Eight essays connected by various common strands. The most important one is the community of the main subject-matter: socialism, capitalism, democracy, change of system. These four expressions cover four phenomena of great and comprehensive importance. Each piece in the book deals with these and...

An explanation is given why communist economies usually react smoothly but sometimes very dramatically to seemingly minor changes in the political and economic environment. In this paper such dramatic reactions materialize in a sudden clamp-down on individual freedom and sudden economic...