No doubt, many who see this title will be put off by its seeming absurdity, and will ask who put the salt in the sugar jar, or Eastern Europe - where expected lifespan just keep growing shorter, where the quality of life is deteriorating, and where the region's countries compete for the world's highest suicide rate - has to do with a philosophy and lifestyle that has arisen from post-industrial consumer societies. But if we take a closer look at the concept, we will see that in this age of flaming ice-creams, anti-communist former KGB agents, and Oscar-winning Mikhalkov films, a thesis might be absurd, and still be useful.

We might even tighten the binds a little further and say that not only does salt have a place in the sugar jar, but that the mirror of post-communism reflects a more realistic image of post-modernity - an image which, if not 'real', at least allows for a better description of post-modernism than that offered by mainstream sociology. Finally, we might venture to say that the events occurring in post-communist societies throw light on post-modernity.
 

Before we enter the meat of our topic we should discuss the meaning of the term 'post-modern'. Here we will step away from Western post-modernism?s ignorance of, and willingness to forget nearly everything that is not at the cutting edge of the First World.

It should be noted that the greatest reasons for despising 'post-modernism', 'post-communism' and their associate terminology is the fact that nobody can define them. It is true that these two terms would not get far in a conceptual 'wet t-shirt contest' as they tend, in their thickness, to obscure rather than expose the social forms hidden behind them. Even the less problematic post-communism proves to be rather sloppy in practice. In registering the differences that come to mind in communism between, say Kádár's Hungarian, and Enver Hodzha's Albanian versions of communism, it should come as no surprise to note that the post-Velvet Revolution Czechish Republic differs significantly from a Rumania that still has to live with the shame of the pogrom in Tirgu Mures.

Post-modernism is even worse. Everything that is different or 'new' - whether in film, fashion, architecture or social science - is branded with the term, no matter what its content or message. The general dislike of 'post-modern', however, is rooted in far more significant causes - causes which encompass far more than the post-communist world (taken in even the most liberal sense). The general hatred 'post-modern' rhetoric has called upon itself from Syria to Indonesia, and India to Ecuador is not to be lightly dismissed. Although Gaytari Spivaks and Edward B. Saids (or, to remain in Central Europe, Ágnes Hellers, or Zygmunt Baumans) may appear on the periphery to defend the rhetoric, the average intellectual either considers post-modernism to be a symptom of Western decadence, or what is worse, claim it is a discourse that is used to obscure real social problems, and that the sentimental jargon of post-modernism is a tool to symbolically maintain the developed world's hegemony over peripheral nations.

We do not dispute the claim that post-modern rhetoric might have such effects. Before we delve into analysis of social function, however, we should bind this multi-levelled term to some meaning. Wittgenstein showed that concepts like 'game' and even such a seemingly simple object as a table is virtually impossible to define: it is through tradition and the knowledge of the rules of any given linguistic game that we determine whether (for instance) a four-legged wooden object used when eating is a kitchen stool, or a table. This is true in the case of 'post-modernism' as well. Therefore it is not our goal to either discover the 'real meaning' of the term, or to uncover the 'false meanings given the term to date, but instead to logically redefine and extend the meaning of the term. A boot will not become a table just because we call it one - however, the relationship between post-communism and post-modernism very much depends on what we mean when we use these two terms. As suggested earlier, this definition will be somewhat arbitrary and imperfect, but this should by no means detract from the validity of the analysis.

Therefore, we will delve into a short summary of the characteristics of post-communist society, followed by a recounting of five features of post-modernity. Finally, we will attempt to slip the two 'pictures' over one another, and through their joint projection, discover how post-modernity and post-communism react.

Postcommunism

Martin Heidegger and the French post-structuralists gained undying fame in bringing their readers to mistrust esoteric terminology and stylistic tricks. Their followers outdid them by throwing themselves into the current of fashion in the holy sea of surrealist terminology, and assisting the word-drunk reader to create a dictionary which surpasses meaning. Both the fiercest enemies and most loyal followers of this school of jargon call it post-modern. For our own part we do not believe that an entirely new set of terminology is needed to define man's new state, but the adoption of certain new metaphors might have serious advantages (if we are able to explain just what advantages an advised term has over one that has been used in the past).

When, therefore, we advise the use of the term "late/comer/capitalism" to post-communist states, we do not do so out of a desire to simply create a new term, but instead in the belief that this term will contribute to the dialogue about post-communism, and in a way that will speak to post-modernism.

In the roaring chorus of social-scientists who have been occupied with post-communism since 1989, the strongest voice no doubt belongs to the school of transitology (Szelényi, 1994). For our own part, we can only agree with those voices in this cacophony which consider the economic transition to capitalism the decisive moment in the movement into post-communism. This is not to say that the change in political system, 'the fall of communism and the introduction of democracy' is lacking in historical significance to the countries in this region, it just appears that these political and structural changes were easier to get used to, and generally fit into existing social rhythms without serious conflict. To return to analysis of the change of regimes, the items that follow, while generally ignored, are relevant to the topic at hand.

