Since 1968, the sharp struggle between state- and party bureaucracy and the managers of large companies for the ownership rights over the sphere termed as state was waged above the society's head. Today, in relation with the transformation, one can see the survival of former mechanisms – in new guise. The reform of ownership carried through without a social consensus and control may bring about the breaking up of the political consensus.

Reform concepts that receive support today do not wish to make the collectives of employers the owners. The author proves that self-government and economic rationality do not exclude one another.

Discussing the causes behind the lasting lack of performance of the Hungarian economy, the author discusses three main causes: the political private property and its nature, its dominant role in the Hungarian economy, and the lack of coordination of articulate, varied forms of ownership. He argues that what is needed is the reform of the structure and not of the forms of ownership.

Those who reject socialism as an ideology on the basis of past experiences, disregard the fact that the social system build with the slogans of socialism should in no way be identified with socialism itself. The efforts of renewal in 1956,1968 and in the 1980s were based on the illusion that the East European systems can be reformed by „lifting in" certain elements of capitalism.