Erik Olin Wright as a rara avis case. A review of the “last” analytical marxist

Abstract

The present article put forward a review of the work of the American sociologist Erik Olin Wright. His trajectory will be critically approached as a researcher paying special attention to the methodological principles (analytical and normative) that guide all his theoretical production. A genealogic research of his main problematic is offered: his structural approach to class, his particular interpretation of K. Marx, his links (but in a sui generis way) to the intellectual tradition of “analytical Marxism”, and the theoretical inheritances of the “althusserian school”. Finally, the political implications of these methodological principles and of these linkages are evaluated.