If we accept Marshall Berman's definition of modern life (Berman, 1983) and apply it to the milieu of the 1970 and 80's Goulash Communism, we will see that virtually every element of modernity (the application of natural science discoveries to technology, transformation of the environment, the breaking down of tradition, and the changing role of the family, urbanization, industrialization, motorization, secularization, etc.) is to be found - with two vital exceptions: 1. The economy was not based on capitalism. In other words a lack of prevalence of private property and market exchange. 2. A lack of a democratic political system.

It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of these two exceptions. Yet one of the determining characteristics of post-communist countries is the fact that, opposite to the West, they so quickly set out on the road to modern lifestyles and only later introduced capitalism and democracy.

This simple factor carries two important results. First, we must see that this capitalism came from "outer forces' and was not the necessary organic result of internal development (Böröcz, 1991). For countries of the region world policy decisions made by the great powers 'provided space' for these developments. At the same time the model of market economies was introduced to fill this space, and was joyfully embraced by the countries of Central-Eastern Europe. Neither its joyful acceptance, nor the massive hangover the morning after alter the fact that this model was not the result of internal developments, but arrived as an imported prefabricated package. Post-communism's bourgeoisie did not arise from steadily strengthening entrepreneurialism, but took on its elastic form as a result, and within the framework of political decisions.

Thus capitalism came late to Eastern Europe and as a foreign guest - a guest we should examine more closely. Here we should note that it was the 'late capitalism' of the latter half of the twentieth century, with its particular consumption patterns and value-systems, a capitalism ruled by multi-national corporate giants, which was adopted by the region, and not the free market of the nineteenth century. Thus the often mentioned parallel between Eastern Europe today and the original accumulation of capital is false, and it is ridiculous to expect Eastern European entrepreneurs to follow a protestant ethic that has already died in the West. This is not to say that there are no differences between the Eastern and Western Europe, it is just that these differences do not arise from a lack of capitalist development in Central Europe. Late capitalism was late to arrive with its capital and production structures, its ad campaigns, and the seductions of consumerism, and therefore we choose to use the term 'late/comer/capitalism' to describe nations in the region.

Post/Modernity

The '/' sign here separating post from modernity is intended to indicate that the modern and post-modern periods are not hermetically sealed from one another, that there has been no real revolutionary change between the two time periods, but that they in fact flow imperceptibly and inseparably into one another. To use Frederick Jameson's expression, we are talking about 'cultural logics'.(Jameson 1991) As these are not separate, 'discrete' time periods, there is no need for the sometimes hysterical attempts to 'determine when the new period began'. It is unimportant whether we label the period we are living in 'post-', 'suer' or 'late-', or even simple, unprefixed 'modernity'. What is important is to find the terms that will better allow us to describe this ever more incomprehensible period. The term 'post/modernity' attempts to represent this difficult-to-define newness. The novelty and significance of this cultural logic can best be seen if we contrast the characteristics of the new ethos with those of classic modernity.

1. Fragmented Knowledge and Irony

Here we will tear the siamese twins apart, ignore the emancipating political philosophy of the Enlightenment, and see what remains of its epistemological promises of universality and homogeneity. In the Enlightenment Knowledge was describe through the metaphor of the collection of light, light which would eventually wrest control of the world from the empire of darkness. The effects of knowledge were seen as positive, dynamically spreading, and inevitably unstoppable.

Here this light/knowledge was seen as unified, and people believed that the separate pieces of light, once they spread and reached one another, would naturally and easily meld together. The social functions of this united knowledge were also commonly agreed upon: as this epistemology was built and the assumption that 'the more knowledge, the more just the world will be', the promise of more knowledge held the promise of 'progress towards a more beautiful future' for its believers.

The development and application of technologically perfect killing devices in the twentieth century put an end to naive belief in this connection between knowledge and justice.

Within the philosophy of science Thomas Kuhn's paradigm provided both the most effective critique of beliefs from the Enlightenment, and demystified the universifying aspirations of science. (Kuhn 1962) In response social constructivist (Berger-Luckman 1967) and others have since emancipated epistemological status of 'everyday knowledge' and attempted to reconstruct its place within and relation to the 'development' of science. However, in his research into terminology and configurations of knowledge Michel Foucault has made it clear that the dimension of power in science is unavoidable.(Foucault 1980) This unity of power and knowledge no longer means that 'knowledge is power' (or that by gaining knowledge we get access to power, which is the emblematic thesis of modernity) but rather that power decides what will become 'knowledge' (in other words, that the acquisition of power is one of the prerequisites to knowledge).

In post/modernity the intellectual field has been divided up into parcels, and the unquestionable relationship between knowledge and justice has broken down.

The hierarchy of knowledge has been destroyed, and science which once reigned all powerful and scorned all beneath it has become just one of a multi-hued simultaneous, alternative localized forms of knowledge. The development of a Great Narrative to encompass all of existence has proven to be both an impossible, and morally questionable undertaking.

