ABSTRACT
One of the favourite topics of debate in Hungarian politics is whether the young generation is among the winners or the losers of post-socialist transition. The representatives of the prevailing opposition focus on the high and growing unemployment of the young generation. The interviewed owner-managers, without exception, spent some time as employed in the state-co-operative sector of the socialist economy. Therefore, a part of their knowledge, skills, and social connections was accumulated there. The structure and the amount of accumulated knowledge, skills and personal relationships differ remarkably concerning the function of organisational units within the company. The privatisation methods used by the Hungarian governments gave strong preferences to the big and influential foreign investors. According to the strong anti-capitalist sentiments of the Hungarian public, there is a popular mono-causal explanation for the emergence and the recruiting of the new entrepreneurial-capitalist strata of the post-socialist Hungarian society.
