This book is the first theoretical account of urban inequalities under actual state socialism in Eastern Europe. It is argued that these inequalities cannot be explained by the capitalist past, and that new types of inequality are emerging under socialism.

Urban Social Inequalities Under State Socialism (The ^ALibrary of Political Economy)

Szelényi, Iván

Religion & Spirituality

Oxford University Press

Urban Inequalities Under State Socialism (The ^ALibrary of Political Economy)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Among the East European nations, Hungary has been noted in recent years  for permitting, even encouraging, family entrepreneurship in  agriculture. In this highly empirical study, Ivan Szelenyi and his  collaborators explore this phenomenon, affording a rare view of the  reemergence of private sector activity in a socialist society, and  offering new insights into the very origins of capitalism.    In the years since the government relaxed its policy of forced  collectivization, approximately ten percent of rural Hungarian families  have taken up entrepreneurial opportunities in agriculture. Why they  have chosen this course—and why ninety percent of family have chosen to  remain in proletarian or cadre positions—are central questions in  Szelenyi’s inquiry.    The theory advocated here is one of “interrupted embourgeoisement.”  Those people who, during the years of Stalinism, found occupations in  which they could successfully resist the dual pressures of  proletarianization and cadrefication are the ones now able to reenter  the interrupted embourgeoisement trajectory. As a result, the communist  “revolution from above” has been challenged by a somewhat unexpected  “revolution from below,” in the process producing a socialist mixed  economic system that seems to be as different from Soviet—style  communism as it is from Western capitalism.“This is a very, very important work, combining rich primary research by  Szelenyi and four colleagues with a major ‘step toward a theory of  articulation of a state socialist mixed economy.’  .  .  .  Using  surveys from 1972-73 and 1982-84, the authors traced life histories to  identify variables that showed why families responded differently to  proletarianization, formation of a new working class, or  embourgeoisement.”—World Development

Socialist Entrepreneurs: Embourgeoisement in Rural Hungary

Business & Money

Economics

Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Among the East European nations, Hungary has been noted in recent years for permitting, even encouraging, family entrepreneurship in agriculture. In this highly empirical study, Ivan Szelenyi and his collaborators explore this phenomenon, affording a rare view of the reemergence of private sector activity in a socialist society, and offering new insights into the very origins of capitalism. In the years since the government relaxed its policy of forced collectivization, approximately ten percent of rural Hungarian families have taken up entrepreneurial opportunities in agriculture. Why they have chosen this course—and why ninety percent of family have chosen to remain in proletarian or cadre positions—are central questions in Szelenyi’s inquiry. The theory advocated here is one of “interrupted embourgeoisement.” Those people who, during the years of Stalinism, found occupations in which they could successfully resist the dual pressures of proletarianization and cadrefication are the ones now able to reenter the interrupted embourgeoisement trajectory. As a result, the communist “revolution from above” has been challenged by a somewhat unexpected “revolution from below,” in the process producing a socialist mixed economic system that seems to be as different from Soviet—style communism as it is from Western capitalism. “This is a very, very important work, combining rich primary research by Szelenyi and four colleagues with a major ‘step toward a theory of articulation of a state socialist mixed economy.’ . . . Using surveys from 1972-73 and 1982-84, the authors traced life histories to identify variables that showed why families responded differently to proletarianization, formation of a new working class, or embourgeoisement.”—World Development

University of Wisconsin Press

This book intends to be a contribution to the "varieties of capitalism" paradigm. The theoretical background is Weber 's theory of legitimacy. Was communism ever "legitimate"? What kind of legitimacy claims were made in the transition from communism to capitalism? Central Europe was closer to the Western "liberal" model. Russia built capitalism in a patrimonial way. China followed its own unique way; some called it "socialism with Chinese characteristics". Putin experiments with an innovation for post-communist capitalism. He confronts the "oligarchs" and reallocates property from those who challenge his political authority to old and new loyal ones. This book asks to what extent such forms can serve as generic models for post-communist capitalism?

Varieties of Post-communist Capitalism: A Comparative analysis of Russia, Eastern Europe and China (Studies in Critical Social Sciences)

Mihályi, Péter

Haymarket Books

Making Capitalism Without Capitalists: The New Ruling Elites in Eastern Europe

Making Capitalism without Capitalists offers a new theory of the transition to capitalism. By telling the story of how capitalism is being built without capitalists in post-communist Central Europe it guides us towards a deeper understanding of the origins of modern capitalism.