In this, the age of the information explosion it is impossible to keep track of all the developments in one small corner of one field of science, much less in scientific developments as a whole. New values dominate this new order, and the collection and absorbtion of information by encyclopediaists (what Nietzsche called 'used bookstore knowledge') is no longer particularly impressive when compared to what can be done with CD Roms and computer translation programs. In contrast to the past playfulness, creativity and the ability to find hidden connections between ideas have come to be valued.

In travelling through this new world of segmented, parcelized and differently cultivated spheres of knowledge we can do little else than turn our backs on metaphysical resolutions and approach Rorty's irony, which both allows us to admit our own limits and to exist with the beauty of chance.(Rorty 1989) The Ironic, as we know, continually doubts in the validity of the values and descriptions of the world it uses, though this doubt does not preclude its use of these values, or demand its rejection of this world. Exclusivity, and the rule of 'single possible solutions' - what Rorty has called 'common sense' - are the true opposites of Irony. Through Irony modernity appears as nothing more than an illusion of rules set in concrete, and postmodernity nothind else but modernity without the arrogance of universalism. (Bauman, 1993).

2. The Personality

Zygmunt Bauman, has found a personality type that may be taken as defining 'late' or 'post/modernity': the Tourist.(Bauman 1993, 1995) Naturally Bauman does not mean that all of us have become happy travellers, or that we spend most of our lives in group camps. The true significance of the Tourist can only be understood when compared to the classic metaphor for modernity, whom Bauman called the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim is well known as a personality type. Max Weber's Protestant entrepreneur, the Soviet commissar György Lukács, or the pukka sahib of the Imperial India are all types of pilgrims. The Pilgrim knows where he has come from, and what holy goal he is working towards. His whole life has been given to his calling. He knows what he has to do to make himself fit the desired state of affairs, and he knows that tomorrow will hold more promise than today.

No one could venture to say that this type has died out, but we can say that it is no longer typical of our times. Even those who have been able to find their way to this sort of vision have a difficult time maintaining its unity. The Tourist, on the other hand, who lives in the fractured reality described above experiences both the multi-huedness of values and beliefs, and their relativity. He lives with the doubt that inevitably arises from being constantly forced to choose between a multiplicity of 'right' options. The 'road' by which the Pilgrim travels has been called 'progress', and 'development'. Today rationalization and progress cannot be seen as purely 'good'. Today the construction of an enormous factory or dam (both temples of modernity) at the outskirts of a sleepy village will lead at the least to protest, if not a more violent reaction. There are no value compasses to guide us through the plethora of possibilities. To be more exact, we are too well acquainted with too many types of values and value systems to be able to fully trust any one. Naturally, we must keep the anxiety arising from our unsureness at bay. The Tourist builds walls to obscure the most disturbing differences, ignores death. What Goffman has described as frame maintenance, and impression management has virtually become an industry. The Tourist makes plans for the short-term. Today he will take some of this value, tomorrow a little of that, depending on context and situation. This flexibility and relativity makes the Tourist the typical type of our post/modern world of doubts.

3. Legitimation

Here we will take a look at the connection between the Tourist as a personality type and his community - society. We will examine the attitudes and actions he takes to provide his life with meaning - in other words, how he finds legitimation. In late post/modernity the most important legitimation tool is the market, and more specifically consumption.

Weber's classic typology of modernity might be applicable here, as charisma, and elements of traditional and rational forms are still present in legitimation, if it weren't for the fact that something fundamental has changed, that today legitimation occurs through the seduction of consumption. Our new man says 'I am a happy consumer', and in truth a basic part of our identities (with the exception of a few religious fanatics and idealist intellectuals) is built upon desired and acquired goods. The basis of the acceptance of political and social order is that it should ensure consumption, and within this the consumption alternatives necessary for the maintenance of individual identity - in other words what is primarily demanded by the Tourist - choice. Here the single widespread rebellion against the values of consumption in '68 should be mentioned - a rebellion against a way of life demarked by such milestones as an individual's first car, first television, and first trip abroad. Those who still sympathize with this rebellion are likely to continue to appreciate such things as post-industrial values, ecologically friendly alternatives and the rise of eastern mysticism. It may be that they are right to do so. Still, we cannot ignore the fact that the market, as the virtuoso in repressive tolerance, is joyfully able to absorb and integrate any attack: ecologically friendly products are placed on the most elegant shelves; the 'recycling' logo has been effectively used to seduce consumers; and Jim Morrison's albums have been sold by the tens of millions.

We need to make two short observations about this factor of the attack on consumption. First, in this atmosphere it is not just the individual who has changed. The other actor in the 'market', the producer and his whole way of operating, have changed as well. As the holder of the economy he has had to become an attractive servant to the consumer. The traditional satisfaction of needs has also changed. Instead of a set, slowly growing number of needs, the number and variety of needs has grown, needs which the postmodern economy tries both to satisfy, and to increase.

Finally, there are still marginalized groups who are hardly reached or effected by market seductions. Just as has always been the case with external groups, postmodern society tries to either integrate or exclude these groups.

