In this article Amin analyses the causes of the failure of "the Soviet method of production". He quotes as the most direct cause the (Stalinist) alienation from the masses of people, the cause of which in his opinion, was the Leninist economism which necessarily lead to the strategy of "catching up" with capitalism instead of "delinking" that Amin considers as would have been needed. He criticises the fact that market was not sufficiently eliminated, democracy was not enough wide spread and no power was given to the workers to control technocracy. (In this respect the author regards the Chinese model to be more successful.) He stresses that despite this, the Soviet model shows better achievements in certain fields than capitalism. He revises some thesis of the criticisms of the Soviet Union, including the wide spread ideas of "the shortage economy", "the administrative model", the "militarist society" and "totalitarianism", none of which is suitable to describe the specific features of that model.

The author studies the origins of the (19th century) idea of "world freedom" and discusses the changes of the idea of the world systems at certain stages of the history of the left wing movements. He raises questions on whether there can be freedom valid for the whole world? He takes a stand in favour of the idea that a world system organized on the basis of the principle of an "intellectual mode of production" covering the whole of the world economy and society – described in Eszmélet earlier – can present an alternative to the capitalist world system.

Starting out from the historical facts of interdependence of Eastern and Western Europe, he takes one after the other the criteria of "being European". He joins those who stress the specific characteristics of Central Europe. He states that the realisation of the principles of socialism can only take place with the development of the European middle class socialisation and the values of Christianity. For this reason, among others, the Soviet model has proved to be a dead end.

The author starts out from the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and states that this is only part of the general push of the left in the background. The essential cause of that in his view, is the failure of the left to give a progressive response to the process of transnationalisation and that it remained within the national framework and became conservative. He separately deals with the topical dilemmas of the EC, the strategy of "deepening" and "broadening" which has a sensitive impact on Eastern and Central Europe. He outlines the duties of the left wing and stresses the dangers of sticking to "ouvrierism" (mystification of the workers) and at the same time, he terms as a prime goal, the search for the methods of an offensive against the extreme right.

Amin describes the past few decades as the period of capitalist offensive. From among the causes of the Gulf War, he stresses the interests in oil and notes about the monarchies in the Gulf region, that they are more like oil concessions than nation-states. Amin emphasises that in the present conflict, the North is unified, while the South is divided. In his opinion, the North-South difference can no longer be described by the differences between their levels of industrial developments, but rather by the differences in their financial systems, technologies and communication systems. When discussing the possibilities of opposition to the capitalist offensive, he raises the need for a United Nations Organisation which would take charge of the interests of the Third World, stating that the present UN is rather far from that.