The possibility of a just and globally sustainable society and the vital necessity for totally eradicating capital from the social metabolic reproduction are uniquely combined in a dialectical unity in our present day. The power of capital in the midst of its deepening structural crisis now only able to increase social tension, further damage to the nature and risky new war projects. Recently, as the basis of the quasi-colonial control over Latin-America is melting permanently, peoples of this hemisphere can realise the Bolivarian vision of a solidarity-based social-political unity giving a pioneering model for mankind to be followed.

In a world of lost hope the political-intellectual search of Hugo Chavez and the development – or maybe the sheer existence – of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a peculiar challenge for social analysis. The article reviews the political history of Venezuela in the past 20 years "from fact to fact" centred on the social, domestic and foreign policy achievements of the decade long presidency of Chavez full of vicissitudes.

According to the author, political Islam is an invaluable ally for imperialism while eliminates the real social confrontations between the popular classes and the globalized capitalist system that oppresses and exploits them, it is not the spontaneous result of the assertion of authentic religious convictions by the peoples concerned. It is fundamentally reactionary and therefore obviously cannot participate in the progress of peoples' liberation.

The author, criticising Amin, considers political Islam rather "modern" although not in the frame of the Eurocentric notion of capitalist modernity the tool traditional historic materialism uses. Anyhow, the foot soldiers of militant Islam are the dreadfully poor who have relied on Islam institutions for their very survival. It is time to desist from homogenizing the makeup of entire Muslim-majority societies as reactionary or obscurantist.

The disagreements concern our proposals for effective strategies to defeat political Islam says the father of world systems analysis rejecting allegations of Eurocentrism and ignoring differences in his approach. There are no more traditional 'vestiges' that were attacked by earlier modernization theories rather forms traditional in appearance that were remodelled to serve capitalist expansion.