4. The State

Legally the post/modern state hides no particular surprises: there is no alternative to representative democracy. However, in post/modernity we are continually confronted with the frustrating fact that the promises made by and desires from multi-party democracy have not been met. The general right to vote is necessary, but has proven to be insufficient to establish equal opportunity and the meeting of interests. And while 'rabble democracy' has deeply changed political communication (here too seduction has become the most important 'skill') no one would argue that worker X has the same chance to see his interests taken care of as billionaire Y, or that farmer Z is as influential as media tsar N.

Now the question becomes how democracies at the end of the millennia will change in light of the complexity of their very hierarchized representation of interests. The reader who calls us to task for using the sloppy term 'democracies at the end of the millennia' is right to do so: the conception of solidarity and expectations of the role of the state differ enormously between such states as (for instance) The Netherlands and the United States - not to mention states culturally even farther removed from these two such as Japan. Still, if we look for a model to indicate the direction changes are likely to take in the future, we will see that the United States is still the flag-bearer of democracy and capitalism, and sets a standard that the rest of the Western World (with some reservations) attempts to follow.

In as much as we accept the fact social and political changes follow the imperatives of 'economic correctness', then we must see that the process of destroying that great creation of modernity the social welfare state, is not starting, but actually coming to an end. The cutting back and elimination of social expenditures (which is generally supported with calls to increase competitiveness and balance budgets) is the highpoint of the application of the neo-conservative cowboy-liberal philosophy that "those who are at the top pulled themselves up there by their own bootstraps, while those at the bottom got into trouble because of their own faults". The frightening fact of two million in prison in the Home of the Free gives one an idea of the effectiveness of the handling of social problems there, however. The fiction of the celebration of democratic representation hides the fact that elites who are truly able to protect their interests are no longer interested in maintaining social support systems. This is also indicated by the fact that the elimination of the social welfare system is occurring independently of economic achievements, that its destruction was equally strongly supported during economic upswings in the 80s and late 90s as during the recession between these upswings. It is clear though that, despite the New Deal, the United States were never a hotbed of the welfare state, and thus its destruction has progressed further than elsewhere. Nonetheless the U.S. is providing a model for Western European, because though they might not be able to keep up with the States' policies, they are also being pushed by economic factors to cut back on their welfare systems.

In addition to the elimination of the welfare state there is another common factor that should be mentioned: an inflation in the state's sovereignty. To point out just one aspect of this which is closely connected to what has been discussed, economic power, which is one of the greatest reasons of political equality of opportunity, is becoming more and more transnational. This does not just mean that national jurisdiction and supremacy are practically undiscernible in the network of multinational corporations, but that in the process of globalization media tsar Z and billionaire Y are in a more advantageous position than both their own countrymen, and in an international comparison of strength, than virtually anybody anywhere they go. To stay with the American example, there is nothing wrong with the fact that over the course of the last two decades Japanese investors have bought the majority of real-estate in the Hawaiian Islands, but this does enter a new chapter in native Hawaiians fight to retain and regain their ancestral lands.

5. Social Relations

In connection with post/modern social relations we should address on typical factor, the process of abstractionism.

The society of modernity was the society of material work. It was the age of producers of goods, of traders in those goods, and of those who aided in this production and trade. The classic figures of this age were the producer-entrepreneur and the worker who despite greatly differing social and economic chances were two sides of the same coin, and whose relationship in the welfare state was one of agreement and consensus. This world, naturally, has not entirely vanished. Daniel Bell calls our attention to the fact that the rise of post-industrial society does not signal a crumbling of the industrial complex (after all, there is no (post)modern society without industry), but rather that the institutions of production have lost their monopoly on power, and have been pressed back by service industries. (Bell 1973)

Keeping this fact in mind, one could venture to say that post/modern society is a society of communication, of information production, and of those who aid in its production and dissemination.

The process of abstraction, which is essentially an exchange of work for communication, or rather material for information has resulted in numerous changes including the use of credit in place of cash, indians e-mailing Unesco from the rain-forest (the significance of which we will not even try to explain). To emphasize just one aspect of this change: the classic figure representing the ethos of the age is no longer the Factory owning-Entrepreneur, but the Broker who brings information to life. The Broker does not establish new factories, or businesses, he negotiates, he dabbles in a sea of information, he plays with opportunities, and he measures chances. The Broker has no calling. He does not make long-term plans. The Broker is present (at the right place at the right time) and tries to seize the moment.

