ABSTRACT
At first glance, capitalist triumphalism may seem appropriate-as the voguish studies of the paid pundits and Pharisees of power instruct us. But more sober assessments reveal truths that contradict much of what has become common sense after 1989. Currently existing social orders, no matter how eternal and inevitable they may seem, contain within themselves the seeds of their own transformation. In that spirit, the essays in this book assess the political significance of twentieth-century Communism from the perspective of people who believe revolutionary transformation of the modern world-system is required for freedom to flourish. Although our ideas are far from uniform, we are in agreement that the existing world-system's structural imperatives, impoverish, depress, and even kill hundreds of millions of people at its periphery. For decades, the Unite Nations has reported that forty thousand children under the age of five die every day from from easily preventable causes-and that number may be too low!
