Socialism or Barbarism

Istvan Meszaros's bold new study analyzes the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his monumental and widely-acclaimed work, Beyond Capital, Meszaros shows that the economic boom of the 1990s was built not only on the foundation of new, digital technologies but also on a new social and ethical basis. In the global quest for profit, capitalism has abandoned its claims to serve a larger historical cause.The failure of capitalism's historical mission is most evident in the end of the project of "Third World modernization" so essential to the claims of U.S. global power to represent an advance on old-style imperialism. Meszaros develops an illuminating analysis of the roots and tensions of the politics of U.S. global power from the time of Roosevelt's "Open Door" policy to the present. Against this historical background, he examines the dilemmas which will be faced in the making of U.S. foreign policy towards China -- the largest and most rapidly-expanding national market in the global economy and the newly-emerging rival to U.S. global dominance. Meszaros gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the 20th century: socialism or barbarism.