The book tackles the issue of changes in value orientations during the period of turbulent systemic and structural change from socialist to capitalist society. The author investigates whether the consolidation of capitalism also brings a greater diffusion of political and economic liberalism, the value orientations that conform to the capitalist normative-institutional patterns. The first part is devoted to the analysis of historical long-term and medium-term historical conjunctures, while the second presents a secondary analysis of data collected through surveys of dominant value orientations in Serbia and Croatia at two temporal points – in 1989, at the moment of the collapse of the socialist system, and in 2003, when the consolidation of capitalist system begins. The book provides a complex, nuanced, and historically grounded analysis of transformation processes, based on an analysis of empirical evidence in the form of a double comparison, involving both synchronic and diachronic comparative dimensions.