Category Archives: Periodical

Notes on transnationalisation

In this article the author presents the fact of transnationalisation and provides a critical analysis of the different interpretation of these facts. He analyses the process of globalisation and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. He points out that transnationalisation is generally disadvantageous for the countries outside the centre and especially their poorer groups. He directs the attention to the fact that transnationalisation is often a disguise of certain (stronger) national interests; the significance of the implementation of national interests remains. Transnationalisation does not resolve the structural crisis of the world economy that has been prevalent for a long time.

A note on the concept of delinking

In this article, Amin summarises his famous theory of "delinking", he opposes the two strategies of the underdeveloped countries: the following, catching up type of development linked with the capitalist world market and the "delinking" one, the "populist-national" strategy linked more organically with their own cultural traditions which is egalitarian in distribution. He differentiates between this latter one and socialism but states that the model "delinking" from the world economy may lead more to that than other model serving the centres of capitalism.

Samir Amin: A note on the concept of delinking. Review, 1987. 3. pp. 435-444.

No. 12 | (Winter 1991)

Eszmélet organised the 1st Theoretical Conference of Journals of Social-critique at the Youth Centre in Csillebérc Budapest on April 10-12, 1991. In this issue, we present selected writings of the participants of the conference (it can be the written version of the speeches made or a different study) and of invited persons who could not come (like Bidet, Laibman, Mészáros or Samary).  We ask our readers to take into account that the original audience of most of the articles translated here were domestic readers of foreign journals, where the authors live. Nevertheless, we hope that articles reflecting the views of British, American, Italian, Austrian, French of Polish authors do have interesting points for Hungarian readers, since most of the studies focus on developments in East Europe, where we live.

In addition to articles related to the conference, we present two writings of André Gunder Frank from the Netherlands. This the continuation of our series presenting the 36 most renowned leftist thinkers that was started with publishing writings from Immanuel Wallerstein and that will be continued soon with articles from Samir Amin. (We have to note that the two articles of Wallerstein, the studies of Gunder Frank and the articles to be published from Amin all were sent to Eszmélet by the authors themselves.)

Table of contents
  1. Conference of journals of social-critique, Budapest 1991- Brief account
  2. Gus Fagan : Hungary – The collapse of Kadarism
  3. Andrea Komlosy, Hannes Hofbauer : Restructuring (Eastern) Europe
  4. Luciana Castellina : Remaning an Italian communist – reflections on the “death of socialism”
  5. Vietorisz Tamás : The global information economy, privatisation, and the future of socialism
  6. Jacques Bidet : A metastructural theory of modernity
  7. Barry K. Gills, Andre Gunder Frank : The cumulation of accumulation
  8. Andre Gunder Frank : Marketing demokracy in an undemocratic market
  9. David Laibman : Toward a working theory of the socialist economy
  10. Mészáros István : The decreasing rate of utilisation and the capitalist state
  11. Catherine Samary : The necessary self-government
  12. Bartosz Julian : Deep down – for undisjoinable values – Theses for the conference in Budapest on April 11-12, 1991
  13. Hungarian literaure on the system change 1989-1991
  14. Short introduction of journals present at the conference on April 11-12, 1991

No. 9 | (Spring 1991)

Table of contents
  1. Bill Lomax : The world turned upside down. The revolutions in Hungary 1956 and 1989
  2. Marton Imre : Western Europe in the grip of a rearranging world
  3. John Rees : New imperialism
  4. Tót Éva : How do the households defend themselves? – Conversation with sociologist Endre Sík
  5. Ékes Ildikó : How do we live ten years before the turn of the century? – A survey with questionnaires involving 6,000 households
  6. Tátrai Gábor : The 1990 general elections – Conversation with György Wiener
  7. Márkus Péter : Modernisation theories in the Hungarian social sciences in the ’80s – A plan
  8. Mocsáry József : Hungary and state capitalism – Thesis concerning the interpretation of the economic paradoxes of our history after 1949
  9. Szalai Pál : Will ideas of István Bibó win?
  10. Vigvári András : Reform and the change of system – A plan to the history of the Hungarian economic policy and reform
  11. Szabó András György : Is Marxism modern?
  12. Democracy
  13. On the Forum of Citizens’ Initiative
  14. Power has to be controlled – Conversation with András Hegedűs about the Workers’ Academy now being organised
  15. Charter of the Federation for Social Democracy 1990
  16. Szak Péter Otmár : Index and bibliography of Eszmélet, volumes 1-8.
  17. Kapitány Ágnes, Kapitány Gábor : Politics and/or society