Abstract

The general argument of this book is easily stated: utopian thinking plays an essential role in all types of transformative politics. For a variety of reasons, however, utopian thinking has become virtually impossible in contemporary Western societies. Therefore, in these societies, transformative politics have almost completely disappeared and been replaced by a narrow form of interest group politics. Jacoby assumes that the disappearance of transformative politics represents a grave failure of modern society, but it is not clear why he believes this is so. Moreover, throughout the book Jacoby assumes that the left has a monopoly on transformative politics, but this too is never argued.