Under Pressure

The study examines the evolution of the capital-labor relationship within the framework of System of National Cooperation.  It analyses the quantitative characteristics of the exploitation resulting from this relationship and their changes. It shows how the interests of capital prevail over the interests of workers in the legislature, in the design and modification of the institutional system of national and local interest reconciliation, and in the redistribution of state resources. The evolution of the state of the bourgeoisie and of the workers, and of their methods of asserting their interests, are also dealt with in separate chapters. The point is that, while the bourgeoisie is able to self-organize to represent its common interests and is able to represent these interests through the state in the guise of the state, the workers are atomized and therefore unable to recognize and articulate their common interests. Their mental state deteriorates markedly during the period under review. Finally, in the concluding theoretical chapter of the paper, it is argued that the exploitation of workers in the System of National Cooperation (NER), i.e., in the authoritarian era of new capitalism in Hungary, is much stronger than ever before despite the fact that the ruling political elite has managed to control the bourgeoisie. And/or, paradoxically, it is in the interests of the latter that it is able to assert the interests of the whole capital even against the interests of individual capitalists.