{"id":48905,"date":"2021-02-22T09:12:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T09:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/02\/hungary-viktor-orban-pro-worker-conservatives\/"},"modified":"2021-02-22T09:50:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T09:50:12","slug":"why-pro-worker-conservatives-misrepresent-viktor-orbans-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/22\/why-pro-worker-conservatives-misrepresent-viktor-orbans-hungary\/","title":{"rendered":"Why \u201cPro-Worker Conservatives\u201d Misrepresent Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Figures like Tucker Carlson have hailed Hungarian premier Viktor Orb\u00e1n for marrying cultural conservatism with protectionist economic measures. Yet for all his demagogic attacks on finance, Orb\u00e1n's policies have favored local oligarchs and sharply increased social inequality \u2014 pointing to the hollowness of his American fans' own \"pro-worker conservatism.\"<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban attends his Fidesz party campaign closing rally on April 6, 2018. (Laszlo Balogh \/ Getty)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

On December 10, 2020, Gladden Pappin, professor of political theory at the Catholic-affiliated University of Dallas, tweeted<\/a> about his meeting with Hungarian families minister Katalin Nov\u00e1k. Pappin\u2019s tweet praised Hungary\u2019s family policies, aimed at reversing demographic decline in a country with birth rates among the lowest in Europe. Minister Nov\u00e1k also happens to be the vice-chair of prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Fidesz party. Pappin\u2019s enthusiasm might seem unusual at first glance. After all, in his three consecutive terms since 2010, Orb\u00e1n has more often made headlines by putting the small post-socialist country at the forefront of the global radical right than on account of his economic policies.<\/p>\n

The same week, the Texas Monthly<\/em> ran a piece<\/a> on Pappin, characterizing him as a proponent of reshaping the Republican Party to become more accommodating of working-class demands and public spending. Outside the classroom, Pappin is also the deputy editor of American Affairs<\/em>, a journal known for its call for the US right to mount an “economic populist” turn with more industrial policy, employee protections, and higher taxes.<\/p>\n

Pappin is not the only American Affairs<\/em> editor to have recently expressed fascination for Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary. Around the time of his visit to that country, editor in chief Julius Krein appeared on a panel hosted by Budapest’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium, a government-funded educational institution and think tank. In his talk<\/a>, Krein praised the Hungarian right for not falling for the Reaganite small-state libertarianism that he saw as the biggest obstacle to introducing “economic populist” policies under Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Pappin was also not the first prominent self-identified “pro-worker conservative” to praise Orb\u00e1n’s family policy: in 2019, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson discussed<\/a> the generous family support schemes introduced in Hungary to incentivize childbirth for married couples. Patrick Deneen, conservative political theorist and author of the widely read Why Liberalism Failed<\/em> expressed<\/a> similar views after a private meeting with Orb\u00e1n during his 2019 visit to Budapest.<\/p>\n

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Hungarian families minister Katalin Nov\u00e1k and US professor Gladden Pappin meet in Budapest in 2020. (Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet while they praise Hungary as a conservative country that still cares for its average citizens, the Orb\u00e1n regime contradicts their claims in key areas. The new family-support schemes, the signature social policies of the Orb\u00e1n era, are deliberately designed to exclude low-income families. This is ensured by making most support for families with children accessible only in the form of tax benefits and state-subsidized commercial loans and mortgages. Such financial products are only available through commercial banks that apply the usual creditworthiness criteria, excluding low earners; and in truth, mortgages can only be used for buying homes of a size out of reach for most families in need. Meanwhile, the amount of the universal in-cash family benefit has remained unchanged since 2008. These measures have clearly disadvantaged the working poor and the unemployed, including the overwhelming majority of the Roma, who make up approximately 8 percent of Hungary’s population.<\/p>\n

These policies stand in stark contrast with Mitt Romney\u2019s recently proposed Family Security Act, promising universal direct monthly payments and benefiting families regardless of employment status. Nonetheless, in his recently published article<\/a> in the New York Post<\/em>, Pappin still advocated for this bill with a reference to Hungarian family policies. This persistent admiration seems all the stranger if we consider that he would not have had to look too far from Hungary to find a country where child support is available to low-income families, too. In 2016, Poland\u2019s populist right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) \u2014 a close Orb\u00e1n ally \u2014 introduced a new universal family allowance scheme that has successfully decreased<\/a> child poverty, despite its otherwise problematic record on issues like women\u2019s rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n