PRAGOTI

The anti-people character of the neoliberal regime and the bankruptcy of its free market ideology are getting thoroughly exposed with the deepening economic crisis and the irrational, vested-interest-driven actions of the bourgeois governments. With the weakening hegemony of neoliberal ideas, debates over alternatives to globalised capitalism are emerging, along with a revival of interest in Marxism and socialist ideas across the world. Attempts are also underway to better understand and analyze the contemporary world from a Marxist standpoint.

A blogpost on the current Chinese growth process and its implications for socialism in that country.

"Empiricisation or the pursuit of a political praxis that is uninformed by the project of transcending capitalism was ultimately responsible for the defeat of the CPI(M) in West Bengal. It is this empiricisation that is far more worrying than the election defeat itself. In a period when many have abandoned the concept of imperialism, the CPI(M) remains steadfast in its adherence to this concept; as long as the concept and the project remain valid, the historical relevance of the party remains unimpaired. But if the party does not arrest the process of empiricisation it has been experiencing and finally ends up accepting the hegemony of bourgeois theory, then it will get supplanted by some other communist formation subscribing to a theoretical position similar to what it has today" argues Prabhat Patnaik.

The quest for human freedom requires a transcendence of capitalism. What is important, however, is the overall vision that we have of the socialism that will emerge, one which accords centrality to human freedom, which remains continuously “open” and untainted by ossification in any form, and which constitutes an unleashing of democracy and a perennial engagement of the people with politics.

The article, originally published in the Economic and Political Weekly is attached along with this post.