No matter how impressive the material consequences of globalization may be, it seems evident that its soft dimension, that is, the cultural expansion is at least as important in maintaining America's power. The ability to persuade others to want what we want by emphasizing the appeal of the American lifestyle is much more beneficial than military or political coercion.

"What you will read here is another piece to the story of a failure" – introduces the author his article written in 1982 about the Polish crisis, originally published in a Transylvanian samisdat journal. This piece is a relevant document of the leftist state socialism criticism of the period, which is today often kept silent about or even denied.

Around the 1970s, the French Left has organised lively intellectual and political debates about the possibilities and conditions of a self-regulating socialism. The socio-economic conditions and metamorphosis of this anti-state and anti-capitalist intellectual movement is worth the scrutiny. The question of the retrospective analysis is whether the principle of self-regulating radical social organisation can be incorporated into the current alternative social movements.

The history of the theory and practice of the voluntary productive associations – so-called co-operatives – in a nutshell; from the early capitalist association forms to the organisation of the solidarity (social) economic sector of the European Union.

The article presents the changes of the complex institutional relationship between the actors of labour (employers, employees and their interest organisations, and the state as an employer, owner, distributor and consultant) from the Hungarian transition to the present.