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Globalization is a term that describes the contradictory economic, political, and cultural processes of world capitalist integration. Although capitalism has been of a global character since the 1400s, the current phase of globalization is manifest by emergent transnational institutions, changing relations between multinational corporations and assaulted paradise of sovereign nation-states and the development of a global monoculture of consumption among feuding class divides. This book examines the relationship between globalization and nation states, the dynamics, contradictions, and crisis of global capitalism, and the developing and maturing class struggles and the prospects for social change and transformation of global capitalism. It examines these class struggles within the context of the globalization of capital and draws out the political implications of this process for the future course of capitalist development on a world scale. In this book Tatah Mentan drives home the point that contemporary neoliberal globalization is in fact an advanced stage of capitalist hegemonism and that the contradictions of 21st century globalization are thus a projection of the contradictions of capitalism on a global scale, with all its inherent exploitative characteristics and militarized class conflicts that will lead to the revolutionary transformation of vulture capitalist society. He argues that dominant global processes are not an immutable feature of capitalism, but are contested by social class actors across these three dimensions.
Since the end of World War II, global capitalism, spearheaded by US financial interests and backed by the most lethal military force that has ever been assembled, has consolidated its power over the world economy. In the past decades, especially, transnational corporations have tightened their control over national governments and international institutions. The imposition of free trade policies and the increasing privatization of social services have facilitated the accumulation of fabulous wealth for the owners of capital at the expense of working people and the environment worldwide. Contemporary capitalism now dominates every major sector of the world economy. The social and environmental costs of contemporary capitalism are prohibitive. The global megatrends of rising inequality and absolute poverty, political instability, and global climate change-all compounded and accelerated by this predatory mode of production-are adversely affecting the lives and threatening the future of every inhabitant of nations and the entire world. In view of these megatrends and the current global economic crisis, the conclusion that contemporary capitalism does not serve the interests of the vast majority of the people on the planet and is both economically and environmentally unsustainable, is self-evident. History offers harsh lessons. The political violence of the 20th century, which resulted in an estimated 200 million deaths and untold economic and environmental destruction, cautions us to work for socialism in the 21st century with every means at our disposal except violence. Facing the awful power and willingness of capitalism to coerce and corrupt, we must find ways to make soft power prevail. Clearly, a revolution is in order-it is time to place the socialist alternative on the national and world agenda.