Viktor Orban’s electoral victories did not happen in a vacuum – they were direct consequences of the disillusionment that most Hungarians felt after 20 years of democracy. In the wake of the fall of communism, the early 1990s made Hungary the poster child for the post-communist transition: free-market capitalism backed by democratic institutions was swiftly adopted, and after a sluggish start, the economy experienced stable growth.
All this change was led by urban, technocratic elites, who as ardent followers of the neoliberal orthodoxy, promised people that Hungary would catch-up with the west in 15 years. As good students of the then dominant deregulation theory they focused all their energy on creating a textbook neoliberal wonderland: austerity measures, privatization, deregulation, and courtship of multinational corporations ruled the land. As a result, the country consistently ranked high in international rankings. So what went wrong, what made people turn to a rising autocrat? [...]
As unchecked privatization and deregulation gave all the fruits of growth to multinational corporations and their small upper-middle class workforce, austerity measures took a heavy toll on the education and health-care systems. Accordingly, social mobility froze, and millions found their dreams for a better life crushed. The biggest victims of these trends were working-class and small town communities. Forsaken by the triumphant public discussions, these people’s everyday reality was steadily rising mortality rates, crumbling hospitals, and schools, structural unemployment, and status anxiety.
No comments:
Post a Comment