In 1999, the 50^th anniversary of the foundation of the Council of Europe gives a good reason to examine human rights. Now in the current issue of Eszmélet, we address social rights, more specially human rights concerning private life and sexuality. It is, of course, not a pure theoretical question – it is involved in many actual political questions both in Hungary and abroad. Such questions are discussed in this issue as the right for abortion or accepting homosexuality as ordinary human behaviour.

Sport is our second topic, of which relation to politics is of no less interest, especially the status of football, a frequent topic of our quarterly.

Table of contents

1. Hegyi Gyula : The social Europe. real chance or empty slogan?
2. Baráth Erzsébet : Who talks about undertaking here?
3. Yves Géry : Fresh met from the East
4. Andor László : Sex and politics in Amerika
5. Mark Findlay : The politics of ‘cruising’
6. Susan Zimmermann : The Hungarian women’s movement and the ‘sexual question’ in the early 20th century
7. Alekszandr Latisev : Lenin and Inessa
8. Graham Baugh : The sexual contract
9. Sut Jhally, Bill Livant : Sport and cultural policy
10. Andrei Markovits : The other American exceptionalism
11. Krausz Tamás : Sytem change and football in Hungary
12. BAL : Protest against the NATO attack in Yugoslavia
13. francia értelmiségiek : Stop the bombings!
14. Immanuel Wallerstein : Bombs away!

The key question of left-wing thinking is the critical attitude towards capitalism. The author says that the road to socialism may lead to a continuous and comprehensive extension of social rights. Therefore supporting the programme of the social Europe is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of the left-wing project.

The Parliament will have to modify the law on abortion by the Summer of 2000, according to a decision of the Constitutional Court. A ..solution" that violates human rights may well emerge, although the current regulation could also be challenged from this perspective.

During the early period of the systemic change, workers' ownership was seen as the right solution to the crisis of state ownership. Subsequently, employee share programs emerged as the only feasible form of workers' ownership, and, despite the surviving optimism of some, they hardly fulfilled the hopes that had been entertained before. (First published in Nepszava, Hungary.)

The article summarizes the experience of two decades of experiments with employee stock ownership programs in the United States. The author was an active participant of the movement for ESOPs. In his view, the programs did not fulfil the early hopes. The ESOP companies can be found on the periphery of the US economy, and suffer from capital shortage. (First published in Dollars and Sense, US.)