siyasetle ilgilenenler için çok faydalı olacaktır. Wright açık görüşlü biri. Sisteme karşı fikir geliştirmek isteyenlerin de kafasını açacağını düşünüyorum.

[Marieke Dwarswaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Om maar gelijk met het grootste probleem te beginnen: ik weet na het lezen van dit boek nog steeds niet wat ik als individu kan doen om mijn weerstand tegen het kapitalisme vorm te geven.
De auteur schrijft helder, maar blijft steken in oplossingen om het kapitalisme te 'eroden' die toch vooral vanuit de staat moeten worden doorgevoerd. De staat kan daarbij wel een zetje krijgen van burgercollectieven, maar ik vind Wright echt te optimistisch over in hoeverre de staat bereid is om iets aan het mechanisme dat haar dient te doen. Verder had ik graag meer historische voorbeelden gezien van antikapitalisme (zoals bijvoorbeeld in Why women have better sex under socialism wel gebeurt) en zoals eerder gezegd dus concrete handvaten. Zonde, want de titel was veelbelovend.

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad that this is Wright's final book. But it's a fitting end to an amazing career.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its clunky title, How to Be an Anticapitalist in the 21st Century is a quick, breezy, enjoyable read. It builds a great case for why one should be an anticapitalist and what this means. This is a wonderfully optimistic book that somehow left me more pessimistic than I was when I started it—more on that in a bit.

For starters, Wright is an excellent writer. His clear, unpretentious, easygoing style is a breath of fresh air. So many sociologists write in a dreary academic register, but Wright’s voice made me feel like we were chilling at his house and talking about how much capitalism sucks. Love it.

He clearly defines his terms, and the book’s argument flows organically from one topic to the next. Wright also does a nice job anticipating and addressing arguments that a skeptic might have (a real skeptic, not a straw man), rather than just gliding from point to point.

The writing style alone makes this book a great pick for people who may not have thought much about capitalism or don’t know what socialism is. Your friend who voted for Liz Warren would probably like this book.

The most shocking thing about this book was that it has convinced me (at least for now) that smashing capitalism via a violent revolution is probably not the way to go, even though it sure would be wild. Before reading this book, I was convinced that the only way for any kind of anticapitalist ideology to overtake capitalism was if the working class rose up, revolted, and toppled the capitalist state. I was team “smash capitalism” because capitalist elites would obviously crush or corrupt any more gradual attempts to transition to socialism through democratic elections (just ask Chile in 1973).

But duh, the problem with pinning your hopes on a socialist revolution is that (a) that ain’t happening any time soon, (b) that revolutionary effort can still be toppled, and (c) there’s no guarantee that you’ll end up with socialism after the revolution. You might wind up with something far nastier, like fascism or a bunch of brutal warlords or my shitty high school gym teacher. After all, the unstable, violent conditions of a massive civil uprising are not exactly conducive for a beautiful, egalitarian democratic socialist utopia to blossom.

Instead of smashing capitalism, Wright advocates for “eroding capitalism,” which an exciting blend of things that help to create non-capitalist economic structures within capitalism itself. The idea is that we plant the seeds of socialism in the capitalist soil and nurture them carefully over generations so they eventually grow into something that can displace capitalism as the dominant economic model. Rather than ripping the capitalist house down with a single blow, we plant the crawling ivy that slowly takes over the house. This is a lovely picture because instead of waiting for a revolution, we can start building this world right now.

In practice, this means supporting practices and institutions that aren’t based on exploitation and aren’t primarily focused on profit. This includes fun stuff like libraries, Wikipedia, mutual aid organizations, public banks, free healthcare, worker-owned co-ops, and UBI. All that good stuff that makes people’s lives better regardless of their ability to pay.

I think eroding capitalism is an interesting idea, and it may be more plausible than a successful democratic socialist revolution, but I’m not sure how plausible it actually is. Am I being too pessimistic? Maybe. But Wright didn’t fully convince me on this.

Wright argues that the bleakness of our future may actually be a good thing for eroding capitalism. Due to pressures from increasing automation, he argues, many people won’t be able to find paid work in the labor market. Because of the immense infrastructure investments needed to combat climate change, the state will have to step in and take care of people in a way that the free market will not. After all, Wright notes, the free market is not going to build a sea wall around Manhattan. This will allow the (hopefully democratic) state to play a larger role in the future, taking some of the power out of the capitalist marketplace as neoliberalism takes its final wheezing gasps.

This sounds great in theory, but it seems unlikely in practice, at least in the US. We have already seen during COVID how little the state will do to help people when there are massive crises and systemic issues. I don’t see how we get from a couple $600 checks and an (expiring!) child tax credit to a state that actively constrains the free market to help people.

