Lives in the balance

de Pat Lauderdale, Randall Amster

We find ourselves in a world that reflects a tension between the totalizing discourses of global corporate capitalism and representative democracy on the one hand, and the contingent, fragmentary nature of post-colonial life on the other. How (indeed, whether) this dialectic will be reconciled in the new millennium is not merely a question for academic consideration, but has real implications for the lives of people in the 'developing' world who are caught at the interstices of these conflicting forces. What a comparative, critical sociological perspective can provide is a window into the souls of people struggling for self-determination, equality, and justice. It is in this spirit that we present this work focusing on the study of injustice and inequality in the world system.