The authors disapprove of the theoretical split within the women's movement. They point out that behind the fruitless controversy of the "subsistence-oriented" and "wage-work-oriented" directions there is a complex and paradoxical social situation of women to which no such one-sided views can do justice.

Zimmermann's basic approach is that the welfare state was not born out of charity but because its emergence was advantageous for capital. As soon as the benefits for capital ceased to exist, the elimination of the welfare state also began. She gives a detailed analysis of the trends that have led to the crisis of the factors serving prosperity.

Arrighi juxtaposes the practice of the communist parties with the basically contrary principles laid down in the Communist Manifesto. He outlines the three periods of the history of the working class movement; the process when in the first stage, it was still adjusted to the Marxist ideas and then the increasing separation from them. He gives a detailed analysis of the standpoints of the trends that can be linked with Bernstein and Lenin and the failure of the Kautsky-standpoint in between the two. One of the key theses of Arrighi is that the strength and revolutions of the proletariat are in reverse correlation with one another. He offers new points of view for the analysis of the restructuring of the working class on a world scale. He registers the increase in the role of the periphery and the intellectual producers as the main trend. Arrighi states that for the time being, the left has failed to adjust appropriately to the new trends and its choice was bad from the very beginning when it undertook to represent those stricken by poverty.

The well-known Norwegian political scientist calls attention to the fact that when discussing terrorism, one must not disregard the phenomenon of state terrorism. He analyses the possible power relations between the states and citizens and the strategies of action following from them. Progress has brought with it the escalation of violence. Galtung offers the Ghandi principle of no-violence to be the weapon of the "weak" to stop the vicious circle of violence.

Mandel discusses the collapse of Soviet socialism on the one hand. He states that the collapse would be foreseen after the development of the world centres diverted from the earlier heavy industry-centred model. He expounds his standpoint that – perhaps with the exception of Hungary – Eastern Europe does not have many chances for the successful integration into the capitalist world system (but rather for sinking back to a semi-colonial state). On the other hand, he also analyses the crisis of the capitalist economy. One form of its expressions is the debt trap.