Erik Olin Wright

Wright argued that many people occupy positions combining features of different classes rather than fitting neatly into worker or capitalist categories. A manager, for example, may be controlled by an employer while also exercising authority over employees, a central problem in his 1985 book Classes.

The Real Utopias project examined institutions that could reduce domination while remaining workable in existing societies. Wright discussed cases such as worker cooperatives, participatory budgeting, and Wikipedia in Envisioning Real Utopias.

Wright retained Marx's focus on exploitation but analyzed control over several productive assets, including capital, organizational authority, and specialized skills. This allowed him to distinguish employers, small proprietors, managers, experts, and workers within a more detailed class map.

Wright treated worker-controlled enterprises as evidence that production does not always require conventional capitalist ownership. His interest was not simply whether cooperatives survived, but whether they expanded democratic control and reduced class inequality.