Socialism: Crisis and Hope

Ten years ago when that dreadful symbol of communist tyranny, the Berlin Wall, came crashing down, it was widely assumed that Marxism has been buried under its debris once and for all. The industrialized West saw in the col­ lapse of Soviet and East European socialism the definitive vindication of capitalism as the only valid and viable form of social and economic organization. In the centres of international capitalism, there was much euphoria. In the less developed nations which had adopted the socialist model of development, there was dismay and a sense of loss. Then for nearly a decade capital­ ism reigned unchallenged. Globalization assumed the status of a natural law; liberalization became the new economic mantra\ privatization was prescribed as a panacea for all economic ills; state intervention in the economy was declared a taboo. The socialist idea, it seemed, has been definitively discredited. Capitalism was all set to march into the new millennium as the only viable, if not the most desirable, system of economic organization for humankind