*Invited Resource* What of country do we live in? What does it even mean to talk about a kind of country? We all know it means to ask of a strange creature what of animal is this? But it is less clear how to ask the same question of a society. The question is muddied further by the fact that societies can change. A leopard can’t change its spots. But a society can become more or less productive in the organization of its economy, more or less equal in its distribution of opportunity, more or less democratic. This course provides an extended answer to the question of of a country the United States is. It also explores the implications of that answer for understanding, and making progress in solving, some of the social problems that confront America today. Our discussion revolves around five key values that most Americans believe our society should realize: 1. Freedom: the idea, commonly thought to be the most essential to the American creed, that people should be able to live their lives, to the greatest degree possible, as they wish. This means people should be free from coercive restrictions imposed by others and, as much as possible, have the capacity to put their life plans into effect. 2. Prosperity: the idea that an economy should generate a high standard of living for most people, not just a small privileged elite. 3. Economic efficiency: the idea that the economy should generate rational outcomes, effectively balancing costs and benefits in the way resources are used. 4. Fairness: the idea that people should be treated justly and that they should have equal opportunity to make something of their lives without unfair privileges and unfair disadvantages. 5. Democracy: the idea that our public decisions should reflect the collective will of equal citizens, not of powerful and privileged elites.

Imaginar utopías reales es un elemento componente central de una empresa intelectual más amplia que puede llamarse ciencia social emancipadora. La ciencia social emancipadora trata de generar conocimiento científico pertinente para el proyecto colectivo de cuestionar diversas formas de opresión humana. El hecho de llamar a esto una forma de ciencia social antes que simplemente crítica o filosofías sociales, supone reconocer la importancia que para este objetivo tiene el conocimiento científico sistemático acerca de cómo funciona el mundo. El término emancipador señala un propósito moral central en la producción del conocimiento, esto es, la eliminación de la opresión y la creación de condiciones que favorezcan el florecimiento humano.1 Y la palabra social supone la creencia de que la emancipación humana depende de la transformación del mundo social y no solamente de la vida interior de las personas.

Very few Marxist works on the state can be considered pure examples of an instrumentalist, structuralist, or Hegelian-Marxist perspective. The instrumentalist perspective has made a number of important contributions to a Marxist theory of the state. It has generated much research that has helped to build a sociology of the capitalist class. The structuralist analysis of the state categorically rejects the notion that the state can be understood as a simple "instrument" in the hands of a ruling class. As in much of Marxist theory, explanations based on "history" or "class consciousness" or "class struggle" often have a residual quality to them. The capitalist state must be conceived both as a structure constrained by the logic of the society within which it functions and as an organization manipulated behind the scenes by the ruling class and its representatives.

The author lays out the distinctive features of a neo-Marxist class approach used in present-day sociology. First, he clarifies what exactly constitutes the fundamental point of class analysis within the Marxist framework and what it tries to accomplish. This work also provides a description of similarities and differences between the Weberian and Marxist traditions with regard to the conceptual components and pivotal explanatory ambitions. The distinctive hallmark of the Marxian approach is that it defines the concept of social class in terms of exploitation. In Wright’s view, the theoretical pay-off of elaborating the Marxian-inspired conception of class, which isbased on social relations of production on the one hand and exploitation and domination on the other, is that this conception infuses class analysis with moral critique. Such an analysis can function not simply as part of a scientific theory of interests and conflicts, but also as a constituent of an emancipatory theory offering alternatives to capitalism on the basis of social justice.