Wright grants that we can’t plant the sneaky tendrils of a socialist future without having very strong democratic institutions and cultural norms. This is where I am a huge pessimist. At least so far, this does not seem to be the path we are on here in the US. Rather, we seem to be headed for a less democratic future with things like voting restrictions, gerrymandering, and politicians that represent their corporate donors far more than their constituents. What if instead of eroding capitalism, democracy erodes instead? Wright briefly touches on this but doesn’t really address this quite plausible scenario. I would have liked to see more reckoning with WTF we are supposed to do if democracy wanes in the 21st century.

While this book made a compelling case for slowly bleeding capitalism to death rather than killing it all at once, it also left me extremely skeptical that such a thing would ever come to pass. In the face of climate catastrophe and automation, it seems more likely that we’re headed for authoritarianism than for a democratic state based on collaboration and mutual aid. But maybe I’m just being a Debbie Downer.

This is a lovely and optimistic little book, but it somehow left me even more pessimistic than I was before reading it. If Wright is correct that a revolution probably won’t work and that we instead need a strong democracy to actually erode capitalism, it may be many, many generations before we can begin to get anywhere with that erosion.

[Sinokim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A political guide for left-leaning people in a capitalist-dominant system. Wright, in a clear manner, describes the moral, political, and economic background of anticapitalism. While the book itself is short, as intended, it provides a strong theoretical background for opposing capitalism in a strategic way.

Besides its usefulness for the Left, people from all political quadrants could find some "brain food". Wright has excellent ideas on democracy, contradictions of capitalist-dominant systems, and orthodox Marxism together with class theory.

Overall, the book provides new ideas for socialists and provides a rational critique of a dominant-capitalist system.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clunky title aside, this is a to-the-point and very clearly worded strategic guide to resisting capitalist power in the current age.

[Maria Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could just hand a copy of this book to anyone I'm arguing with about these issues.
It provides a fresh outlook on the future of left-wing politics, when, for so long (and still, to some extent) we have been stuck in the same old merry-go-round of defending our past. And yet, it doesn't give you a clean-cut one size fits all, all encompassing, recipe for a post-capitalist society, but a set of adaptable variables that help paint a vivid picture of how that world would look like.
While the book tends to build from a very realistic base and diagnosis of capitalism's, it at times, especially as I read it in a time of economic uncertainty and unprecedented democratic backsliding, rather painful to read as it rings so optimistic (which could be precisely what we need right now).

[millie___s. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nije dovoljno biti samo svestan klasa u društvu. Važno je pričati o moralnim vrednostima koje kapitalizam poriče. Nisu svi ljudi u jasno odredjenim grupama, u prvoj ultrabogatih ljudi i u drugoj, radničkoj klasi koja jedva sastavlja kraj s krajem. Sa takvim ljudima vredi pričati o antikapitalizmu kao o moralnovrednosnom sistemu.

Erik piše o jednakosti i pravdi, o demokratiji i slobodi, o zajednici i solidarnosti, kao temeljima oko kojih se kapitalizam i antikapitalizam sukobe.

Erik je želeo da ova knjiga bude jednostavna i bez akademskih složenih koncepata, kako bi približio ljudima alternative kapitalizmu. Planirao je da ova knjiga ima 2 dela: prvi, pojednostavljen, drugi, sa akademskim obrazloženjima. Nažalost, leukemija je imala drugačije planove. Zato ova knjiga predstavlja samo deo njegove vizije.

Pohlepa i strah su osobine koje kapitalizam podstiče, jer u osnovi kapitalizma je takmičenje, a ta velika konkurencija pravi od nas zavidne ljude koji se boje tudjeg uspeha jer to znaci manje uspeha za nas.

Postoje 5 strategija kako se boriti protiv kapitalizma:
1. Smashing capitalism (Razbiti kapitalizam)
2. Dismantling capitalism (Razotkriti kapitalizam)
3. Taming capitalism (Ukrotiti kapitalizam)
4. Resisting capitalism (Odupreti se kapitalizmu)
5. Escaping capitalism (Pobeći od kapitalizma)
Erik daje još jednu strategiju kao kombinaciji prethodno nabrojanih - Eroding capitalism.

I tako dalje, i tako više…

Sjajan profesor Erik!

[Tate Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marxist revolutionaries will brush this off as capitulation to social democracy, but Olin Wright makes a strong case that a successful future for anti-capitalism exists starting in the cracks and margins of the current economic system, until it has taken over like a new plant in an ecosystem. I especially appreciate his acknowledgement that a diversity of strategies and economic models are the way forward, in contrast to rigid statism or the one true institution that will rise and vanquish all others. I also liked his analogy to the way capitalism supplanted feudalism, not by overthrowing it, but by coexisting with and then overtaking it.

