Abstract

Worrell and Krier’s “Atopia Awaits! A Critical Sociological Analysis of Marx’s Political Imaginary” raises serious issues regarding Marx’s legacy. They hold that a fatal flaw in Marx’s framework can be detected in his account of a post-capitalist society, which reveals a theoretically impoverished and politically dangerous neglect of essential features of social life. I argue that there are good reasons to reject Worrell and Krier’s thesis that Marx got immensely important things horribly wrong. Marx’s limited remarks on post-capitalist society are certainly inadequate in numerous respects. However, they point in the right general direction, and Worrell and Krier fail to offer a satisfactory alternative. The prospects for a critical social theory adequate to the immense challenges of the 21st century would be harmed if their readers agreed with the paper’s main thesis.

Keywords

Radical social theory, historical materialism, Marxism, neo-Marxism, political sociology

From: Critical Sociology 2018 44 (2)

Editor: Wang Yi