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?

The "socialist automobile" meant many things: a serious piece of wealth, a status symbol and also represented the turn of the "really existing socialism" towards consumerism. The author let us a glimpse into the special culture that was built around the socialist automobile: what communities were formed by searching maintenance, car parts and often also petrol. What kind of inequalities developed by having or not having a car, how it affected socialist moral, and how successful was the sOriginal publication: Lewis H. Siegelbaum: "Car Culture in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1980s" Technology and Culture, Volume 50. Number 1, January 2004.

By comparing patterns and structures of Soviet and US car production and consumption the author concludes that the "development of catching-up" in the 1970s and 1980s produced more human life conditions in the Soviet Union than the present ones in Russia despite that driving now has a far more better technical and technological level.

The author is examining how the Czech car industry tried to mix the Soviet and US models, and what were the chances and limitations of this hybrid solution in Czechoslovakia. This article can be praised, because it goes beyond the mainstream narrative in East-Europe that often unable to separate subjective judgement from scientific examination.

The original article Valentina faca: Taylorismo e Socialismo. Il caso della produzione automobilistica della Škoda (1945-1963) Annali di Storia dell'impresa 15-16, 2004-2005