ABSTRACT
This chapter will make three arguments. First, it will suggest that the present process of globalization involves a significant and ultimately destructive shift in the political and institutional context within which competitive market forces, and the logic of capital, find material expression. Second, it will argue that current trends are not sustainable and that they are in the process of generating explosive contradictions that will eventually undermine efficiency and the conditions for the continued accumulation of capital. And finally, it will contend that the only political response that can hope to harness and redirect these forces in a socially responsible and desirable manner is one that is rooted in societies with a sufficient sense of their common interest and identity to act coherently through a political process that has broad legitimacy and that is primarily concerned with protecting and promoting public welfare. One can think of these responses as versions of Polanyi’s “double movement,” or as socially rooted forms of class struggle.
