Socialism or Barbarism: From the American Century to the Crossroads

Istvan Meszaros is one of the foremost Marxist intellectuals writing and working today. Professor emeritus at the University of Sussex (where he held the chair of Philosophy for fifteen years) his has created an impressive body of erudite scholarship ranging from Marx's Theory Of Alienation and The Work Of Sartre: Search For Freedom to The Power Of Ideology and Beyond Capital. In Socialism Or Barbarism Meszaros analyses the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his early work, Beyond Capital, Meszaros gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the century. Meszaros also provides a detailed analysis of the roots and development of American global power -- a supremacy that came at the cost of exhausting the universalizing pretensions of capitalism. Meszaros argues persuasively that Capitalism today is potentially more destructive of humankind and the environment than ever before. Socialism Or Barbarism is highly recommended reading for students of philosophy and political science.