This book addresses a number of interrelated issues in old and new political economy. For many, the focus on globalization is seen incorrectly as a concern that supersedes issues of debt and indebtedness, but it does not. In addition, and ironically, the capital sector now has such a decided institutional advantage over those of the public and society that its legitimacy is under increasing threat in capitalist democracies. Present developments seriously jeopardize the proper balance between capital, public and social institutions on which the progress and welfare of both the developing world and capitalist democracies themselves depend. Making extensive reference to Marx, Weber and Habermas, among others, Wilson concludes that social intellectuals must continue to eschew Weber's pessimism, thereby refusing to assist in the massive, and consequential, self-confirming prophecy that contemporary postmodernism now threatens to become.