Author:“James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer”

Introduction: An examination of the social science scholarship over the past 60 years reveals few, if any, publications discussing ‘the class struggle’ in anything but theoretical expositions.

General Propositions: Reprimarization of economy (Rep E) involves a shift from diversified import substitution industrialization to increased dependence on agro-mineral export.

Recent decades have witnessed a worldwide change in social and economic relations, accompanied by a multi- dimensional global crisis and major popular uprisings led by sociopolitical movements.

An analysis of the dynamics of capitalist development over the last two decades has been overshadowed by an all too prevalent “globalization” discourse. It appears that much of the Left has bought into this discourse, tacitly accepting globalization as an irresistible fact and that in many ways it is progressive, needing only for the corporate agenda to be derailed and an abandonment of neoliberalism.

The unimpeded growth of Euro-American capitalism following the collapse of Soviet and European communism, the conversion of China and Indochina to state capitalism, and the rise of US backed, free market military dictatorships in Latin America give new impetus to Western empire building, labeled “globalization”.

The election of Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva has raised great expectations on the center-left. For most leftist writers, his election heralded a new epoch of progressive changes which, while not revolutionary, defined the “end of neo-liberalism”.