Transition to What?

Abstract

Immanuel Wallerstein has advanced three provocative theses. First, the world capitalist system is facing a "true systemic crisis," placing us in an age of transition between capitalism and whatever it is that will eventually succeed it. Second, for the "first time" in the five centuries of existence of world capitalism "there is a real perspective of fundamental change." Third, the revolutionary strategies associated with the revolutions of 1848 and 1917 are both in tatters, leaving the left in strategic disarray—a situation partly compensated for by the continuing impact of what Wallerstein has elsewhere characterized as the "world revolution of 1968." From these three theses he goes on to advance a number of political propositions for the present. In what follows we will address both these theses and the political propositions that he derives from them.

This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.

Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.