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Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. By Darrow Schecter. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. 205p. $69.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.
It already seems a long time since the Western triumphalism that greeted the collapse of the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. New world disorder is everywhere, and many Western governments struggle with massive unpopularity on the domestic front, too. It was predictable--and indeed predicted--that Western capitalism would come under renewed scrutiny when it lost the legitimation that accrued from being vastly preferable to the only visible alternatives. At the very least, it would be tested against its own rhetoric and ideology, and it might well be found wanting.
Schecter considers not only the failure of Western capitalism to live up to its own standards but also the failure of social democracy to do much about the huge disparities in wealth, power, and life chances that characterise it. He therefore seeks to examine alternatives both to social democratic and Keynesian attempts to deal with these problems and to the state-controlled nationalization models recently discredited. The alternatives have in common a libertarian socialism, loosely defined, and an implacable hostility to Leninist totalitarianism. Beyond that, there is plenty of intramural disagreement over such matters as...