Erik Olin Wright, American Marxist sociologist, Died at 71

Erik Olin Wright was born on February 9, 1947, in Berkeley, California and died on January 23, 2019.

He  was an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism.

He was known for diverging from classical Marxism in his breakdown of the working class into subgroups of diversely held power and therefore varying degrees of class consciousness.

Wright introduced novel concepts to adapt to this change of perspective including deep democracy and interstitial revolution.

He started making contributions to the intellectual community in the mid-1970s, along with a whole generation of young academics who were radicalized by the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.

Wright was elected President of the American Sociological Association, in 2012.

Erik Olin Wright passed away at 71 years old, due acute myeloid leukemia.