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by DoDo
Fri May 16th, 2008 at 06:29:43 AM EST
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of neoliberalism. "Reforms", "markets", "deregulation", "privatisation" are the buzzwords everywhere. ET focuses on the exposure of the creation, repeat-ad-nauseam, and internal contradictions of this narrative by economists and the business press (especially from Britain), and how it is pushed on the EU.
But, at the other end of the line, all this "reforming" of labour laws back into the 19th century and deregulation into a bubble and the crash following it, is perceived as policy recommendation - from the EU, from the WTO/IMF, from "the West".
Below a recent example, some quotes in which I find a rather concise summary of how the reformists perceive it in my region.
 The three quotes come from a politologist's recent analysis of Hungary's hopelessly stuck domestic political situation, with focus on personalities and personalisation, thus it's not direct 'reforms' advocacy.
László Lengyel (left on a photo from 168óra) is one of the best politologists of Hungary on the 'left-liberal' side. (To underline his own dual roots, he was an economist in the eighties, who was kicked out from the Party for liberalism in 1988, but offered membership again a year later.) He is independent enough to contend that politics is ever more about the leaders of the two camps only (PM Ferenc Gyurcsány of the now minority-governing Socialists and PM-ante Viktor Orbán of the right-populist Fidesz), who are quasi-kings, support for whom became a personal cult; and that both are unfit to govern.
But, seeing how Orbán sought and won popularity in opposition with referenda against Gyurcsány's "reforms" (an inversion of the US/West European sense of economic left/right my long-time readers should be accustomed to), in an excerpt from his new book, he criticises the right-wing leader thusly:
| A halál kilovagolt Magyarországról [M$ Word!] | | Death Rode Out of Hungary | | Egész Európa liberális reformokkal kínlódik, ő ezek ellen szónokol és népszavaztat. Mondhatja Sarkozynek, Merkelnek, Topolaneknek, de még a Kaczyński testvéreknek is: mindaz, amit ti tesztek esztelen liberalizmus, nem hagyom privatizálni az egészségügyet, nem engedem a vizitdíjat és a tandíjat, nem támogatom a nyugdíjrendszer egyensúlyba hozását, a gazdaság kifehérítését. Elítélem az általatok kívánt konvergenciát, helyette a kiterjedt állami rendszer, tőke-, vállalkozó-, és polgár-ellenes fellépés a célom. Csoda-e, ha Sarkozy nyolc percet ad neki, ha Merkel merev arccal hallgatja, ahogy egy jobboldali pártvezér előadja a német újbaloldal álláspontját, védi a szociális vívmányokat? Egy olyan konzervatívot, aki Európát népszavazza le. | | The whole of Europe labours with liberal reforms, he [Orbán] is peechifying and referending against these. He can say to Sarkozy, Merkel, Topolánek, but even the Kaczyński brothers: "All what you do is senseless liberalism, I won't let healthcare be privatised, I won't allow doctor visit and tuition fees, I won't support the rebalancing of the retirement system, the whitening of the economy [= belief that lower taxes end tax evasion]. I condemn the convergence you wish, instead, my goal is Big Government, and acting against capital, entrepreneurs, the bourgeois." Is it a miralce that Sarkozy gives him [only] eight minutes, and if Merkel listens to him with a frozen face as a right-wing party leader presents the standpoint of the German New Left, protects the social accomplishments? A conservative, who is referending on Europe [untranslateable word-play on "shitting on sth." -DoDo]. |
While lately, Sarko and Merkel are under constant barrage from the business media for "abandoning the reforms", here, they are held up as standard to abide by in going towards one direction only. There is some irony in a nominal leftist talking about the right-wing thing to do. But, more to the point, he seems unaware of all the brotherly help EPP members gave to each other, however adventurous their rhetoric - including to Orbán.
At the end, going against "reforms" is equated with being anti-EU. Later in the same article, a little more explicit:
| Magyarország csendes, újra csendes. Csak tátognak, történelmi értelemben hallgatnak politikusai, gazdasági és szellemi emberei. Európa hangos. Berlin és London a világ vérének kerengetői, Párizs, Milánó, Stockholm, Helsinki nem alábbvalók. A magyar autó, amely 1998 óta szorgalmasan szembement a forgalommal, egy éve döcög egy irányba vele. Lélektanilag megrendítő, ha valaki mellett nemcsak a gazdasági növekedés kelet-közép-európai kisautói húznak el, hanem a lassú óriások reformjaikkal lesodornak a padkára. A finn, a spanyol, az ír kiegyezések régen voltak, másik világban. A német, a francia, a brit próbálkozások itt és most vannak. A konfliktusos politizálást fölváltotta a konszenzusos. Az európai politikai, gazdasági, szellemi elit, különböző nemzetekből, társadalmi csoportokból, nemzedékekből, meggyőzte magát, hogy van még remény új gondolatra, lehet még egymással tárgyalni, kiegyezni. Van hová illeszkednünk. Van miből reményt merítenünk. | | Hungary is silent, silent again [play on a post-1848-revolutions poem -DoDo]. Its politicians, economists and intellectuals are only gawping, they are silent in a historical sense. Berlin and London are the circulators of the world's blood, Paris, Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki aren't any lower. The Hungarian car, which from 1998 went busily against the traffic, is bumping in its direction for a year now. It is psychologically shocking if someone is overtaken not just by the Eastern-Central European mini cars of economic growth, but the slow giants are pushing them off to the kerbs with their reforms. The Finnish, the Spanish, the Irish compromises were done long ago. The German, the French, the British attempts are happening here and now. Conflict politics were supplanted by consensus politics. The European politicial, economic and intellectual elite, from different nations, social groups, generations, convinced itself that there is still hope for new thought, one can still negotiate with each other, one can still compromise. There is a place where we can fit in. We can place our hope in something. |
Look how in this narrative, the European consensus ideal and the neoliberal reform ideal are seamlessly interwinded.
