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ISBN:
1-58367-049-1
$23.00 paper


ISBN:
1-58367-048-3
$55.00 cloth

308 pp.

November 2001

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A WORLD OF CONTRADICTIONS

Socialist Register 2002

edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys

“I know the Register very well and have found it extremely stimulating, often invaluable.” — NOAM CHOMSKY

“The Socialist Register has been the intellectual lodestar for the international left since 1965.” — MIKE DAVIS

Radical politics have been defined in modern times—and distinguished from earlier traditions of protest—by the idea that economic, social and political structures are contradictory. Systems of exploitation creates not only wealth and prosperity for the powerful, but at the same time bring into being the forces which ensure their own eventual downfall. But it is a large step from the general assertion that social forms contain their own contradictions to analysis of the specific contradictions which occur in a given historical context, their interaction and movement, and their possible historical outcomes.

This collection of essays examines social contradictions in the age of globalization in which old antagonisms often appear to be overcome, and new cracks are emerging in the façade of capitalist progress. Where do they occur? Where can they be expected to appear in future? How can they be grasped in a spirit of sober radicalism, which neither accepts the limits of the present nor overcomes them through wishful thinking alone? What possibilities do they offer for mobilizing resistance? These issues define an agenda which is critical for socialism in our time.

Contributors to this volume are especially concerned with capitalism as a global system today, dependent on the strength of the U.S. economy and currency and on global financial institutions such as the World Bank capable of carrying out the capitalist agenda. They provide a timely and critical analysis of what big corporations want and of the problems their agenda creates for their own continued dominance and prosperity.

Contributors & Contents

Preface

Naomi Klein
Farewell to "The End of History": Organization
and Vision in Anti-Corporate Movements

André Drainville
Quebec City 2001 and the Making of Transnational Subjects

Gérard Duménil & Dominique Lévy
The Nature and Contradictions of Neoliberalism

Elmar Altvater
The Growth Obsession

David Harvey
The Art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly,
and the Commodification of Culture

Graham Murdock & Peter Golding
Digital Possibilities, Market Realities: The Contradictions
of Communications Convergence

Reg Whitaker
The Dark Side of Life: Globalization and International Crime

Guglielmo Carchedi
Imperialism, Dollarization, and the Euro

Susanne Soederberg
The New International Financial Architecture: Imposed
Leadership and "Emerging Markets"

Paul Cammack
Making Poverty Work

Marta Russell & Ravi Malhotra
Capitalism and Disability

Michael Kidron
The Injured Self

David Miller
Media Power and Class Power: Overplaying Ideology

Pablo González Casanova
Negotiated Contradictions

Ellen Wood
Contradictions: Only in Capitalism?

About the Editors
LEO PANITCH is professor of political science at York University in Toronto.

COLIN LEYS was for many years professor of political science at Queen's University in Canada.

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