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.

Thesis of an alternative European development (Keynote address by the Left Greens at the conference in the European Parliament in Strass-bourg on 21, November 1931). The programme-like writing starts out from the opportunities offered to aggressive capitalism provided by the collapse of the Soviet model, trying to encourage the search of a new (ecological centred, tolerant, democratic and exploitation denying) perspective of "social emancipation". The authors deny that any vanguard or parly system could play a role in creating such a road of development and stress the need for direct and pluralistic democracy. 

In this lecture Arrighi gave in 1939, he provides a very thorough analysis of the idea of "semi-periphery". He questions the frequently quoted connection by which the level of development would be equivalent with the level of industrialisation. He interprets the latest stage of industrialisation as the shift of industry to the periphery and not as a peripheral development. He challenges the idea that unequal exchange would be the main basis of the economic power of the centre. In this process, the placement of capital and labour is more decisive. He puts forward the theory that this economy is based on the double nature of exploitation and exclusion and if a peripheral country fights against one of the two, then it is to lead to the trap of the other in most cases. Catching up is an illusion for the majority because the advantages they want to reach originate from the very fact that others are subordinated to exclusion and exploitation. Analysing the most different regions of the world, he states that on the scale of periphery-semi-periphery-periphery the up or down movement is exceptional. He opposes the anti-system and pro-system semi-periphery which despite the failure of the "anti-system" socialism is mostly more disadvantageous for the pro-system semi-periphery.