Socialism of the Future / Future of Socialism

MR Rao said that new classical economics and privatisation which is a major component of globalisation is an ideological state that the United States and other countries have made over the years. India in the 50s and 60s painstakingly built a massive public sector. A lot of public money was invested in it as and today, even the profit making industries are being sold off to private parties to further the policies of the World Bank and the IMF. The question he said is how to face this massive onslaught in the form of globalisation? Rao said that this would be possible over a period of time through mass movements, for people at the grassroots are not even aware that an economy is being destroyed today and the structures are being demolished. Rao said that the implications of these policies have to be made known to the people and they have to realize this not just out of their own experiences but through other facts.

Thirdly, in order to do this, he said that all those who are committed, have to seriously work out the strategies and tactics. Rao opined that since the last 25 years, the left movement in India has got fragmented and so is it globally. Thus it is important to sustain the remaining factions and groups. Now the left has suffered enormously due to mutual violence and internal and external conflicts. He said that this was very visible in his state of Andhra Pradesh where globalisation ahs brought a new situation. There is a pressing need to work out strategies, so that the entire spectrum of people who believe in some sort of socialism can come together on one platform.

He argued that one crucial theoretical proposition needs to be worked out by the Indian left, the Marxist left and the Socialist left and that is pertaining to the question of a marriage of Marxian and Gandhian ideas. The bitter experience of socialism that finally failed because of the absence of democracy teaches a lesson. Serious pondering over this question is necessary and it has to be seen how some strategies can be worked out at a national level so that such forces will come together on a single platform.

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