The article provides a comprehensive picture – focusing on the developed countries – on the performance and currents of the left-of-centre social thought after the collapse of state socialist regimes. According to the author, although ‘Marxist politics has either disappeared or become completely marginalized' in almost all the world ‘but left-wing intellectual creativity has not ceased.' The Marxian theory still is an important reference for many leftwing social analysts and in addition to various post- and neo-Marxian currents also the classical sense Marxian social science produced relevant works in the past one an a half decades. "Capitalism still produces, and will continue to produce, a sense of outrage. … New cohorts of anti-capitalist social scientists will certainly emerge, many will read Marx, but it may be doubted whether many will find it meaningful to call themselves Marxists."

The New Left Review 43 (Jan.-Feb. 2007) published the original article.