Erik Olin Wright, a sociologist and former member of the 'non-bullshit Marxists' (which included analytical philosophers GA Cohen and Jon Elster and economist John Roemer amongst others), has a good book Envisioning Real Utopias (full book on his webpage here) that I think would be a profitable read for those interested in utopias work.
Chapter 5 summarizes some of the book's themes.
This Guidelines article by Erik is an even shorter high-level take.