Whatever happened to imperialism and other essays

The essays brought together in this volume are grouped around three main themes: the genesis of underdevelopment and the mechanism of its spontaneous reproduction, the contradictions of state-promoted development process after decolonization, and the political economy underlying the process of economic liberalization. The focus of these essays is theoretical rather than empirical: they seek to analyse structures on the basis of 'stylized facts rather than with an examination of data per se India provides the context in which they are written, but they have a wider relevance to developing countries in general.

Though written over a span of more than two decades, the essays share a common perception that the perpetuation of the division of the world between an advanced segment and a backward segment, is not in spite of, but because of capitalism. In particular, the author argues that the tendency towards globalization', which is often portrayed as the coming into being of a genuine international community, as a transcendence of capitalism, represents on the contrary its supreme triumph.