The 1990s Decade of Global Economic and Political Crisis

and Political Crisis Sharat G Lin The centrally-planned states of the east, while professing socialism, harbour fundamental social contradictions between the working class and the bureaucratic ruling elites. The bursting of the bubble in eastern Europe and momentarily in China confirms the political and economic crisis of statism. However, the advanced capitalist countries of the West too bear not only fundamental social contradictions, but also unprecedented imbalances which threaten to burst the bubble of relative prosperity. The global debt crisis, burgeoning government deficits, escalating bank failures, increasing volatility in securities markets, and widening disparities in the distribution of wealth threaten world economic stability and are likely to precipitate a great depression in the 1990s, Avoidance of a depression necessitates fundamental economic changes in the west in general, and the US in particular, which their ruling elites are unlikely to either recognise or accept. The consequences of the dual crises in the east and west will be political upheaval and profound economic changes in both camps.