But the information that the broker brings to life is of a strange nature, is part of a 'closed chain'. While this book will mean no less if it is read by many, the exclusive access to information is in the Broker's interest, as is his ability to gain public information first and to either keep it secret or to control its movement. This determines his relationship with non-brokers, his relationship with the masses. While the worker was a part of the same production process as the factory owner, and thus an improvement of his lot through the improvement of production could be imagined, the masses do not make up players in the Broker's game, and are not in position to make deals with the Broker. Here the authors agree with Susan Strange who has named this economic formation 'casino capitalism' - a place where 'expertise, effort, thought, commitment, and hard work count for less and less' and where social trust and cohesion are weakening. Still, we do not believe that 'power is simply controlled, and begins to be determined by luck no matter what happens to people as a result.' We believe this to be naive. We like the casino capitalism metaphor precisely because in addition to the brokers risking greater or smaller bets inside the casino, we can imagine the masses outside who are not winning, not because they have had bad luck, but because they have yet to even place a bet. After the welfare state, where social differences were relatively modest and stable, in the New Era social distances begun to increase rapidly. For instance political economist Robert Reich remarked "..in 1960, the chief executive of one of America's 100 largest nonfinancial corporations earned, on average $190 000, or about 40 times the wage of his average factory worker. After taxes, the chief executive earned only 12 times the factory worker's wages. By the end of the 1980s, however, the chief executive earned, on average more than $2 million- 93 times the wage of his (rarely her) average factory worker. After taxes, the chief executive's compensation was about 70 times that of the average factory worker." (Reich 1995:7)

To sum up: The fracturing of knowledge; the end of the illusion of the Great Narrative; the Irony of the player which takes the place of self-evident truths; the Tourist who moves with ease within this atmosphere; the seductions of the market and consumption as legitimation; the destruction of the welfare state, an inflation of state sovereignty and the victory of the process of social abstraction; and the appearance of the Broker, comprise the elements that we have called the most significant prerequisites for post/modern society. This definition hardly will provide a more accurate picture of reality than Wittgenstein's table, but with these elements we might just be able to compose a comprehensible picture of society. If we can accept this definition of post/modernity, then we should be able to study how these conditions fit with the system of late/comer/capitalism.

Late/comer/capitalism and Post/Modernity

1. Fragmented Knowledge and Irony

At first glance nothing could stand farther from the post/modern melange than the grey uniformity of post-communists. Local variety is lacking in a public arena not lacking in chauvinist anthem wailing nationalism. A huge portion of the public is kept out of the sphere of legitimate knowledge by the dominant discourse. In Hungarian schools, for example, Romas are not featured in history lessons, even though experts say Gypsies make up between seven and eight percent of the country's population. If nothing else, school will teach a gypsy child that he is different than the rest, or at least what he is not (namely white-Hungarian), but he will not learn positively who he is, what his ethnic group's relation to the majority has historically been. Similarly interesting is the fact that the dominant discourse is capable of pushing any attempt to express feminism into the realm of the insignificant

through ridicule, not to mention other sexual minorities who have to fight for a minimal level of tolerance. As an example we might mention that a Hungarian court rejected the Rainbow Association for the Gay movement's application to officially register the Association because it felt the term 'Gay' might be used to raise a scandal.

We must admit then that the culture of late/comer/capitalism is not characterized by the multiplicity, fragmentation and emancipation of its "local knowledges". Still, when we say that Rorty's Irony is commonly known and used by this community, we should suppose that there is an alternate way to gain the state of Irony.

The classic figure of Central Europeanism is the good soldier Svejk in whom stupidity and genius are inseparably blended, and who in his idiotic and helpless way is perfectly able to manoeuvre in an inhumane and degenerate system. In reading Hasek's Svejk we can see that a mixture of interests and ambiguous reality were integral parts of existence in the region before the introduction of Communism.

The period of 'existing socialism' further strengthened this communal experience of ambiguity. Communism was the fiercest, most arrogant version of modernity, one where because of the lack of checks and balances unlimited central power was able to freely express itself and expose the complete irrationality of rational social organization and production (Bauman 1992, Dessewffy 1993). The deserts created by rivers turned in course, famine following the collectivization of agriculture, and the creation of metropolises where none were needed created a deepseated scepticism in towards the Great Project that is unheard of by those who experienced the more successful modernization of the First World. It wasn't a sensitivity to ecology that made the irrational an everyday experience for Central and Eastern Europeans, it was the enormity of faulty products. While in the rationalized and formalized Western conditions the common and effective experience was that 'it works', in communist states the experience was 'it might', 'under certain conditions', 'depending on...'. Any number of the troubles besetting social relations might be mentioned - starting with the lack of a universally acceptable greeting, and the confused social positions and roles - but here we would prefer to simply indicate the sensitivity to relativity that among these random relations grew in strength in Central Europe. In this experience 'reality' is not a given, but a chance that might become true. We ourselves cannot interfere with these processes. The results of our intentions and actions are not automatic or instrumental in their relationship to their eventual results, but are instead contextual and random.

In this context it is unfortunate that Milan Kundera's work represent the pinnacle of Irony in the West. In fact it is Bohumil Hrabal - the par excellence representative of Irony - who both responds to the contingency of fate with humility and who through his lovingly told stories provides us with his everyday experiences and transcendental visions of ironic existence. Hrabal's sole theme, whether expressed in the mad happenings at a brewery, or forced labour in a steel mill, the experiences of pretty girls, or of dwarfed waiters, is a particular heroism: the smiling coexistence with unavoidable mortality after a life defined by imperfection, randomness, mediocrity and defencelessness. In point of fact Hrabal shows that in Central Europe 'everyday experience' and a 'common sense' are not the greatest enemies of Irony as Rorty holds, but its greatest allies and supporters.

