One of the key issue of the social policy problems is the differences in living standards which are evidently increasing. This trend does not only have a negative impact on the general atmosphere and mood of the people but it is also a hindrance of the emergence of a modern market economy. The author discusses the changes of the structure of consumption and states that people with medium level incomes are waging a tough struggle against slipping down on the social scale but their retreat is evident.

The appeal of leading representatives of Russian arts, science and culture, to condemn the anti-democratic measures taken by Boris Yeltsin in September 1993.

Recent years have witnessed the development of new attempts to conceptualize capitalist accumulation, including the maturation of ca­pitalist economies and their passing through stages of development. Focusing on the so-called Fordist period of capitalism, Kotz's com­parative analysis provides a survey of two present-day schools of thought – the Regulation Theory and the Social Structures of Accu­mulation schoo.

The United States and Japan can be described through two quite different models of capitalism. These differences can be shown on all levels: from the one of the enterprises through enterprise structuring up to the role played by ministries, as well as from the point of view of economics, politics or culture. The two models are rivaling at the present and there is no evidence available yet to predict which results this competition will lead to.