Background
Szelenyi, Ivan was born on April 17, 1938 in Budapest. Came to the United States, 1981. Son of Gusztav and Julianna (Csapo) Szelenyi.
( Drawing on historical and demographic data from the pas...)
Drawing on historical and demographic data from the past 150 years, Ivan Szelenyi and Janos Ladanyi examine how the social conditions of the Roma (Gypsies) has changed over time and across countries. While Gypsies always tended to be poor and at the margins of society, the depth and nature of their poverty and the ways they were excluded varied substantially. In addition to providing a detailed history of these changes, the book also contributes to debates regarding Gypsies' status as part of an underclass. The historical case studies show that during the nineteenth century Gypsies belonged to the lower class, during the interwar years they could be seen as a lower caste, and it is only during the last two decades that they are in the process of becoming an underclass. The underclass debate has so far been framed in ideological terms. This book's main aim is to turn this ideological controversy into an analytic project: under what socioeconomic conditions is a social group's situation sufficiently different from earlier times? Is its exclusion from society sufficiently rigid that underclass is the concept that best describes its condition?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0880335742/?tag=2022091-20
( Among the East European nations, Hungary has been noted...)
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
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0299113647/?tag=2022091-20
(Making Capitalism without Capitalists offers a new theory...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859843123/?tag=2022091-20
Szelenyi, Ivan was born on April 17, 1938 in Budapest. Came to the United States, 1981. Son of Gusztav and Julianna (Csapo) Szelenyi.
Doctor of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1973. Doctor of Science, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1990. Doctorate (honorary), Budapest University of Economics, 1992.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Flinders University, 1997. Doctor rer.pol. honorary (honorary), Friedrich-Alexander University, 2003.
Research fellow Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1963-1975. Foundation professor Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, 1975-1980. Professor University Wisconsin, Madison, 1981-1986.
Distinguished professor City University of New York Graduate Center, 1986-1988. Professor University of California at Los Angeles, 1988-1999. William Graham Sumner professor sociology Yale University, New Haven, since 1999.
( Drawing on historical and demographic data from the pas...)
( Among the East European nations, Hungary has been noted...)
(This book is the first theoretical account of urban inequ...)
(Making Capitalism without Capitalists offers a new theory...)
(European Studies, Eastern European Studies, Political Sci...)
Member Hungarian Academy Scis. Fellow American Academy Arts and Science.
Married Valeria Vanilia Majoros. Children: Szonja, Lilla, Balazs.