Purpose Creation of bioengineered lungs (BL) through decellularization of porcine lungs followed by recellularization of the scaffold with human cells has been identified as a promising strategy for increasing the number of lungs suitable for transplant. Here, we report our progress developing a BL based on this combination decell/recell strategy. Methods Left lungs were dissected from porcine heart-lung blocks and decellularized. The left main pulmonary artery (PA), left atrial cuff (LA), and left main bronchus were then cannulated and attached to a bioreactor. Epithelial cells (EP) were instilled into the airway, followed by instillation of endothelial cells (EC) through the PA and LA. The grafts were then cultured for 7 to 16 days, followed by functional assessment by modified ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) techniques. Mock recells (MR) were also performed using the same dissection and perfusion scheme, but seeding steps were also omitted. Results After recellularization, 42 BLs received functional evaluation. Overall, the mean ΔPaO2/FiO2 ratio of BLs was 233 mmHg (Figure 1A), compared to an average of 102mmHg for MR and 395 mmHg for native porcine lungs (NL). Tidal volume and PIP in BL averaged 42ml and 24 cmH2O, respectively, compared to 25ml and 23 cmH2O in MR and 93ml and 17 cmH2O in NL. Additionally, vascular resistance (VR) in BL averaged 18,040 dyn*s*cm-5 at an average PA pressure (PAP) of 9 mmHg (Figure 1B). This was higher than decellularized scaffold, which averaged 17,600 dyn*s*cm-5 at 6 mmHg and NL, which averaged 3960 dyn*s*cm-5 at an average PAP of 17 mmHg. Conclusion We report positive progress toward production of functional BL grafts. Our results detail BL grafts that have perfusable vasculature and are capable of moderate gas exchange. While more development is required, considerable progress has been made, bringing bioengineered lungs closer to reality. Creation of bioengineered lungs (BL) through decellularization of porcine lungs followed by recellularization of the scaffold with human cells has been identified as a promising strategy for increasing the number of lungs suitable for transplant. Here, we report our progress developing a BL based on this combination decell/recell strategy. Left lungs were dissected from porcine heart-lung blocks and decellularized. The left main pulmonary artery (PA), left atrial cuff (LA), and left main bronchus were then cannulated and attached to a bioreactor. Epithelial cells (EP) were instilled into the airway, followed by instillation of endothelial cells (EC) through the PA and LA. The grafts were then cultured for 7 to 16 days, followed by functional assessment by modified ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) techniques. Mock recells (MR) were also performed using the same dissection and perfusion scheme, but seeding steps were also omitted. After recellularization, 42 BLs received functional evaluation. Overall, the mean ΔPaO2/FiO2 ratio of BLs was 233 mmHg (Figure 1A), compared to an average of 102mmHg for MR and 395 mmHg for native porcine lungs (NL). Tidal volume and PIP in BL averaged 42ml and 24 cmH2O, respectively, compared to 25ml and 23 cmH2O in MR and 93ml and 17 cmH2O in NL. Additionally, vascular resistance (VR) in BL averaged 18,040 dyn*s*cm-5 at an average PA pressure (PAP) of 9 mmHg (Figure 1B). This was higher than decellularized scaffold, which averaged 17,600 dyn*s*cm-5 at 6 mmHg and NL, which averaged 3960 dyn*s*cm-5 at an average PAP of 17 mmHg. We report positive progress toward production of functional BL grafts. Our results detail BL grafts that have perfusable vasculature and are capable of moderate gas exchange. While more development is required, considerable progress has been made, bringing bioengineered lungs closer to reality.

We analyze U.S. job growth from the 1980s to the 2010s. We define jobs as occupations within sectors to capture position in the production system as well as skill hierarchies. Low-wage jobs outgrew middle-wage jobs over much of this period, particularly for women and nonwhite workers. Service work drove most low-wage job growth, but even a small resurgence in manufacturing job growth in the 2010s was concentrated in low-wage jobs. Given the constraints of economic restructuring on the growth of decent jobs, we consider alternative logics for the creation of jobs in twenty-first-century economies. The prospects for job growth in the future, we argue, requires a robust defense of these alternative logics that can and do thrive alongside and within a capitalist market economy.

Erik Olin Wright (1947-2019), autor de numerosas obras sobre las relaciones de clase durante mas de cuatro decadas, renovo el enfoque marxista. En particular, ha tratado de hablar seriamente de los efectos que han tenido las transformaciones del capitalismo en las estructuras de clase, especialmente el crecimiento de las posiciones intermedias entre propietarios capitalistas y trabajadores explotados, asociadas a los puestos de direccion y las funciones de los expertos. Su obra sigue siendo poco conocida en Francia, a pesar de los ecos de la traduccion de su ultimo libro sobre las «verdaderas utopias», que propone respuestas al problema de la estrategia de transformacion social. La traduccion de Ugo Palheta de Class Counts [La clase importa] en la editorial Amsterdam, que ha sido anunciada para 2020, deberia cambiar la situacion. La editorial nos honra con la publicacion de un extracto de la introduccion.

In his essay “Thoughts on Capitalism and Socialism,” Martin Sklar proposes a particular way of understanding the patterns of thought that have animated social and political struggles in capitalist societies since the mid-nineteenth century.1 This analysis enables Sklar to offer empirical diagnoses of the thinking of important historical figures in strikingly novel ways: Lenin, for example, is a “right-wing utopian pro-socialist,” while Jane Addams and Eduard Bernstein are “left-wing realistic pro-socialists,” and Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson are “left-wing realistic procapitalists.” This is a nuanced and deeply insightful way of mapping the complexity of variations in ideological configurations.

This chapter presents some of the metatheoretical foundations of the conceptual project and explores some main tasks. It describes the concept of class structure within the broader enterprise of class analysis. The chapter discusses the problem of elaborating what it calls a repertoire of class structure concepts that vary along two dimensions: their degree of abstraction and the extent to which they specify class structure at a macro- or microlevel of analysis. It examines the relationship between Weberian and neo-Marxist approaches to class in terms of the problem of generating adequate, concrete, microlevel concepts of class structure. Elaborating a coherent concept of class structure, therefore, is an important conceptual precondition for developing a satisfactory theory of the relationship between class structure, formation, and struggle. The Marxist concept of class structure has traditionally been developed most systematically as a highly abstract macrostructural concept.

