sz szilu84 összes bejegyzése

Former issues

No. 12 | (Winter 1991)

Eszmélet organised the 1st Theoretical Conference of Journals of Social-critique at the Youth Centre in Csillebérc Budapest on April 10-12, 1991. In this issue, we present selected writings of the participants of the conference (it can be the written version of the speeches made or a different study) and of invited persons who could not come (like Bidet, Laibman, Mészáros or Samary).  We ask our readers to take into account that the original audience of most of the articles translated here were domestic readers of foreign journals, where the authors live. Nevertheless, we hope that articles reflecting the views of British, American, Italian, Austrian, French of Polish authors do have interesting points for Hungarian readers, since most of the studies focus on developments in East Europe, where we live.

In addition to articles related to the conference, we present two writings of André Gunder Frank from the Netherlands. This the continuation of our series presenting the 36 most renowned leftist thinkers that was started with publishing writings from Immanuel Wallerstein and that will be continued soon with articles from Samir Amin. (We have to note that the two articles of Wallerstein, the studies of Gunder Frank and the articles to be published from Amin all were sent to Eszmélet by the authors themselves.)

Table of contents
  1. Conference of journals of social-critique, Budapest 1991- Brief account
  2. Gus Fagan : Hungary – The collapse of Kadarism
  3. Andrea Komlosy, Hannes Hofbauer : Restructuring (Eastern) Europe
  4. Luciana Castellina : Remaning an Italian communist – reflections on the „death of socialism”
  5. Vietorisz Tamás : The global information economy, privatisation, and the future of socialism
  6. Jacques Bidet : A metastructural theory of modernity
  7. Barry K. Gills, Andre Gunder Frank : The cumulation of accumulation
  8. Andre Gunder Frank : Marketing demokracy in an undemocratic market
  9. David Laibman : Toward a working theory of the socialist economy
  10. Mészáros István : The decreasing rate of utilisation and the capitalist state
  11. Catherine Samary : The necessary self-government
  12. Bartosz Julian : Deep down – for undisjoinable values – Theses for the conference in Budapest on April 11-12, 1991
  13. Hungarian literaure on the system change 1989-1991
  14. Short introduction of journals present at the conference on April 11-12, 1991
Former issues

Reform and the change of system – A plan to the history of the Hungarian economic policy and reform

The study analyses the Hungarian reform process, its elements, stages and dimensions from a new angle. He puts its concrete facts, changes on the scale of the developments of the power relations of the world; he discusses the role played by the struggle, decisions and mistakes of the domestic power groups; he points out that those leading the Hungarian reforms were more ready for the change of system than for the de-mocratisation of the system. He underlines the outstanding function of the reform of ownership in the change of system while stressing that under the realistic conditions of the present time, the reform of the ownership relations in itself cannot lead out from the economic crisis… He also emphasises that the same factors hinder development today which made the previous system collapse. He discusses the chances of the various privatisation possibilities and warns against the illusions which induce expectations that copying the modern market economy would lead to the solution of Hungary's problems. At the same time, he argues that the development of the producing sector and the change of the production structure are fundamentally important.
Former issues

Is Marxism modern?

The author enters into debate whith views proclaiming that Marxism is outdated. He points out the topicality of Marxist answers in the issue of modernisation. He refutes the wide spread notion that Marxism does not rely enough on the importance of the personality and that it gives a Utopian response to questions of society. He presents as one of the essential elements of Marxist thinking the efforts in the programme to extend democracy.
Former issues

Modernisation theories in the Hungarian social sciences in the ’80s – A plan

On the basis of a wide range of opinions expressed on modernisation in the past decade, the author presents the modernisation theory as a paradigm competing with the ideology of state socialism. He criticises the modernisation theory arguing that it was formulated according to the interests of the highly advanced region only and as such, it is nothing else but the programme of transition from state socialism to state capitalism. The author states that this theory is unable to provide a perspective today and for this reason, his final conclusion is that turning to the postmodern theories can be more fruitful also for the East European region.