SOCIAL SCIENTIST The erosion of democracy and the fracturing of the nation-state forged in the context of the anti-imperialist struggle constitute, in themselves, a reversal of development. But even if we take the term development in its narrower and more usual interpretation, as meaning only material development, the constriction of democracy and the fracturing of the nation into a host of conflicting entities, constitute an additional reason for the stifling of such development. The diffusion of development in the new phase of imperialism remains a chimera for this reason too, apart from the reasons we have discussed already. This means not only that the struggle for development must take the form of a struggle for liberation from this new phase of imperialism, but also that the latter is indissolubly linked to the struggle for the preservation of democracy and of the unity of the nation that emerged from the earlier anti-imperialist movement spearheaded by persons like Dr.Ansari. NOTES 1. The empirical support for the assertions made in this paragraph is provided in my paper "The Performance of the Indian Economy in the 1990s", Social Scientist, May-June, 99. 2. For a discussion of the East and South East Asian crisis, see Jayati Ghosh and C.P.Chandrasekhar, Crisis as Conquest, Orient Longman, Delhi, 2001, and K.S.Jomo ed.Tigers in Trouble, Zed Books, London, 1998. 3. Theotonio Dos Santos, "Neo-liberalism: A Critique", Oliver Tambo memorial Lecture, delivered at the Delhi University, March 9, 2001. 4. Nicholas Kaldor in his paper "What is Wrong with Economic Theory?", reprinted in his collection Further Essays on Economic Theory had argued the exact opposite of this proposition, namely that the rate of growth of the metropolitan economies depends on the rate of growth of their exports to the third world countries. My argument, while logically analogous to Kaldor's, appears to me to be empirically better founded (at the very least owing to the phenomenon of "drain" from the third to the first world). For a critique of Kaldor and a detailed presentation of the present argument, see my book Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997. 5. The discussion in this paragraph and the one that follows is based on Ghosh and Chandrasekhar, op. cit., Ch.3. 6. The discussion contained in this paragraph relies on the work of Utsa Patnaik, "Export-Oriented Agriculture and Food Security in Developing Countries and in India", reprinted in her book The Long Transition, Tulika, Delhi, 1999. 7. This weakening of anti-imperialist consciousness can occur both because communal-fascist consciousness tries to take its place, and also because, to sections of anti-communal forces, imperialism begins to appear as a source of enlightenment and a defender of human rights in contrast to the domestic communal-fascists!