Transforming Capitalism through Real Utopias

This address explores a broad framework for thinking sociologically about emancipatory alternatives to dominant institutions and social structures, especially capitalism. The framework is grounded in two foundational propositions: (1) Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in human flourishing are the result of existing institutions and social structures. (2) Transforming existing institutions and social structures in the right way has the potential to substantially reduce human suffering and expand the possibilities for human flourishing. An emancipatory social science responding to these propositions faces four broad tasks: specifying the moral principles for judging social institutions; using these moral principles as the standards for diagnosis and critique of existing institutions; developing an account of viable alternatives in response to the critique; and proposing a theory of transformation for realizing those alternatives. The idea of “real utopias” is one way of thinking about alternatives and transformation. at UNIV OF WISCONSIN on January 5, 2013 asr.sagepub.com Downloaded from 2 American Sociological Review XX(X) much of what I have to say would apply to other dominant institutions as well. My hope is to contribute to a normatively grounded sociology of the possible, not just the actual. Developing a theory of alternatives to capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a pressing task, for to most people capitalism now seems the natural order of things. This was not always the case. Throughout the twentieth century, many people on both the left and the right saw socialism as an alternative, either as a promise of emancipation or as a threat of oppression. Today, however, even for most critics on the left, socialism as a future to capitalism no longer has much credibility. This does not mean people have universally come to view capitalism as a benign social order within which humanity will flourish. Indeed, we live in a period in which many of the traditional socialist criticisms of capitalism seem more appropriate than ever: economic instability and crisis harm the lives of masses of people; inequality, economic polarization, and job insecurity in many economically developed countries have been deepening; capital has become increasingly footloose, moving across the globe and severely undermining the democratic capacity of states and communities; giant corporations dominate the media and cultural production; the market appears like a law of nature uncontrollable by human device; and politics are ever more dominated by money and unresponsive to the concerns and worries of ordinary people. The need for a vibrant alternative to capitalism is as great as ever. Yet the particular institutional arrangements that have come to be associated with alternatives—socialism rooted in state control of the economy—are seen as incapable of delivering on their promises. Instead of being viewed as a threat to capitalism, talk of socialism now seems more like archaic utopian dreaming, or perhaps even worse: a distraction from dealing with tractable problems in the real world. In what follows I propose a powercentered framework for addressing these issues anchored in the idea of “real utopias.” At its core, this proposal revolves around transforming power relations within the economy in ways that deepen and broaden the possibility of meaningful democracy. I will begin by briefly discussing two foundational propositions shared by all varieties of critical and emancipatory social science. The idea of real utopias is one response to the intellectual challenge posed by these propositions.