Townsley, Eleanor

Eyal, Gil

Townsley, Eleanor R.

Verso Books

Making Capitalism without Capitalists offers a new theory of the transition to capitalism. By telling the story of how capitalism is being built without capitalists in post-communist Central Europe it guides is towards a deeper understanding of the origins of modern capitalism.

Verso

<div> Mihályi and Szelényi provide a timely contribution to contemporary debates about inequality of incomes and wealth, offering a careful examination of various sources of rent in contemporary societies, and considering several policy options to reduce inequality in order to preserve the meritocratic nature of liberal democracies. While Rent-Seekers, Profits, Wages and Inequality&nbsp;acknowledges the rapid and disturbing increase of incomes and wealth in the top 1 or 0.1%, it focuses on the increasing rent component of incomes and wealth in the top 20% as even more consequential. The attention to cutting-edge issues on inequality in macroeconomics, political science and sociology will appeal to social scientists interested in income distribution and wealth accumulation. </div>

Rent-Seekers, Profits, Wages and Inequality: The Top 20%

Palgrave Pivot

This volume presents articles by Ivan Szelenyi - William Graham Sumner Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Yale University since 50 years. The world has changed a lot in this half century. When the first contribution to this volume was published in 1969, Hungary was the "goulash communism" of Janos Kadar. Its disintegration began in the 1980s and in 1989/90 transitioned into "market capitalism" that looked like a bourgeois-liberal democracy. Finally, in 2014, Viktor Orban began to realise his vision of an "illiberal regime". The last article of 2022 deals with the struggles between liberalism and illiberalism. How much coherence in thought and action can one expect from a social scientist in this rapidly changing world? Although Szelenyi changed and often fundamentally modified his views over time, all his writings belong to what we call critical social science: immanent critique and ironic examination of both socialism and capitalism. None of his essays recommend either socialism or capitalism as the sole solution, but he tried to give, as far as possible, an objective analysis of what was possible in the most turbulent times of the last half century, leaving the ideological-political decision to the readers. To paraphrase Karl Marx's Eleventh Thesis: The task of the philosopher (or sociologist) is not to change the world, but to interpret it.

From State Socialism to Post-communist Capitalism: Critical Perspectives

Harrassowitz Verlag

"Both the extent and the character of poverty in Eastern Europe appear to have changed with the transition from socialism to a market economy. There has been not only a substantial increase in the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty, but according to some commentators, the actual character of poverty has changed as well. The conventional wisdom among social scientists is that during socialism poverty was mainly a life-cycle phenomenon. Thus families with large numbers of young children, the temporarily or permanently disabled, and the elderly tended to be poor. Today, however, social class, ethnicity, and/or gender appear to play a more significant role than in the past in terms of predicting or explaining poverty.
 The surveys are based on statistical data generated by surveys conducted in the six post-communist countries of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia during the fall of 1999 and the winter-spring of 2000. Iván Szelényi was the principal investigator; co-principal investigators were Rebecca Emigh, Éva Fodor, and János Ladányi. The research team included a group of senior scholars and advanced Ph.D. students in each country.
 The papers in this book offer the first results of the analyses. The research team intends to publish several monographs based on this study; therefore, this issue contains merely a glimpse of what is to come. The articles focus on questions regarding the social construction of roma ethnicity, gender issues, while some offer systematic comparisons of the extent and nature of poverty of all countries.
 Most assuredly, this is the only cross-national study that systematically examines answers to retrospective questions about poverty during socialism."

Poverty Ethnicity and Gender in Transitional Societies

Politics & Government

Akademiai Kiado

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Szelényi, Iván. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Szelényi, Iván

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Szelényi, Iván. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Urban Social Inequalities Under State Socialism (The ^ALibrary of Political Economy)

Urban Inequalities Under State Socialism (The ^ALibrary of Political Economy)

Socialist Entrepreneurs: Embourgeoisement in Rural Hungary

Socialist Entrepreneurs: Embourgeoisement in Rural Hungary

Varieties of Post-communist Capitalism: A Comparative analysis of Russia, Eastern Europe and China (Studies in Critical Social Sciences)

Making Capitalism Without Capitalists: The New Ruling Elites in Eastern Europe

Making Capitalism Without Capitalists: The New Ruling Elites in Eastern Europe

Rent-Seekers, Profits, Wages and Inequality: The Top 20%

From State Socialism to Post-communist Capitalism: Critical Perspectives

Poverty Ethnicity and Gender in Transitional Societies