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L'A. s'interroge sur les fondements theoriques et ideologiques de la polemique entamee par la gauche francaise concernant la menace de la nouvelle droite et l'instauration dun nouveau fascisme par Alain de Benoist

ing the problem into a framework which fails to examine the quality of contemporary development, this account also ends up by reifying present social injustices and inequalities; by freezing the present socio-economic situation within its present determinations, it rules out any possible vindication of existing "wrongs," while implicitly legitimating existing power relations. Again, what does not come under scrutiny is the quality of development. Therefore, existing productive practices embodying specific modes of social domination are automatically accepted. On the international level, what this analysis prescribes is continued world domination by advanced industrial societies and continued dependence and backwardness for all other underdeveloped or developing societies. Clearly, this proposal cannot be accepted by most of today's societies confronted daily with misery, suffering and hunger, and it has been rightly attacked on these grounds.49 The critical account, mainly associated with Commoner's work, is unlike the other two in that it approaches the ecological crisis as a consequence of previous social decisions, and sees specific types of social action as capable of providing a remedy. It calls neither for an abrupt halt in development, nor for a rigid program of population control-both of which implicitly accept and validate the present system-but for a new set of socio-economic choices no longer subject to maximization of profits and retention of existing power relations as determining criteria. In examining the nature of the main technological developments of the post-World War II period, Commoner has found that 1) the much publicized and glorified technological developments have not qualitatively or quantitatively improved our life-style; 2) new products of modern technology, such as plastics, aluminium, etc., are not better than those they replace (wood, steel, etc.); and 3) far from having much to do with improvements in everyday life, the main motives for the introduction of both new products and new technologies were a function of the structural requirements of late capitalism. The principal thrust of post-World War II capitalism has been to shift from labor-intensive technologies to capital-intensive ones, thus resulting in the This content downloaded from 157.55.39.162 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:37:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

If, in the history of Marxism, the period from the Erfurt program to 1914 can be characterized as the age of the Second International, from 1917 to the middle 1920s that of Leninism, from 1924 to early 1950s that of Stalinism, and from the late 1950s to early 1970s that of Maoism, the 1980s are likely to usher in what may be called a new phase of "Gramscism." This is a result of an international situation wherein both Russian and Chinese communism have exhausted themselves and have found accomodation within a world order still under a U.S. hegemony, based on new and not yet fully developed imperialist relations stronger than earlier versions and immune to traditional challenges. The Second International found its historical limit in the political integration of the labor movement within late capitalism; Stalinism ran out of gas with the industrialization of Russia; and Maoism lost its revolutionary cutting edge with the completion of de-colonization. Yet Gramscism, understood as the strategy of socialist transformation in fully industrialized societies, becomes relevant precisely in the age of cybernated imperialism. Notwithstanding its historical roots in the realities of post-World War I central Europe, Gramsci's articulation of Marxism is likely to provide a framework within which to recast the problem of emancipation in a context where Southern Europe becomes the main ideological and political battlefield.

Although Italian social thought has been surprisingly inter nationalist in perspective and scope, it is natural that its main focus be of immediate local relevance. Of all the many social problems confronting Italian society from the days of national unification in the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present, what has been called "the Southern Question" ? i.e., the coexistence of an industrialized North side by side with an underdeveloped South ? has been by far the most crucial, diffi cult, and all-encompassing. All other social problems, such as emigration, urbanization, industrialization, etc., have, in some way or other, been directly related to and affected by what has happened to the "Southern Question." The following five essays present a series of empirical, theoretical, and po litical analyses which collectively provide a fairly adequate ac count of the major determining features of the Italian "Southern Question." To the extent that underdevelopment and backwardness" are global and not local or national problems, all of these analyses unavoidably move within an international context. Thus Marti nelli's critique of the notion of "dualism" is developed primar ily in relation to interpretations of the phenomenon of under development advanced by Eckaus, Furtado, Boeke, etc. TfDual ism," in fact, has been elaborated as a theoretical tool meant both to explain as well as to indicate ways to overcome back wardness" in a situation which contraposes backward" soci eties to "advanced" ones. All these interpretations, however, are ideologically vitiated at least to the extent that they deal with these phenomena as examples of imperfection of free com petition, inadequacy of resources, and similar factors, thus