One could point out how evidence-free the causative association of (unspecified) reforms and growth is; that the distribution of that growth (e.g. wealth capture by the rich) isn't mentioned. Or that Lengyel forgets about other Eastern-Central European countries where dissatisfaction with the results of prior 'reforms' gave birth to degenerated political landscapes full of extremists and populists (say Slovakia and Poland), which kind of destroys the whole argument.
One could observe the unconscious Freudian slip in how he speaks about elite opinion, not democratic will; and how he comes close to spelling out the collective self-delusion (when conviction is not the result of independent analysis - but the internal dynamics of a group).
One could also laugh about Lengyel's illusions about consensus politics - seeing a consensus in an Ireland engulfed by the Lisbon Treaty referendum debate, in France just because serial provocateur and bully Sarkozy got himself a centrist image by giving fat jobs to some defectors from the centre-left, in Germany just because Merkel is backed by a Grand Coalition, never mind the ever more shrill fight between its two members.
But this is what comes across - in the mainstream media, in international conferences, even in EU bodies. And this is the common sense inspiring most pro-Europeans in Central Europe to advocate being, and if in office, to be good students of the EU by being the leading students in neoliberalism.
What I also note with sadness is the uninspired, unoriginal, intellectually servile attitude of orientation - of making out where the West heads and head in the same direction, instead of thinking for oneself. (This theme and its origin among the seventies-eighties dissident intellectuals will be featured in my upcoming magnum opus on Central Europe, should I manage to finish it.)
I find the final, concise summary of the above themes in a part paraphrased by the reporter in an interview in the last issue of liberal weekly 168 Óra (in which, again, the focus is on domestic politics, yet the liberal common sense on economics plays a role):
| Lengyel: „Orbán a szociális populizmusért ejtette a Himnusz-Trianon vonalat” | | Lengyel: "Orbán ditched the National-Anthem - Trianon[*] line for social populism" | | Azt írja: a Nyugat elviseli, ha valaki nem reformer, és nem is nacionalista, elbírja, ha nacionalista, de reformokat csinál, de hogy antireformer legyen és bezárkózó, azt nem fogadja el. | | You write that the West can tolerate if someone is no reformer and also no nationalist, it endures if someone is nationalist but implements reforms, but to be anti-reformist and reclusive, it won't accept that. | | Ez Orbán. Képzeljük el, amikor a fotó megjelenik a New York Timesban, ahogy fogóval bontja az alumíniumkorlátot a téren. A másik oldalon Gyurcsány, és a kép alá odaírják: „Hazudtunk éjjel, hazudtunk nappal...” Ilyen értelemben a könyv rideg. Én kiléptem a klubból. Elfogadom, kellemetlen látni, hogy körülötted a buliban mindenki jól érzi magát, a szocialisták most isszák a tizenkettedik sörüket. A Fidesz-szobában boroznak, ott is mindenki jól mulat. És akkor beállít valaki, aki egy ásványvizet kér, és nem érti, hogy mitől boldogok ezek a csőd legközepén. | | This is Orbán. Let's imagine that a photo appears in the New York Times, showing how he dismantles the aluminium barriers on [Parliament] square[+]. On the opposing page, Gyurcsány, and they write below the picture: "We lied by night, we lied by day..." In this sense, this book is austere. I left the club [of Gyurcsány-fan left-liberal intellectuals -DoDo]. I accept that it is discomforting to see that everyone has a good time in the party around you, the Socialists are dringing their twelfth beer. In the Fidesz room, they are dringing wine, everyone has a good time there too. And then someone enters who asks for mineral water, and doesn't understand why these guys are happy in the middle of a bankrupcy. | | | [*] Palace in Paris where the post-WWI border changes were ratified
[+] Barriers were erected after the riots, dismantling them was a civic disobedience stunt. I lower my head over both the cynism of the action and the law-and-orderist reaction by "left-liberals". |
Of course, while I dislike Orbán with a passion, it's not for bucking the (supposed) Western line, and while I too feel like that mineral water drinker, it's not because what passes for economic policy here lacks (the proper amount of) "reforms". But that paraphrase in the question is the perfect summary of the mindset here.
If only, at least, the Western EU would present and loudly advocate a new guideline to follow.
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