The book unravels the dynamics of capitalist development, critically assesses the socialist experiment in charting out a course of development different from capitalism, unravels the contradictions in the post-Independence development process in India, evaluate other efforts outside the state towards ushering in 'development', and then proposes an alternative path of progress - an employment based ecologically sustainable model of decentralized development based on local resource endowment and heightened mass consciousness which will take the country out of the dependency paradigm.