[Bart · Rating 2 out of 5]

het gaat mis waar het bij zo veel linkse werken/bewegingen misgaat: het begint bij de vraag: "wat moeten we doen?" en houdt zich vervolgens enkel bezig met een puur theoretische uiteenzetting van wat kapitalisme anti-kapitalisme is zonder daadwerkelijk over te gaan tot een concrete oproep tot organisatie of actie. verder dient het als een prima samenvattende uiteenzetting van waar we tegen of voor strijden, maar nieuwe inzichten blijven uit! het laatste hoofdstuk is goed en fijn om te lezen, maar verder blijven nieuwe inzichten en daadwerkelijke inspiratie uit

[Russell Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb little book, but I expected that. Erik Olin Wright wrote what I think was one of the most important works of socialist analysis ever, Envisoning Real Utopias. It read it over a decade ago, and it changed my whole thinking about the socialist/egalitarian/radical sympathies that I held (and still hold) in my heart. I wrote a lengthy review (which became a part of a book symposium on the Crooked Timber blog) and gave an--I think, anyway--ambitious presentation on it way back when, and I still hold to the book as central to the development of my own thinking and political commitments. Wright's thinking, in the years following the publication of his magnum opus, evolved slightly, however--though, pleasantly for my own sense of Wright's overall arguments as well as the evolution of the intellectual zeitgeist--that evolution apparently centered on exactly what I thought was most important: specifically, understanding socialism as an egalitarian, democratic orientation which must be rooted in at least somewhat decentralized, somewhat localized, communities of solidarity.

In Envisioning, Wright talked about this as an "interstitial" strategy, but only in connection with many other forms of analysis. In this book, he is much more forthright. Smashing capitalism is not, and probably never was, an option, for all sorts of ideological and class-specific reasons, and attempts to do so have been, almost without exception, historically monstrous. So what remains? To both work to dismantle and/or tame capitalism from above, and to resist and/or escape capitalism from below. Wright now sees all of these as part of a common project of slowly "eroding capitalism," and there are enumerable ways in which they might be accomplished. Absolutely key to that accomplishment, however, is the alternative economy: the economy of cooperatives and mutual associations, the local DIY networks, everything and anything that makes for individuals and families and communities capable of operating outside of and without connection to the capitalist ethos (so, worked-owned businesses in which enriching corporate investors isn't the primary goal) and capitalist structures (so, democratic credit unions, enabling entrepreneurs to avoid empowering banks). All of this is, obviously, far less ideological and materialist and revolutionary, and thus far less Marxist, than most modern socialist thinking. But Marxist ideas shouldn't be reduced to historical determinism; markets and groups, not just classes, can and must be understood as additional tools towards which one can build a different future. Wright's work transcends Marx, but also carries along its fundamentally democratic concerns, as well as anything I've ever read. I can't imagine a better primer to Wright's thought than this, his final book.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tough to get through but boy do I feel better than everyone now that I’ve read it.

Tackling capitalism one book at a time.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really tried with this one and struggled through the entire thing. Based on the introduction I thought this would be an accessible intro on how individuals might be able to make small changes in their day to day lives that wouldn't empower the capitalist system we live in.

I got a very academic lecture on types of economic systems and components of capitalism. Interesting in theory but it was so dry and often over my head that I don't think I absorbed much.

Worse is that there's no audio version so I was also struggling with re-reading page after page without absorbing anything until I finally imported it into a screenreader app to have the second half read to me.

He seemed too optimistic of what state-financed programs would be able to provide, as if we aren't currently dealing with any programs that currently operate that way being actively sabotaged (USPS, public school, libraries, etc.)

I have more thoughts but my brain is kind of fried after trying to get through this and will have to parse through later, but overall I wasn't satisfied with the book or what I'm supposed to do with any information I did manage to get from it.

[Fernando Ramírez de Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to the ills of capitalism, the strategies that can be followed to transform it and how to get there. All with the benefit of no-bullshit Marxism at its finest; no obscure ideas, everything laid out clearly and with proper definitions, and a willingness to make anticapitalism accessible. I wholeheartedly recommend this read as a good one for anybody who wants to grasp the basics of anticapitalism, for those willing to learn more about democratic socialism, or just to get their mental contents in order in a world where understanding social phenomena is a daunting task in a sea of constant stimulation and agitation.

