INTRODUCTION

In 1968, a large portion of society within the West challenged the capitalist regime and its coercive social and political structure. It was apparent to the protesters that their so called ‘freedom’ was a form of serfdom. Those opposing were looking toward the East with a desire to live in a state in which education was free; women were equal with men in rights and in access to jobs; where segregation did not exist; and where the means of production were owned by the whole of society.

In 1968, however, many in the East were also opposing the communist regime. They were challenging the system in which there was almost always only one political party to which one could belong – with one acceptable view; a system of the censorship of private letters, academic lectures and newspapers; a system where there was no free speech; where people often had nothing to eat or could not heat their houses; and a system where members of the political opposition (including priests) were imprisoned, tortured or killed. Marxism-Leninism was the only appropriate message – the true message – that the class struggle was inevitable and had to end with the eradication of the ruling class. No one was able to question that.

Now, in the 21st century, we talk of the 20th century as the century of ideologies, as if the 21st century is free of them. However, one ideology prevails: that of the democratic capitalist state as the only feasible model for the organisation of society, politics and the economy. One can, of course, say that there is an alternative to this and this is the social democratic state, but in the current century the social democratic goals have changed so dramatically that it is hard to distinguish them from the capitalist goals. This is why we often hear that the political leftand political right are not so different anymore and that the distinction no longer even matters. Roberto Unger calls such social democracy just a more humane version of capitalist democracy – a nicer, humanised project of the political right, with its support for the free market economy, based on tax and transfer, and support for investment in debt instead of production.