The socialist society, according to Marx, is "in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges". Just this line from the father of socialism, Karl Marx, makes the socialist idea counterintuitive for South Asia. Even in its lower, imperfect form, let alone its ideal one, socialism must emerge from a capitalist society. For socialism to be conceivable, capitalism first has to exhaust its life.

This, for Pakistan and South Asia at large, is really far-fetched. We haven’t even mastered capitalism yet. One can argue that we are still living in feudalism, with our urban population deluded into believing that we are somehow living in capitalism and an even smaller chunk convinced we have already reached the stage where we can move on to socialism. And perhaps the fact that you are reading this article, catering to the demand of the very few who are privileged enough to think about anything other than basic survival in economies where 88% of Pakistanis, 53% of Sri Lankans and 71.5% of Bangladeshis earn under $8.30 a day, is enough to justify that we are nowhere near capitalism.........

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