Re-reading the postwar period

This fascinating history of ideas presents a theoretical overview of each new stage of the past half-century by an outstanding intellectual, grounded in a wide knowledge of economic theory and the practical problems of transforming post-colonial societies. Beginning in the 1960s, Samir Amin was one of a handful of economists who challenged the « development » ideology that dominated universities, research institutes, and governments at the time. His work was a major breakthrough for intellectuals in the third world who were seeking an alternative theoretical structure. Since then, he has continued to test his theory against changes in the real world : the interrelationship between theory and practice has been central to his work. Reflecting on his writing on the postwar period, Amin here reconsiders his theses concerning capitalism and socialism in the light of recent events. In separate chapters, he re-examines his views on the theory of capital accumulation on a world scale, on the polarization inherent in such accumulation, on the creation and erosion of the project of the national bourgeoisie in the third world, on the concepts and practices of development, on the crisis of the Soviet system, and on the collapse of the regulatory mechanisms of the capitalist system. He ends with a discussion of the challenges posed by the post-Soviet era of globalized capital and proposes a program for the renewal of a popular internationalism.