The article deals with the question, which strategy should anti-systemic movements, in the context of the world-system, pursue and which perspectives have proven as useless. The main thesis is that after the breakdown of the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and after the end of the era of development, both experienced in the late 1980s, political movements formerly regarded as anti-systemic (e.g. leftist parties, trade unions or guerrilla units) have ultimatively lost their legitimacy. By sketching out the main ideologies brought about by the world-system, it will be shown that nearly all political movements accepted the state as a main political institution and, subsequently, the perspective of a national (economic) development as a goal of their own. By doing so, they alienated themselves from the popular support they originally had. Now, as we are witnessing the agony of the myth of development and the counterproductivity of the acquisition of the state machinery, new political possibilities are arising for grassroots-movements all over the world.
