Janos Kornai on recent developments in Hungary and its political and economic institutions

Janos Kornai, the eminent Hungarian economist, is not optimistic about recent developments there.

Hungary's U-Turn

Janos Kornai 

Harvard University; Corvinus University of Budapest
July 11, 2015

Capitalism and Society, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 2, 2015 
Abstract:      

For two decades Hungary, like the other Eastern European countries, followed a general policy of establishing and strengthening the institutions of democracy, rule of law, and a market economy based on private property. However, since the elections of 2010, when Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party came to power, Hungary has made a dramatic U-turn. This article investigates the different spheres of society: political institutions, the rule of law, and the influence of state and market on one another, as well as the world of ideology (education, science and art), and describes the U-turn’s implications for these fields and the effect it has on the life of people. It argues against the frequent misunderstandings in the interpretation and evaluation of the Hungarian situation, pointing out some typical intellectual fallacies. It draws attention to the dangers of strengthening nationalism, and to the ambivalence evident in Hungarian foreign policy, and looks into the relationship between Hungary and the Western world, particularly the European Union. Finally, it outlines the possible scenarios resulting from future developments in the Hungarian situation.

His first paragraph:

"Hungary is a small country, poor in raw materials, with a population of only 10 million. No civil wars are being waged on its territory, nor are there any popular uprisings or terrorism. It has not become involved in any local wars, and it is not threatened by immediate bankruptcy. So why is it still worth paying attention to what is going on here? Because Hungary, a country that belongs to NATO and the European Union, is turning away from the great achievements of the 1989–1990 change of regime—democracy, rule of law, freely functioning civil society, pluralism in intellectual life—and attacking private property and the mechanisms of the free market before the eyes of the whole world; and it is doing all this in the shadow of increasing geopolitical tensions"