My thesis explores industrially produced designed objects and the economic processes that determine their production. I describe the history of industrial design, with a focus on the industrial products of the late Kádár era in Hungary. I examine the process where Hungarian industrial design adapted to Post-Fordism, the transforming production management system of late capitalism. I seek to answer the following questions: How did the structural changes in the global industry affect Hungarian product design? How did the spread of the flexible organisation of work impact product design in Hungary? How did the first postmodern trends emerge? What effects did Hungary’s integration into the global market have on product design and product designers? In this process what was the role of the industry of the socialist state, which was slipping more and more into debt? A starting point of my thesis is that in the time of state socialism, Hungary, and so Hungarian industry and industrial design, were part of global capitalism.