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Beyond Capital: How could the Transition Phase be designed? August 25, 2015, 5:30 pm   By Sumanasiri Liyanage One of my favorite books always on my table for easy and quick reference is Istvan Meszaros’s Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition. It was loved and oftentimes quoted by Hugo Chavez, the beloved leader of the Venezuelan people. After the fall of the Soviet system, the issue whether a socialist transformation was possible had been raised not only by liberal writers but also by some Marxists. Many Marxists in Sri Lanka have already retreated to the comfortable path of democracy and good governance. We are very much aware of the fact that even if a left party or formation were to come to power in Sri Lanka soon, it wouldn’t be able to build socialism in the immediate future. The best recent example for this is that of the Syriza government in Greece. Any left government would immediately face what Walter Benjamin aptly called the "critical state of the p...

Social Market Economy: Does It Provide A Solution For Sri Lanka? August 3, 2015 |  by: COLOMBO_TELEGRAPH By  Sumanasiri Liyanage  – Sumanasiri Liyanage I think it is for the first time that the idea of social market economy is introduced into the Sri Lankan election discourse.  Champika Ranawaka appears to have borrowed the concept of  social market economy  (SME) from Dr.  Harsha de Silva  and used it as it was his invention for the purpose of portraying the economic policy framework of the future UNFGG government for the next five years. As far as I know, the concept of social market economy has never been discussed in serious manner in Sri Lanka. In the early 1990s, a seminar was held at the Colombo Hilton in which a German professor had outlined the concept SME as it had been practiced in Germany especially in the post World War 2 period. What is social market economy? What are the main characteristics of the SME? How do...