No idea is more closely associated with Marx than the claim that the intrinsic, contradictory dynamics of capitalism ultimately lead to its self-destruction while simultaneously creating conditions favourable for a revolutionary rupture needed to create an emancipatory alternative in which the control by the capitalist class of investments and production is displaced by radical economic democracy. Marx’s formulation of a theory of transcending capitalism is unsatisfactory for two main reasons: 1) the dynamics of capitalism may generate great harms, but they do not inherently make capitalism unsustainable nor do they generate the structural foundations of a collective actor with a capacity to overthrow capitalism; 2) the vision of a system-level rupture with capitalism is not a plausible strategy replacing capitalism by a democratic-egalitarian economic system. Nevertheless, there are four central propositions anchored in the Marxist tradition that remain essential for understanding the possibility of transcending capitalism: 1. Capitalism obstructs the realization of conditions for human flourishing. 2. Another world is possible. 3. Capitalism’s dynamics are intrinsically contradictory. 4. Emancipatory transformation requires popular mobilization and struggle. These four propositions can underwrite a strategic vision of eroding the dominance of capitalism by building democratic-egalitarian economic relations within the contradictory spaces of capitalism.

Erik Olin Wright est, avec Fredric Jameson, David Harvey ou Perry Anderson, l’une des figures majeures du marxisme anglo-américain contemporain. Mais il est l’une des moins connues en France. La parution d’ Utopies réelles aux éditions la Découverte en 2017, dans une collection dirigée par Christian Laval et Laurent Jeanpierre, marque à cet égard un tournant. Dans cet entretien, l’un des premiers parus dans une revue française, Wright revient sur sa trajectoire intellectuelle depuis les années 1960. Il trace notamment la généalogie du « marxisme analytique », dont il reste à ce jour l’un des principaux représentants. Il évoque également l’idée d’« utopie réelle », par l’entremise de laquelle il esquisse les voies d'un anticapitalisme pour le xxi e siècle.

The author makes the case for sortition from a Marxist perspective, explaining how sortition could become part of an anticapitalist political strategy.

In this article, we review the intrinsic democratic flaws in electoral representation, lay out a set of principles that should guide the construction of a sortition chamber, and argue for the virtue of a bicameral system that combines sortition and elections. We show how sortition could prove inclusive, give citizens greater control of the political agenda, and make their participation more deliberative and influential. We consider various design challenges, such as the sampling method, legislative training, and deliberative procedures. We explain why pairing sortition with an elected chamber could enhance its virtues while dampening its potential vices. In our conclusion, we identify ideal settings for experimenting with sortition.

[The capitalist state and the possibility of socialism] As part of The Real Utopias Project, Erik Olin Wright has since 1991 explored various models of radical social change through a variety of anthologies and monographs, including Envisioning real utopias (from 2010). In this article, Wright examines how Göran Therborn’s book What does the ruling class do when it rules? from 1978 can be used to draft a possible socialist alternative to capitalism that is relevant to the anti-capitalist struggle today. Therborn’s book deals with how we are to understand the state and its role in reproducing prevailing class relations. This was a key issue for the labour movement of the 20th century when it – through democratic elections or revolutions – tried to transform society through the capturing of state power. Wright shows how Therborn’s analysis is still relevant to those who, in the light of the failures and acts of cruelty of “real socialism” and the global expansion of capitalism with rampant environmental destruction and inequality in tow, try to formulate a concept of true democratic socialism and develop possible strategies to challenge and transcend the predominant economic system. Publication history: Translation of the chapter “The capitalist state and the possibility of socialism” from Gunnar Olofsson & Sven Hort (eds.), Class, sex and revolutions. Göran Therborn – a critical appraisal , Arkiv förlag/Arkiv Academic Press 2016. (Published 23 May 2017) Citation: Wright, Erik Olin (2017) “Den kapitalistiska staten och möjligheten till socialism”, in Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys , issue 8, pp. 47–76. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.8.2

Precariousness is a pervasive and increasing condition of life in both the developed and less developed regions of the world. Guy Standing has proposed a reconceptualisation of these trends from precarity as a condition to the precariat as a class distinct from the working class. This article presents a Marxist critique of this reconceptualisation on two principle grounds: first, that the material interests of people in the precariat and in the working class are not sufficiently opposed to each other for these to constitute two distinct classes; and second, that across the various segments of the precariat the optimal strategies for securing a livelihood are not sufficiently unified for the precariat as a whole to constitute a class.