Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. Two years later the SovietUnion disintegrated. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the SovietUnion discredited the idea of socialism for generations to come. It was seen asrepresenting the final and irreversible victory of capitalism. This triumphantdominance was barely challenged until the 2008 financial crisis threw theWestern world into a state of turmoil.Through analysis ofpost-socialist Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as of the UnitedKingdom, China and the United States, Socialism, Capitalism andAlternatives confronts the difficulty we face in articulatingalternatives to capitalism, socialism and threatening populist regimes.Beginning with accounts of the impact of capitalism on countries left behind bythe planned economies, the volume moves on to consider how China has become abeacon of dynamic economic growth, aggressively expanding its global influence.The final section ofthe volume poses alternatives to the ideological dominance of neoliberalism inthe West. Since the 2008 financial crisis, demands for social change haveerupted across the world. Exposing the failure of neoliberalism in the UnitedKingdom and examining recent social movements in Europe and the United States,the closing chapters identify how elements of past ideas are re-emerging, amongthem Keynesianism and radical socialism. As those chapters indicate, theseideas might well have potential to mobilise support and challenge the dominanceof neoliberalism.