[Regret Husk · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is not an instructional handbook which i think is false advertising - give it to your centrist dad, not to comrades looking for guides to praxis

[Adam Zivo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in an attempt to better understand contemporary critiques of capitalism and the specific recommendations levied by North American socialists. As a disclaimer, my academic career heavily focussed on Maoist China, and, being keenly aware of the dangers and failures of 20th century socialism, I came at this book primarily looking for ideas on how to encourage ethical capitalism.

I was disappointed in the book because it lacked the concreteness and pragmatism that I hoped to find within a book that sells itself as being praxis-oriented. The first half was alright. It established useful frameworks for determining people's varying attitudes and responses to capitalism, as well as some of the main values we can defer to when looking at economic and political reform. The frameworks weren't as robust as I'd hoped, but, then again, this book is explicitly meant to be introductory, hence its concision and accessible writing. So, insofar as it didn't give me what I wanted, that's okay -- it simply wasn't trying to provide the thing I was looking for, because I'm not the author's intended audience.

However, moving into the second half the author got into specific policy/reform proposals and here the lack of rigour become genuinely frustrating. Wright threw out a laundry list of top-level proposals, each of which would be highly transformative for society, but he gave so little time or analysis to any of them that it felt like reading the quixotic dreaming of, I don't know, a second year undergrad student. Wright articulated highly idealized and optimistic versions of his proposals, waving away or ignoring many serious obstacles to their implementation, and... I just don't understand what the point was? Because no policymaker would be able to do anything with these proposals as they're presented, because they're so shallow, and he didn't provide any current or historical case studies that could flesh his ideas out. He didn't even link us to external work/research for us to follow up on. So great -- it's useless.

But the above is a bit general so here are some specific questions/issues I had in mind:

- His proposals/analysis on intellectual property suggests that he has no idea how intellectual property works or how it exists, and, sure, he wants IP to be democratized by focussing on creating creative commons licenses (something that comes up in his writing on 3D printing), but weakening IP rights tends to lower incentives for research & development into new technologies. So how do you balance that?

- There seem to be a lot of strengths to UBI and I'm not hostile to the idea of UBI in general, but his analysis of UBI in relation to entrepreneurship shows an ignorance of how entrepreneurship works, particularly with respect to risk. Wright argues that UBI is good for entrepreneurship because it reduces risk for starting new ventures, since people have their needs taken care of regardless. But risk isn't entirely a bad thing in entrepreneurship since, in forcing people to have real stakes involved in their business, it forces people to really consider if their business is needed, and so weeds out bad ideas. When you have entrepreneurship with full financial security, you end up getting, as an example, privileged trust-fund kids using their parents money to create unnecessary clothing boutiques and specialty stores. And then those businesses fail, but that's okay because the cost to society is privatized. But in Wright's proposal, the state/society acts as the rich parent, subsidizing bad entrepreneurship wherein capital is provided with too little expectation/responsibility. So you get a system that encourages bad entrepreneurship, but the costs of failing businesses is absorbed by the public, which pays the salaries of these whimsical would-be entrepreneurs, and profit is privatized. Anyways, there's a lot more that could be said, but that's just one line of analysis there, one objection among many that could lead to all sorts of productive and difficult conversations, but in Wright's book he just makes things sound so... easy. Once again, like an idealistic student who assumes that all these nice sounding ideas haven't been implemented because the world is immoral, not because they have serious technical/practical issues.

- Okay so I wrote way too much of the above, so I'll just finish off by saying that Wright's proposals on corporate governance (IE: a bicameral board-of-directors that mirrors parliamentary governance) is based on the assumption that you can easily adapt state governance models to corporate governance, when states and businesses face v different kinds of pressures. For example, businesses exist in much more competitive, Darwinian environments, which privileges hierarchical (efficient) governance models over democratic (inefficient) governance. To illustrate, the US, as a state, can afford bicameral gridlocks -- gridlock will make a state weak, but the state itself is unlikely to cease to exist -- whereas a business cannot (for a dysfunctional business is fairly easily displaced by a competitor). So, with this in mind, if you have democratically governed businesses in society, do you ensure that businesses are also monopolistic, so that they can *afford* to be inefficient and democratic without worrying about someone else swooping in and taking their market share? If you end up doing a democratic-monopolistic system, then how do you deal with international competition? Do you clamp down on international trade so national monopolies can survive with all their inefficiencies? But then what happens if that makes everyone poorer, as has often been the case when economies have cut themselves off from global trade? And so on and on and on. All these questions and concerns. All these complications, all rendered invisible by Wright's floating, idealistic book which cartoonizes social/political problems -- easy problems, easy solutions! -- rather than recognizing their frustrating complexity.