In works studying the history of the system-change and its consequences there is an explicit or implicit war between different interpretational schools – "discourses" or "narratives" – on the use of different concepts and on defining the causes and outcomes. Politics and the mainstream professional literature, including diligent contributions of former Marxists, systematically crowded out the class based approach and Marxian social form analysis. This study shows that the essence of the system-change – under the flag of "democracy and freedom" – everywhere was to change ownership, to create a new capitalist class and to establish and extend the power of the supranational class.
Category Archives: Former issues
Cultural trends and civilisation concepts at the turn of the decade
Due to conflicting trends in Hungary, following them and especially forecasting them is extremely difficult. Free cultural development that matches to the global era (still) exists, while the anti-liberal, quasi-nationalist past-admiring cultural policy of authorities gains ground.
For reinterpreting Master and Margarita – Aristophanes-style festivity
Master and Margarita was written in a period when the terror of Stalin put an end to the "papier-máché rationalism" of the 1920s and when mass arrests, losses of livelihood, hundreds of thousands of people sent to lagers and death sentences created an atmosphere where impossible was very possible and where the world of fantasies, reality and unreality easily merged. The study also presents the philosophy of Bulgakov and the moral stand featuring his works in this historic context. The real evil is "represented" in the book not by trivial trick players and neighbours reporting each other hoping for getting a flat as a reward but by Berlioz who has no ideas; his only goal is to service the power unscrupulously. The existence of Berlioz thus in fact a non-existence – and that could be the judgement of Bulgakov on all power that became an end in itself.
The article is tthe edited version of the chapter on Bulgakov in Арсланов В.Г. : Постмодернизм и русский "третий путь": Tertium datur российской культуры XX века. Культурная революция, 2007г., Серия: AEstetica
No. 84 | (Winter 2009)
Eszmélet turns 20. We celebrated its 20th anniversary by making a special issue in Russian published in Moscow. We remained faithful to the original idea of socialism: the community mode of production and social structure. The restored rule of capitalist relationships could not give a humanistic answer to the fall of "old socialism" rooted in Stalinism and conquered by the state. Our journal gave multifaceted analysis on the inhumanity of the "capitalism with a human face". We have shown that international capital has not put East Europe on the track of catching up with the West but exactly the opposite: leading to the misery of semi-periphery by "capitalism 2.0". By now, it has been proven that "good capitalism" is only a utopia, and practically rather a black utopia.
Although, despite our goal, we could not induce an alternative broad anti-capitalism movement with mass support since it lacks the forces of social support but we see what we should avoid at least. The "resurrection" of the left under socialist parties in East Europe became a puppet of global capital as it did globally downgrading itself into just a different form of neoliberalism. This road came to its end. On the other hand, the way of thinking and acting that degrades the anti-capitalist left to a sect or political subculture – and voluntarily leaves the political scene thus making a service to the rulers – cannot be continued either. Such political movements that do not have viable alternatives at their hand in their actual environment are deemed to fail.
Saying that, this issue is focusing on the (further) analysis of the features of the present crisis of capitalism. István Mészáros, the author of Beyond Capital is analysing the nature of the crisis foreseen by him for many years. Others reveal that in its way out of the crisis the neoliberal state found the poor and helpless as its main enemies and is criminalising the social problem. Interviews with recently passed away Giovanni Arrighi and Peter Gowan certainly make the readers think on social alternatives and finding the ways for community production and the practical movement.
Table of contents
- Mészáros István : The tasks ahead – March 2009 interview by Debate Socialista (Brazil)
- Artner Annamária : Crisis and employment
- James K. Galbraith : Financial and monetary issues as the crisis unfolds
- David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi : The winding paths of capital – Interview by David Harvey
- Marko Bojcun, Mike Newman, Peter Gowan : The ways ofd the world – Interview by Marco Bojcun and Mike Newman
- Bózsó Péter : Fundamental comparative economics – dialectic perspective
- Farkas Péter : An important book on the global crisis
- Tütő László : Mass murdering help
- Szabó Tibor : A further Italian book on Lukács
- Ilja Szmirnov : Brown bib for the playboy
- Szarka Klára : Joyful or sad? Photos of Robert capa in an art museum
- Loic Wacquant : Crafting the neoliberal state – Workfare, prisonfare and social insecurity
Venezuela: from Bolivarism to Socialism
In a world of lost hope the political-intellectual search of Hugo Chavez and the development – or maybe the sheer existence – of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a peculiar challenge for social analysis. The article reviews the political history of Venezuela in the past 20 years "from fact to fact" centred on the social, domestic and foreign policy achievements of the decade long presidency of Chavez full of vicissitudes.