A review of The Socialist System, a comprehensive work by the well-known Harvard economist Janos Kornai. The reviewer compares Kornai's theses to the findings of leading international historians, and draws some grave, but not entirely unexpected consequences.

Conventional debt management has only deepened the economic and social misery of many countries in the Third World. The so-called treatment offered by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank cannot be a solution to the problem. A breakthrough towards development is possible only with a substantial debt relief, i.e. a partial or full cancellation of foreign debts.

The liberalisation of world trade under the auspices of GATT is often interpreted as creating equal opportunities for various countries in the world economy. A deeper analysis discovers the surviving discrimination behind the facade, and the increasing exposure of low income countries to monopoly groups of the capitalist core.

The Zapatist uprising that broke out at the beginning of 1994, is not a direct continuation of previous guerilla movements, and lacks the racist features inherent in many Indian riots. It is a progressive movement demanding solutions to the economic problems created in Mexico during the recent decades.

It is a favourite thesis of right-wing critics of progressive politics that the Jacobin period of the French revolution was a prototype of all totalitarian regimes, including state socialism. The author presents a revision of the story of 1793-4, and concludes that this was a unique period when popular movements of the time reached the highest possible level of influence.