“Capitalism has suffered major ideological defeats and its best defence remains the lack of any plausible alternative.”

–Tariq Ali

Mishra believes that liberalism served the purpose
of incubator for the right wing populism

Author Pankaj Mishra is long standing critic of globalisation and liberal economic world order. The sudden shift to right wing populist political parties, especially in the heart of the West and the emergence of strong man on political landscape of virtually every other nation has stunned many political commentators and thinkers. For Mishra, the reason was obvious. Failure of the cherished ideals of the United States and its cohorts in the Western Europe that saw rule of capitalism and globalisation as an end to the sufferings of mankind. Mishra asserts that the modernity project has uprooted millions of people from their rural setups. And in return these people did not enjoy the benefits of capitalism and globalisation that they were promised.

The failure of capitalism and globalisation to deliver on what they promised to the masses forced people to turn their gaze to strongmen like Modi, Erdogan, Trump and many more. Pankaj Mishra made an attempt to put all these seismic political jolts in a context in a form of a remarkable book, “Age Of Anger” published in 2017. Age of Anger’s crux is that “people making wrong political choices” is not a new phenomenon. History, the book maintains, is replete with such examples where wrong political choices have unleashed catastrophes on the mankind. However, the book does not suggest that the West will say final goodbye to capitalism. Instead, the book is an attempt to understand the global rage that is result of the feeling resentment.