This book addresses a number of interrelated issues in the old and new political economy. The focus on globalization is generally taking the mind off questions of debt and indebtedness. Capital now has such a decided institutional edge that its legitimacy in capitalist democracies is under threat. Present developments seriously jeopardize the balance between capital, public and social institutions on which the progress and welfare of the developing world and the capitalist democracies depend. Going back to Marx, Weber and Habermas, Wilson concludes that against the backdrop of Weberian pessimism, social intellectuals still have to rise to the occasion, rather than assisting in the massive, and consequently, self-confirming prophecy that contemporary postmodernism now threatens to become.