Marxism is back, says Egypt-born Economist Samir Amin

Mumbai, Nov 20 (UNI) There are fundamental contradictions in Capitalism that push it into increasingly volatile cycles of boom and bust, world famous Egypt-born Economist and Marxist writer Samir Amin said.

Professor Amin, who is in the city to deliver the first Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture on 'Beyond Liberal Capitalism in Crisis, the Socialist Perspective for the 21st Century' at the Mumbai University Convocation Hall this evening, holds that only Marxism can help us to understand and come out of today's world, sinking into recession.

''The current state of the world is not just about culture, national identity and religion, but about imperialism, capitalist development and underdevelopment and ultimately class, Professor Amin said in an informal interaction here with the organisers and other social activists.

Professor Amin, along with such equally renowned names as Emmanuel Walerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Gunder Frank and others, is viewed as one among the founders of the ''world systems'' school of thought which gained tremendous influence in the late sixties and seventies, not just in academia but also as guiding framework to the left-wing activism that overwhelmed the world's campuses during those times.

He has written more than 30 books including Imperialism&Unequal Development, Specters of Capitalism: A Critique of Current Intellectual Fashions, Obsolescent Capitalism: Contemporary Politics and Global Disorder and The Liberal Virus. His memoirs were published in October 2006. His latest work, published in 2006, is Beyond US Hegemony: Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World.

According to one of the organisers of the lecture, P A Sebastian, this lecture is dedicated to the memory of a revolutionary, Anuradha Ghandy, who spent her early years in Mumbai working for the student movement and democratic rights movement. After shifting to Nagpur, she became an activist of women's and trade union movement. During her stay in a tribal area, she was struck by malaria and passed away on April 12 last.

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