Utopia, dystopia, utopistics, or the end of utopia: On Wallerstein's critique of historical materialism

Wallerstein's project of refunctioning and reviving historical materialism's utopian dimension is placed within the context of a venerable tradition of similar projects, the most notable having been Ernst Bloch's and, more recently, that of Jürgen Habermas. Wallerstein's utopistics are reinscribed within a project of a critique, in the Kantian sense, of utopian reason, and in this way, it is argued, the utopian sources and yearnings of historical materialism are made relevant for an age that suffers from a lack of transformative visions.