The author is analysing the collapse of state socialism and the return of the illusion of the self-regulating market by using the tools of Polanyi. This transition fits in the third wave of marketisation and commodification, which results in the withdrawal of social rights, the unbounded power of money and transforming nature to a commodity. The researcher sums up the experience of Hungary, before and after the system change, he describes how the attempts for self-governance failed, that would have been a real alternative to the market economy reaching hegemony.