Thoughts on the Current Conjuncture from a Socialist Perspective 31 countries of East and South East Asia. Indeed the entire capitalist world other than the United States and Britain is in the throes of stagnation and high or rising unemployment. There is a serious possibility of this crisis getting generalised over the entire capitalist world, i.e. becoming a world-wide depression engulfing the U.S. and Britain as well. This possibility arises for the following reason. Periods of high activity in the capitalist world have invariably seen the leading capitalist country of the time running a current account deficit on its balance of payments vis a vis the other major capitalist countries. In other words during world capitalist booms the leading capitalist country has provided a market for its rivals within its own boundaries and solved its own market problem by finding additional markets elsewhere, in the colonies or by selling to its own State; and this is what has sustained the boom. The long boom from the mid-nineteenth century to the first world war saw Britain providing a market within its own boundaries to an industrialising Europe and in turn finding its own market increasingly in China and India. And this is what sustained the long boom. In the post-second world war years the leading capitalist country, the U.S., ran current account deficits financed by printing dollars (then the reserve currency and decreed "as good as gold"), while its own markets expanded through large budget deficits. Indeed the essence of the leadership role consists precisely in running such deficits which help the system as a whole to expand. Conversely, depressions are associated with the leader's unwillingness to fulfill this role. Given the fact that the U.S. has of late cut down its fiscal deficit (the reason for this, having to do with the emergence of international finance capital, will be examined later), owing to which its current account deficit in real terms has not expanded in a decade, the conditions for a depression are maturing. The fact that capitalism is experiencing a profound crisis which may develop into a general depression does not of course automatically entail an immediate revival of socialism. Indeed if European experience is anything to go by, then the crisis entails a further distancing from socialism of parties which label themselves socialist (the reasons for which we shall explore later). To be sure this phase of distancing may not last, but the revival of socialism internationally would clearly occur not as an immediate outcome but through a protracted process. This opens up the possibility that forces owing allegiance to socialism may come to acquire political power, at least in the sense of holding office, in some third world countries, which, together with