The paper aims to promote a shift in focus towards the role of foreign capital in the economic transformation of ex-communist countries. It looks briefly at the context of the transnationalisation of economic activity, and looks at the objectives of foreign capital in the region, by examining the patterns of direct investment since 1990. Then the author reviews the impact of foreign capital on host countries, as well as policy responses of the region's governments.

Sociologists have been analysing the transition from the so-called Fordist model into another one named Toyotism. This process culminates in a return to a class structure before the socially reformed capitalism. Labour depreciates, and wage-earners tend to lose their social entitments. The state that used to be a counterveiling power to capital, now stands on the side of increasing class exploitation. The author argues that the left must seek the way by linking basis democracy to internationalisation.

An assessment of the economic policy and social environment of the privatisation process, with reference to the available data. In the authors opinion, the strengthening of the private sector in the transitional economies has begun, but it is not exclusively privatisation that provides the main driving force behind that. Due to the hard financial situation of the entrepreneurial sphere, the circle of the privatised firms is far from stable. Through bad debts, the nationalised banking sector appeares as a prime owner of many, and formally privatised companies .

Although it is not clear for all, western economics is in a crisis, seeking the way forward after a period when irrationalism prevailed. In a broader sense, the theoretical crisis began with the crisis of the real economy sixty years ago, and the last six decades have witnessed an interesting interplay between the political process and the development of economic theory. A new, and progressive tendency in economics cannot develop without addressing the problem of value.

The famous economist, member of the Academy of Sciences, and a well-known left-wing politician, died last year, leaving behind his comments on Janos Kornai's assessment of the economic reforms of the 1960s. He was an active participant of the reform process for three decades, and in this article he calls the new generations for a thorough study of the period and practice of reforms in Hungary.