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The Retreat to Unfreedom: Essays on the Emerging World Order

By Patnaik Prabhat

	14.50 E

OVERVIEW

For the first two decades after World War II, it appeared as if mankind was embarking on a remarkable journey towards freedom: the socialist world underwent a rapid expansion and the advanced capitalist countries restructured themselves.

The world today, however, presents a totally changed scenario. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the socialist project regressed; on the other side, the ‘golden age’ of capitalism has become a distant memory. Above all, there has been a veritable rolling back of ‘decolonization’, with the third world once again being pushed back under metropolitan hegemony. Poverty has increased and there is a growth of fascism of different hues.

An important factor underlying this substantial change is the emergence of a new form of international finance capital which has undermined the capacity of the nation-state. If progress along the road to freedom has come to a halt and/or been reversed, if there is a retreat to unfreedom, then, the analysis of the causes of this retreat requires an exploration of the immanent logic of this new form of international finance capital. The essays in this book constitute a preliminary attempt at such an exploration.

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