We know that the process of cultural change is longer and more complicated than any 'now you see it now you don't' institutional change. In the long-term this everyday form of Irony might stop being a general experience. Today the 'Sir-Madam' address has come to be accepted (and an accepted form of address is one of the basic preconditions of formalized interaction) and having observed the serious faces and formalized posturing of students at the economics university we can be sure that the new generations already move in a reality they take for granted. We cannot determine exactly when and how it will pass away, but we can be sure that those of us who lived for thirty or forty years in communism's simulation of reality will carry a piece of it for some time to come.

2. Personality

The Tourist, tossed upon the waves of fate after having been forced off the realm of sureness is not an unknown figure in late/comer/capitalism. Think of a world where the official value system not only changed from one day to the next, but where what was valued yesterday has become the antithesis of what is valued today. This change (in which attempts to wipeout the past) foists upon us the exhausting job of restarting our lives and careers.

But even more painful than our wiped out pasts is the uncertainty of our present and our inability to count on the future. It is not difficult to see that an individuals lack of security in a society where dramatic changes have swept through the entire social structure and where the individual has to fight just to regain his position is greater than the insecurity caused by movement within a social structure that is fairly well 'set'. To put it bluntly: from the point of view of values, career opportunities, and personal fortunes life in countries late to come to capitalism is far more fraught with uncertainty than anywhere in the West.

Here, however, we should add one thing. Even though a lack of certainty is the most significant part of the metaphor of the Tourist, we still feel that in the metaphor the aspect of the voluntary 'good life' and hedonistic pursuit of pleasure is overly emphasized. Dwellers in the 'black industrial cities' left rotting in postcommunist countries live in complete uncertainty about their present and future, and yet hardly experience the playfulness and distractedness of the freely floating Tourist. Thus, for them, the term Exile might better apply. The Exile is does not travel for the sake of pleasure, but is driven by the simple materialistic desire to survive. The Exile is a far less romantic figure than the Tourist - or than postmodern literature's other favourite: the Nomad - but, at least from the point of view of uncertainty, he is their equal.

3. Legitimation

Consumer legitimation is related to the history of communism. It is a commonly known fact that after 1956 the Kádár regime created its legitimation by pulling politics out of everyday life and allowing moderated and carefully checked consumer values to take its place. In return for its lack of interest in politics and its respect of taboos society was allowed to undergo petit-bourgeoisation. This form of legitimation worked until the mid-seventies, but then the trap inherently hidden in these policies began to become more and more clear: over time 'primary' needs were met and people began to feel a desire to fulfil desires raised by market seductions. One early example of these desires which were to sweep everything else away: soccer players of the legendary hungarian Golden Team of the fifties preferred to give up their pay to take advantage of their officially sanctioned right to import foreign goods, and thereby brought thousands of nylon stockings into the country. As we now know a greater proportion of society was able to prosper in Kádár's socialism than under late-comer capitalism (the fact that this prosperity was based on unrepayable loans from the West will be ignored here). However, what Kádár's socialism was unable to provide was an adequate supply of nylons of the latest fashion (silk, fishnet, etc.) to satisfy consumer whims. The 'socialist market' was capable of many things, but it was surely not able to produce the attraction of the real market's hectically pulsing seductions.

Nonetheless, despite its saturation with consumer demands, the lifestyle of people in Central Europe before 1989 was not identical with that of those living in the world of consumer capitalism. As we have seen, the Kádár era's legitimation itself caused the loss of the Kádár regime's legitimation in its eventual elicitation of needs the system was unable to fulfil -for both political and economic reasons. Today these same consumer needs are very much present, and have even become more palpable, more urgent, but are yet for the majority of society unsatisfiable - for simple financial reasons. Today's unbuyable expensive hamburger tastes worse the forbidden hamburger of years ago. In Hungary we are faced with a culture of consumption in which only the minority will be able to fulfil its desires of consumption, while the majority is condemned to the dark region of hell reserved for unrequited lovers. The unsatisfiable appetites naturally aroused by the nature of consumer logic are further intensified by the very palpable growth in the inequalities of opportunity to gain consumer goods.

But if we speak about consumption legitimacy instead of the level of consumption, then we will see that consumption is now more legitimate than ever. To prove this point, instead of looking at election results and party platforms, we will simply provide a short overview of the epistemology of Coca-Cola in Hungary.

