The discussion sheds light on the main milestones and developments in theeconomic life of Slovenia and Slovenians in the time of the Second Yugoslavia.On the basis of selected indicators the author underlines the differences betweenSlovenia and Yugoslavia at various stages of development after World War II.In May 1945 new goals and plans were revealed with the rise of the new authorities.The economic management was taken over by the communists, who,among other things, initiated accelerated industrialisation and introduced a centrally-planned economy together with nationalisation. Slovenia entered the secondYugoslav state as economically best-developed part of the state and managedto retain this role. It excelled in many fi elds, especially export, productivity, andinvestment effi ciency. Its share of the social product in the context of Yugoslaviawas between 15 and 17 percent, and its share of industry and exports was approximately25 percent. In comparison with Slovenia, Yugoslavia lagged behindmore and more from decade to decade. According to the information the lagof Yugoslavia behind Slovenia, from the viewpoint of economic development,amounted to as much as 17 years and a half in 1985. Until 1974 Slovenia’s possibilitiesfor the realisation of its national economic interests was quite limited,but this changed with the constitution of 1974. With the strengthening of the roleof the republics and provinces and reducing the role of centralism, this constitutionaddressed the organisation of the federation and its functioning. On the otherhand – with precise normative regulation of socio-economic relations, basedon self-management and associated labour – it emphasised the class-oriented,so-called labour-defi ned character of the Yugoslav society and state. However,even this constitution and numerous reforms, taking place one after the other,failed to solve the problems in the economic fi eld. Thus already in the end ofthe 1980s Yugoslavia no longer existed in the economic sense. Slovenia was oneof the very best ranking states globally with regard to the number of employedpeople or active population as well as with regard to the number of people workingin industry and mining. This, however, was not accompanied by suitableresults in work productivity, educational structure of the employed and the livingstandard, where Slovenia was very far from the leading states in the world. Afterthe collapse of Yugoslavia, between 1989 and 1992 Slovenia saw a great declinein activity and faced an urgent reorientation from the Yugoslav to the westernmarkets. As far as the level of GDP was concerned, it took more than 8 years torestore the level from the year 1989. In the statistical sense the 1992 GDP levelamounted to less than 80 percent of the level from 1989, but in the temporal senseit fell to the level of around 1976, i.e. by some 16 years. Statistically the GDPreduction in Slovenia during the so-called transition depression was signifi cantlyhigher than we have witnessed during the current fi nancial and economic crisis.The contribution will be prepared according to the following system, i.e. on thebasis of selected indicators.