on the book of Eszter Bartha: The Road of Workers from Socialism to Capitalism, East Europe 1968-1989. L'Harmattan, Budapest, 2009

The essay is examining the relationship and inherent links between decision makers and the ones who rebel against these decisions. The analysis unites points of earlier ideas of the author that were partly already published in Eszmélet.

"Why the – mostly misinterpreted – theory of Sándor Rácz Romano, the theory on the culture of separation became so popular? Why concepts of underclass and social disadvantage do not fit either?" asks the author. Concepts do matter, since if it were "the culture of segregation" accepted as the starting point then it would be obvious that what the culture of separation means in fact is the result of a certain economic and social development and it is not a national/ethnic

What is Russian… why, by the way what is Hungarian?

Presenting the semi-periphery of the world system is continued in this issue of Eszmélet by analysing Latin-America. Articles on car culture – both manufacturing and consumption -show the link between the state socialist past and present "postmodern" capitalism.  The comparison method is used in both cases to show similarities and differences. It becomes clear, how motorisation incorporated the catching-up feature of state socialism and such attributes as the mixture of voluntary and administrative communities.

Global prostitution and environmental damage both inherent of the present capital system question the system-supporting attitude of intelligentsia also on moral grounds. It is unveiled again that liberalism also includes the fight for global inequalities and for the lack of freedom. We often pose ourselves as if we were actually decision makers and it were only our task to save starving people. For instance if we are unsatisfied with the outcomes of colonisation then we transform our discontent from structural challenges to antidotes that are useless in solving the fundamental problem, like saying: "We cannot settle the poor of the earth to the arable lands abandoned in Europe!" Large scale decisions can only be made by Obamas but they make no such decisions.

Table of contents

1. Andrej Kolganov : Socialist and Capitalist Systems: Stagnation and its Historical Context
2. Lewis H. Siegelbaum : Car Culture in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1980s
3. R. V. Kononyenko : Car as the Icon of Consumer Society: Status Symbol and Shortage in the Era of Stagnation
4. Valentina Fava : Taylorism and Socialism: Czechoslovak Car Production (1945-1963)
5. Koltai Mihály Bence : Ecomarxisms
6. John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark : The Paradox of Wealth: Capitalism and Ecological Destruction
7. Victor Wallis : Beyond Green Capitalism
8. Racs Marianna Katalin : Specifics of Regional Integration in Latin America
9. Jaime Preciado : Latin America in the World System: Questions and Alliances between Periphery and Centre
10. Forrai Judit : Prostitution and Globalization
11. Koltai Mihály Bence : Industrial Workers in State-Socialism
12. Tütő László : Obama bin Laden
13. Binder Mátyás : “Imaginary” Culture – An Interpretation of Roma/Gypsy Culture and Its Misinterpretations
14. Szvák Gyula : What is Russian?