Abstract

Utopia is a contested concept that is both highly problematic and indispensable for envisaging the possibility of change. In the Marxist tradition, the question of utopia plays a key role in the critique of present-day capitalism and the prefiguration of an alternative society. This essay moves from the relationship of Marx and Engels with utopian socialism, discusses the “concrete utopiaµ of Ernst Bloch, leading to an analysis of twentieth century Marxist and radical thinkers who redefined the issue of utopia linking it to the possibility of constructing concrete alternatives. In today’s capitalism, Marx’s insights and his project of transformation finds a new relevance and the concept of utopia could be reformulated by moving from the contradictory internal logic of capital and opening the way to a process of liberation