At the start of the Cold War one of the favourite subjects of communist propaganda was the imperialist wallowing in a Coca-Colic inebriation. At that time the only way those locked behind the Iron Curtain could become acquainted with the 'opiate of imperialism' (as Coca-Cola was called) was through official accounts was described as a dangerous drug and represented as the symbol of a degenerate life of ease. But this image was shortly changed - doubtless the picture of constant inebriation proved to be far less frightening to the average Hungarian than puritan communist engineers had thought it might. In a report sent from the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, for instance, the reporter noted that the drink's value was 'of political significance' and said "I can't believe that this drink could have a stupefying effect, and this does not signify what is in it, but rather what is not. Its stupefying effect, perhaps, appears because those who choose to drink this swill regularly do not testify to any great intellectual ability." (Népsport, July 11, 1952) Thus, the Coca-Cola Company's granting of a license to a Hungarian factory to produce the drink in the age of compromises to consumption that characterized the Kádár regime was of great symbolic significance. With this step the 'magical charm' of the drink became available for the first time to consumers in an Eastern Bloc country - and what is also significant - Hungary was for many years the only such country with the drink. Within a short time Pepsi (1970) was also granted a licence, and the two giants stepped into competition for the soft-drink market with the local brands such as Márka, Traubisoda, Tropikóla, and Sztár Narancs. Today the mention of these brandnames can elicit tears from nostalgic middle-aged Hungarians. At the regime change in 1990 Coca Cola Co. established its own local company, bought a number of local companies and started to conquer the market. In 1991 the average Hungarian drank 47 bottles of Coca Cola (11 liters). One might assume that this would have marked the peak of consumption, and that with the subsequent fall in living standards soft-drink consumption would also fall. What in fact happened was that by 1994 the average Hungarian was consuming 111 bottles (27 liters). With this Hungarian per capita consumption of the symbol of Western consumer culture surpassed consumption in Great Britain, France and Italy. Despite this Hungarians consume even more Pepsi, whose earnings in Hungary last year were nearly 100 million dollars (this is more than 10 billion Forints - a fifth of the year's defence budget). We believe that the insistence on consumption represented by these figures provides ample proof of the boundless strength of consumption legitimation. The middle-class may be sinking into poverty, and young workers may have less and less likelihood of finding jobs, but enormous social groups still desperately cling to the illusion of lifestyle and consumer behaviour embedded in mass culture.

4. The State

As we have noted, there can be no doubt that the small states of Central Europe enjoy multi-party democratic political systems. None of these states have a special prescription to cure the ills of inequalities of opportunity besides the general right to vote, and all of these political systems can be defined by their tendency to dismantle the welfare state. This tendency should be explored in greater depth.

In the last years of communist rule a peculiar mutant form of the welfare state arose. In contrast to the old Scandinavian type, this system did not ensure the general satisfaction of consumer needs, but did provide certain advantages which shocked visitors. Free education and medical care, state ensured maternity leave and low rents were just some of the aspects of this social support system, not to speak of the services provided to the hidden unemployed and poor. These 'services' were appreciated by average citizens, even though they did know that in quality they were far from the best. All of these 'socialist achievements' proved to be impossible to maintain after the regime change, and began to be dismantled.

Postcommunism's late-comers to capitalism are different precisely because the tradition and scope of autonomy expressed in other spheres does not limit the legitimacy of the economic rationale of the market. As economic rationale appears here in its purity we have the unique opportunity to examine other mechanisms that would be impossible to reach in more complex societies (societies with richer civic traditions and stronger oppositions).

The most obvious example of this is how greatly everyday life and social policy decisions (and the values serving as their base) are determined by 'economic correctness', or more simply: the pursuit of money. Of course, the pursuit of profit is the basis of every (capitalist) economy. What is different in the postcommunist milieu is the expansion, spread and enormous advantage enjoyed by these economic values in other social areas. The everyday effects of this spread of capitalist values has been fairly precisely described:

The inflation of state sovereignty is so evident in postcommunist countries that it hardly needs be proven, though it should be explained. Here the term 'inflation' is not sociologically precise as state sovereignty in the communist period when states more-or-less followed their soviet rulers' orders was (to put it mildly) limited. On the other hand today's dependencies are also obvious, at least compared to abstractly imagined sovereignties. Clearly this dependency is partly due to economic factors (dependence on foreign capital, and the requirements of consumption legitimation), but cannot be fully explained by economics alone as its effects reach far beyond the economic sphere. Hungarian state radio (still a monopoly) transmits The Voice of America for an hour every day during primetime, and the American flags and symbols incorporated into corporate logos are as widely to be seen here as anywhere else in the world. Yet even more important than these symbolic victories are the existence of international organizations (such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) and multi-national corporations. We do not mean to pass judgement on the fact when we state that these organizations and concerns have gone far farther in limiting state sovereignty here than anywhere in the West. In postcommunist states multi-national corporations no longer simply enjoy the exceptional advantages due to them (such as the forgiveness of the Schöller ice cream company's debt, and granting of immunity from import taxes in the Spring of 1995), but also play a leading role in determining the social and political policies and economic strategies pursued by states in the region. In late-comer capitalism the primary goal is to eliminate the social excesses of 'the prematurely born welfare state' (to use János Kornai's apt expression) and to induce economic growth to increase the local intensity of the general process of the inflated state sovereignty.

5. Social Relations

A number of sociological surveys prove that networks of personal connections and access to information have played a determinant role in the breakdown and rearranging of the relatively homogenous social structure of Kádárism in the mid-nineties. These researchers have further strengthened the common belief that 'connections and slickness' (rather than knowledge and ability) provide the surest way to success. This fact is of great significance in a society permeated with concern with status and suffering from falling living standards.

