The deadend of antiglobalism, or what Viktor Orbán has achieved in 16 years
Written by József Martin
/published in the 27th March issue of Magyar Hang/
The deadend of antiglobalism,
or what Viktor Orban has achieved in 16 years
"Everyone agrees that a just procedure in the distribution of goods must be carried out according to a certain worthiness; but of course, not everyone considers the same worthiness to be the guiding principle..."
(Aristotle)
Is 15-16 years a long time in politics? According to Harold Wilson, former British Labour Prime Minister, "a week is a long time" in politics, let alone a decade and a half: as many have already recalled, Viktor Orban is the absolute record holder on the Hungarian globe, as he has held the position of prime minister for 16 years without interruption, leaving behind the record of Kalman Tisza (1875-1890), which was long considered unbreakable. Orban's advantage is even greater if we add his first four year term as prime minister to the 16 years that are now ending. But the advantage is basically limited to the numbers, not the essentials. During Kalman Tisza's decade and a half of operation, despite all the shortcomings, the organization of the modern Hungarian state was being built, from the creation of legal certainty to the modernization of the tax system, in the spirit of Ferenc Deak. Also from the point of view that the internal transformation corresponded - albeit sometimes creakingly, but still - to the dualist state structure and the foreign policy needs arising from the existence of the Monarchy. Although Tisza was said to have insisted on the Compromise "with stubbornness with meticulousness", the same can be said moreor less about his successors, the frontal opposition to the ruler was not seriously on the political agenda of either of them.
The first decade and a half of dualism can be paralleled - at least to some extent - with the decade and a half after the First World War and the fifteen years following the regime change in 1989. The collapse of the war ended in a terrible period, a two three year "cold civil war", and then, barely recovering from the dismemberment of the country, the old system had to be re-established in a formation of the country that many considered unviable. The counter-revolution of Istvan Bethlen and his team did this, which is true even in spite of the serious crises and the political appreciation of anti-Semitism, which later turned into tragedy. The launch of a functioning society was again related to foreign policy: the realization that without the support of the Entente powers, the country could not stand on its feet and get rid of the foreign, primarily Romanian, occupiers.
International coordination is also one of the fundamental merits of our latest regime change: after the 1990 free elections, the centre-right coalition led by J6zsef Antall, freed from the ideological burdens of socialism, turned towards the Western community with an almost natural gesture, which was fully in line with the value choices of the social majority: the longed-for liberal democracy, the modern welfare system floating before our eyes. The foundation and long-term goal of the state have been given the best possible international framework with the Euro-Atlantic organizations, NATO and the European Union. This period can be compared to the initial period of dualism in that in both cases a social system had to be replaced: after '67, feudalism was bid farewell, if not completely, and after '89, socialism was bid farewell, in order to make it possible to "step back" to the same capitalist river, of course, in which the world of goods and capital of the Monarchy had already dipped.
The periods listed above testify to the fact that a decade and a half is indeed a long time - not only in our narrowly defined individual lives, but also in the world of systems and societies. Dynamic and self-confident politics that takes into account reality can get quite far, which is also proven by those who have joined us in the course of the latest regime changes: if we take the most important indicators, we are lagging far behind, we can refer primarily to the Baltic states - especially Estonia - but the Slovenian and Polish examples also confirm that a relatively long way can be traveled in a decade and a half in the liberal spirit of social growth and the establishment of a democratic order based on moral values .
If there is such an intention. Orban's decade and a half does not differ from his domestic predecessors or today's foreign contemporaries primarily in terms of activity, but in the fact that - hanging up the initial liberal points to refer to Kalman Tisza's turn of phrase by translating the well-known saying - Orban committed himself to a different ideology, and with extreme intensity. The nature of the turnaround is often mentioned, even to the point of boredom, the main characteristic of which is anti-liberalism instead of liberal spirituality, and some kind of autocracy instead of democracy; I would rather emphasize the fact that Orban has announced a kind of "counter-globalism", which suppresses the transnational and supranational tendencies that permeate our Earth, and raises national sovereignty high. And in order to make it all go smoothly, he has exaggerated centralization in such a way that its extent is alien to the competitive spirit of the capitalist world, but it is familiar to all of us who have already lived under existing socialism.
However, the "anti-globalist" ideology bankrupted Orban's politics and may be one of the causes of the fall of the Fidesz Party. The world - despite all appearances - is not heading in this direction, Orban is driving against the direction of travel, like that particular motorist who makes a fool of the others, the right drivers.
Let's take President Trump first: Orban and his team have forgotten that the president is not a king and will not be head of state forever, and what is more, the "lame duck" period will soon come for him as well. By the way, the saying of the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer Octavio Paz, who once lamented "how far God is and how close the United States is", can be applied with a slight modification; and we, on the banks of the Danube, can say that the United States is - in every respect - very far away from us, Europe is much closer to us. We are not and will never be in the same weight class as the United States - despite all the repayments - only the incredibly self-confident hubris of the prime minister and the pride that ignores reality can dream of equal partnership.
The distant United States cannot replace the nearby Europe, or more precisely, the EU, to the periphery of which it was precisely anti-globalism and the false appreciation of national sovereignty that drove the Hungarian government to the margins. Instead of the political center, Orban chose the anti-liberal far right as his guiding star, but his calculation - it is now clear - did not work, the "patriots", the very different far-right parties, are unable to take over power, because the number of their supporters in the member states is roughly between 20 and 30 percent, which is a lot, but not enough to govern. Hungary's government policy, pushed to the margins of the EU, has been confronted almost head-on with those who could be its most important allies: the shattered Western alliance has become an Eastern mirage chase, and the shameful rapprochement with Putin's Russia, as well as the disgraceful confrontation with the attacked Ukraine.
However, the dead end of counter-globalism is very wide, there is room for a lot of things; The mass of domestic political bankruptcies is also stuck there - from economic stagnation to the crisis of the care systems - as the blockage of EU subsidies measurable by the former Marshall Plan is caused by the marginalization, sometimes disregard, of the values of liberal democracy. In the wake of the lack of external resources, the unbridled centralization of counter-globalism could only fatten the so-called System of National Cooperation, not real competitiveness. This is how we return from an ideology detached from reality to everyday life, where the distribution of wealth is not guided by Aristotelian "certain worthiness", but by loyalty, and not by competition, but by corruption rising to the level of a system.
The revenge of ideology is coming to fruition: the more rigidly they cling to it, the greater the bankruptcy and the fall.
