The author undertakes the task of pin-pointing the contradictions of Wallerstein's capitalism-idea with special regard to that aspect which can be found in his advancement concept by which he measures progress with the decrease in the level of exploitation. (This is just the opposite of the process which in fact, has taken place in history). In contrast to Wallerstein (and in harmony with Marx), the author argues that capitalism – although it has increased exploitation – has represented advancement in every respect, at the same time creating the conditions of going beyond it. Zalai expresses his doubts whether the centre-periphery relationship truly increases impoverishment and whether the impact of the centre to pull should not be taken into account with the same weigh.

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.