While the average man tries (without much success) to make sense of the loss of welfare security, the explosive growth in unemployment, and the very visible growth in social differences, two social groups grow farther and farther apart in post-communism: Brokers, for whom the changes are apparent, and who are able to make choices from among these changes; and the Masses who are unable to see existing possibilities, and/or are unable to take advantage of them.

The past four years' experience with privatization (the transfer of state-owned property to private ownership) provides a good example of this difference. In the privatization program virtually any investment possibility offered by the state to small investors ended up securing extra profit for only a very few Players (here we will ignore the fact that the majority of the Masses had not even reached the small investor status).

A 'legitimate' double entrenchment of personal connections and access to information guards the inequalities deemed so unfair by the deprived majority. It is a simple fact that through its profit-oriented basis in the logic of consumption these inequalities, while giving rise to a contradiction in real life, have become a widely approved part of mass culture. All of us in this culture share the same values and our reactions to our worries about status are conditioned by, and differ because of the differences in our abilities and opportunities. Those who don't grab a piece of the action are either crazy or stupid, those who do are clever, and the most clever grab the biggest piece. If they can, why not - and for all intents and purposes anything is possible.

The other part of this equation is the fact that abstract distribution ideals are both difficult to pin down and difficult to overemphasize in their importance. Here we are not referring to the (otherwise shocking) fact that not a single serious punishment has been meted out by the courts for insider trading. What is more significant is the fact that the gaining, use and abuse of such advantages is very difficult to legally verify. It is often impossible to define the border between calculated bets, and insider information. With some few 'pure' exceptions in the casino where late-comers to capitalism play the typical information sources of intuition, research, spying and corruption are inseparably intertwined. Neither information, knowledge and networks, nor the habitus and abilities to utilise them can be controlled, standardized or uniformized - unless the unacceptable demolition of civic liberties. This is the real moral dilemma of postcommunism: insisting to and fighting for civil rights while realising the rapid reconstruction of our society according to personal networks and the distribution of information. This is the real End of the History, or at least the end of the social war against injustice. Our share from the Cultural capital functions just as effectively in the distribution of social goods as the legal inequalities or certain positions in the productional relations in the previous centuries.

Instead of moralizing on the corrupt morality of Brokers (something we have good reason to do) we should pay attention to the rules and tempo of the game. As the Broker's primary raw material is abstract information he has no real relationship to the Masses. Under certain circumstances the Broker might pay attention to mass movements and use them to his advantage, but he is not in a relationship with the Masses, and has no reason to feel solidarity with them or to indulge in altruism. One of the most interesting features of the new elites in post-communism is their lack of social sensitivity. We may well consider the inequalities that have arisen as a natural result of our abstracted relations to be unfair, but we are completely unable to figure out how to treat these inequalities, and are even unable to think of strategies or programs that might help. This bewilderment is one of the most obvious points from which late-comer capitalism can be reconnected to the 'mainstream post-modern history'.

A few pages ago we referred to the fact that the definition of post/modern society used here should not be regarded as complete or exclusive. Still, by using the definitions of this term we have tried to show that the post/modern is unavoidable - if often in a newly defined or contextualized way - in analysis of postcommunism.

According to the well known anecdote when Maleherbes (an enlightenment aristocrat who attempted to protect Louis XVI and who happened to be de Tocqueville's great-grandfather) stumbled when being led to his beheading he cried out "A bad sign! A Roman in my place would turn back!" No matter how tempting it is to end this paper with that quotation, we feel that it is important to note here that we are not among those who have turned their backs on postcommunism and who now look back with nostalgia at the 'security', 'reliability' (and honoraria) of the Kádár years. Instead we have tried to prove the existence of post/modernity through an exposition on postcommunism, an exposition on conditions we should not turn away from as we do from the horrors of the executioner's block, but with which we must learn to live - for it seems we have no other choice. I believe we sociologists of late/comer/capitalism have quite a task cut out for ourselves in trying to comprehend this world our past and present. We will leave prophetic curses and predictions to those still stranded on the little island of Sureness, a little island where only a very few social scientists now beach their ships.

References:

Bauman, Zygmunt: Intimations to Postmodernity, Routledge, London, 1993,

Bauman, Zygmunt: Life in Fragments, Oxford, Basil Blackell 1995

Bell, Daniel: The Coming of Post-industrial Society, Basic Books, New York, 1973

Berger, Peter L.Luckman Thomas: The Social Constuction of Reality, Garden City New York, Doubleday 1966

Berman, Marshall: All That is Solid Melts into Air, London, Verso, 1983

Foucault, Michel: Power/Knowledge, Harvester Press, Brighton, Sussex, 1980

Jameson, Frederick: Postmodernism,or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press, Durham, 1991

Kuhn, Thomas: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962

Reich, Robert B.: The Work of Nations, Vintage Books, New York, 1995

Szelényi, Iván;Szelényi, Balázs: 'Why Socialism Failed' Theory and Society, 1994 April

Tocquville, Alexis de: L'ancien Regime, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1952