Abstract

In this radical and controversial overview of the post-communist world, Boris Kagarlitsky argues that the very success of neoliberal capitalism has made traditional socialism all the more necessary and feasible.

Kagarlitsky argues that leftists exaggerate the importance of the 'objective' aspects of the 'new reality' - globalisation - and the weakening of the state, while underestimating the importance of the hegemony of neoliberalism. As long as neoliberalism retains its ideological hegemony, despite its economic failure, the consequence is a 'new barbarism' - already a reality in Eastern Europe, and now also emerging in the West.

Kagarlitsky challenges the political neurosis of the left and prevailing assumptions of Marxism to argue that Marx's theories are now more timely than they were in the mid-twentieth century. He analyses theories of the 'end of the proletariat' and the 'end of work', and assesses the potential of the new technologies - such as the Internet - which create fresh challenges for capitalism and new arenas for struggle.
'This ambitious trilogy by the Russian scholar and activist Boris Kagarlistky offers an intriguing diagnosis of the plight of the Left at a moment when its fortunes may be starting to change for the better'
Times Literary Suplement
'An ambitious assessment of the current state of the left worldwide, offers an antidote to [the] assumption that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism'
Red Pepper