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Is socialdemocracy coming or going? – A few preliminary remarks to this issue
No. 16 | (Winter 1992)
After Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank, now writings of Samir Amin are on the line to present the classics of the New Left in Eszmélet. It is a special honour to us that Amir has sent us 12 of his articles both published and unpublished, out of which four is presented in this issue. He has also sent his book The Empire of Chaos that is valued here by Imre Márton. The next to be presented is Giovanni Arrighi, of whom we publish a longer article here and an additional one in the following issue. Publishing the works of classic authors, to whom Étienne Balibar can also be counted, does not mean at all that we respect them without any criticism. That is why we have been pleased by the contribution of László K. Zalai who is arguing with the standpoint of Wallerstein. The very aim of us publishing the works of outstanding thinkers is to inseminate the theoretical thinking in Hungary.
The section under Variations on a Theme now is a selection of articles from Marx Centouno discussing the Gulf-War and its consequences.
Table of contents
- Samir Amin : Thirty years of criticism of the Soviet system (1960-1990)
- Bodács Emil : Europeanism – yesterday and today. Changes in the historical and geopolitical idea of Europe
- Samir Amin : The Third World is once again a storm zone
- Andre Gunder Frank : The political economy of the North-South conflict
- Marco Bonzio : The “Gulf” imperialism. Thoughts and assumptions on the present stage of development of the capitalist mode of production
- Roger Burbach : The tragedy of the American democracy
- Pip Hinman : War against the environment in Central America
- Thesis of an alternative European development
- Michel Husson : The liberal decade: Towards a capitalism in polarisation
- John Ross : The rise of world poverty
- Alexande Adler : East and South: the triumph of the human rights or the defeat of the human reason??
- Samir Amin : Notes on transnationalisation
- Samir Amin : A note on the concept of delinking
- Giovanni Arrighi : The illusion of development. Renewal of the concept of semi-pheriphery
- Étienne Balibar : From class struggle to struggle without clases
- Zalai K. László : The myth of reality. On the ideological-methodological shortcomings of Wallerstein’s development criticism
- k. g. : What is the thing for which the heroes of “world freedom” have sacrificed their lives?
- Marton Imre : Are the historical possibilities of the left getting exhaused?
- Andor László : Schumacher in Hungary
- One up for science
Society and crime
The criminology specialist reviews the recent crime statistics and tries to find the causes of the dramatic upswing in the wave of crimes. In addition to the evident connections between multiple disadvantage and crime, he surveys the psychological types of family influences promoting crime, the crisis of institutions and the changes of social values with special regard to the radical growth of value of material wealth.
New German nationalism, great power chauvinism and revanchism
The author discusses the psychological causes of the current extreme right-wing tendencies in contemporary Germany. He underlines the role played by increased social tensions (and the consequential increase in disappointment) in the gaining ground of right-wing trends. He stresses the need for making fine distinctions when analysing the causes of racism and chauvinism. (See e.g. the difference between great power, conquering chauvinism and the chauvinism of crisis stricken groups aimed at excluding competition.) He sees the means countering extreme right-wing attitudes in the extension of direct democracy. He calls attention to the fact that the ideas of "people" or "people's power" can be interpreted both democratically and nationalistically: and the future will greatly depend on which of these two will win.