Brazil is the world's sixth largest economy, has played a key role as one of the 'pink wave' administrations in Latin America, and was also responsible for wrecking the US-sponsored proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas. It is also one of the few large countries where social spending has risen and the distribution of income has improved in the last thirty years. However, as protests during the World Cup in 2014 have shown, the country remains highly unequal, unmet social needs are vast and its infrastructure is precarious. Alfredo Saad-Filho and Lecio Morais review the paradox that is modern-day Brazil. Focusing on the period from 1980 onwards, they analyse the tensions between the two systemic transitions to have dominated the country: the political transition from military rule to democracy, and to neoliberalism. The authors show how these transitions had contradictory logics and dynamics, yet ultimately became mutually supportive as they unfolded and intertwined.

Brazil is the world's sixth largest economy, has played a key role as one of the 'pink wave' administrations in Latin America, and was also responsible for wrecking the US-sponsored proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas. It is also one of the few large countries where social spending has risen and the distribution of income has improved in the last thirty years. However, as protests during the World Cup in 2014 have shown, the country remains highly unequal, unmet social needs are vast and its infrastructure is precarious. Alfredo Saad-Filho and Lecio Morais review the paradox that is modern-day Brazil. Focusing on the period from 1980 onwards, they analyse the tensions between the two systemic transitions to have dominated the country: the political transition from military rule to democracy, and to neoliberalism. The authors show how these transitions had contradictory logics and dynamics, yet ultimately became mutually supportive as they unfolded and intertwined.

Political protests against neoliberal globalisation, corporate power and the inequities of contemporary capitalism are increasing all the time. Demonstrations in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and elsewhere have fuelled the debate on the possibility of a radically different future. This book is a collection of essays from some of the world's leading Marxist economists on the problems of globalisation and the evolution of modern capitalism. With contributions from Suzanne de Brunhoff, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Ben Fine, Simon Clarke, John Holloway and John Weeks among others, it provides a cohesive critique of the weaknesses of the existing system and puts forward a new agenda for anti-capitalist thought and action. Covering key issues such as globalisation, the nation state, money and finance, conflict and war, technological change, the environment, class struggle, economic crisis, capitalism in the Third World, the collapse of the USSR, and the transcendence of capitalism, this is an ideal introduction to some of the most pressing problems of our time.