BOOK REVIEWS 77 cal theory in India. It is to be hoped that the consequences of such views ^ (suppression of the right of the people to participate in the political process), may activise other theorists to formulate an alternative system. Kothari's central idea is that the 20th Century is faced with the challenge of power, and has not been able to come to terms with such a challenge. The solution to the problem of the increasing scope of government and politics over the life of man (which is called the balance between the supports and demands of the system) lies in mastering the 'art and science5 of politics (the law and order problem). Mastering this art is the biggest challenge to man's 'ingenuity', and the role of the social scientist, the master craftsman in Kothari's 'system9, is to become an engineer of consensus. The recent elections in West Bengal gives one a fair idea of how the art and science of politics results in consensus through massive rigging, terror and other forms of repression. Here it might be useful to question the basic assumption that a political system can be studied from the top, in power terms (the scope and extent of institutions), when political power is so dependent on political economy. Marx was of the opinion that decisive events, in terms of political activity, take place at the level of economic and industrial organisation. This may appear paradoxical to some, being contrary to 'common sense5 experience, that economic relations are of greater consequence than governmental decisions, laws, the ideas of historians, philosophers, etc. However, there would be no need for science, if one were to accept only appearances without looking for their underlying causes. In this sense, scientific truth always appears to be a paradox when judged by the criterion of common sense and everyday knowledge. The attempt to study political sociology, political science and political economy as sub-system within a system, is to treat the superstructure as being independent of its base, an approach which is highly favoured by the American school of political scientists, who obviously have a lot to hide ! These transcendental gurus call the integrated Marxist approach 'reductionist9, thereby distorting the materialist conception of history. Marx's famous proposition in the 18th Brummaire of Louis Napolean, that the historian and the social scientist must distinguish between the 'phrases and fancies5 of the parties involved in a political struggle and their group interests and objectives which are founded on the economic realities of society, is ignored. What Marx wants to make clear is that the political order is not autonomous and that the success of a political struggle cannot be decided in imaginary terms. The real determining factor is economic power, from which political power is derived, in the sense that economic ^ power constitutes the necessary condition for establishing the political domination of one social group over all the others. If this condition is absent, the class or party seeking hegemony may win a battle but will lose the war. There has been an attempt to confuse a necessary condition with a