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.