Fiddling while Pannonia fumbles
By : Erik D'Amato
Editor's note: Marek Matraszek will return next week.
When I sat down to write this column, it was all I could do not to weigh in on the topic du jour, the government's impromptu attempt to make political hay from the plight of Hungary's small farmers. But for several reasons I was able to restrain myself. First, it seemed likely that the subject would be passe by the time my bit made it into print. Second, there wasn't much scope for improvement on the BBJ's house editorial on the same topic, which rightfully excoriated the government for its hollow and destructive pandering, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in particular for his vulgar threats to foreign landowners.
But the most important reason I didn't write about the ruckus was this: because that's exactly what the government would have wanted had they known or cared.
Since even before my Roman ancestors honed it to a fine art, governments have been using circuses, wars and other spectacles to distract and entertain their subjects. Usually, the aim is to divert attention from the pillaging that has normally been the primary goal of state power. Often, the spectacle is engineered to amuse or placate a particular interest group. At other times, political circuses are employed to help the mob forget about the things the government isn't doing.
Hungary seems to offer a textbook case of the latter. Of course, there are often narrow matters of political tactics behind the entertainment. The theatrics in Zala County, for example, were certainly acted out with an eye toward winning over wavering smallholders, whom the ruling party is keen to lure into their camp. But Viktor Orban's over-the-top histrionics, and the government's perfunctory financial pledges to the farming sector, make it plain that the show was meant for a larger audience. Zala was symbolic politics at its best or worst given the absolute inevitability of the ban on foreign ownership of farmland being overturned in the long or medium-term.
While it's easy to recall some of the big government stories of the past few years, just try to remember the last time the government announced the start of or, more importantly, the successful conclusion of a serious public policy initiative or reform. Aside from the long-overdue decision to free the forint, it's hard to think of anything.
Unfortunately, this is not because of a lack of challenges. Keep in mind that Hungary's large state sector and high degree of centralization make the national government responsible for almost all areas of public administration, as well as a great deal of what might otherwise be purely commercial activity. And much of that sprawling empire is, if not a calamity, then certainly a disappointment.
Take, as one random example, the state railways, MAV. A few weeks back I had the all-too-common experience of standing in a line for almost an hour at Keleti Station, waiting to purchase a ticket from an ill-equipped and magnificently surly MAV employee. What made the experience memorable was the shock of the people standing in line ahead of me, a pair of tourists from New Delhi. "We thought it was only in India that public administration was this bad," one told me, shaking her head in amazement.
Or consider the calamitous state of the country's health sector and pay-as-you-go pension system, whose long-term solvency becomes more dubious with each passing day of neglect. Or the nation's creaky judicial system, or loss-making commercial concerns, such as Dunaferr and Malev, that the state can't figure out what to do with.
Prime Minister Orban famously said that Hungary's transition from socialism to democratic capitalism is complete. That may be true. But even if it is and sometimes I doubt it the country's public administration remains in dire need of modernization. Without it, Hungary will join the European Union (EU) not as a dynamic model of post-transition success, but as a sluggish backwater. In every area the state operates, it needs to do so more efficiently. And the country's taste for circuses and symbolic politics are making this very difficult.
Why doesn't the government focus more on the nitty-gritty of improving (and, wherever possible, pruning) the state's myriad operations, and less on circuses? For the same reason the media doesn't: because the circuses are more fun. Enhancing public services and other serious areas of governing are, in reality, mundane and incremental jobs, generally less interesting (and less well-paid) than jobs in the private sector. I would certainly prefer hurling insults at Austrian landowners to grappling with, say, pension or healthcare reform.
All this is not to say that symbolism or morality are not important aspects of politics or political leadership. Nor does it mean that voters should narrowly view the state as something designed only to provide services or handouts.
Rather, it suggests that people should respond to the noisier scenes of political drama by asking themselves more consciously whether the fuss is in proportion to the substance, and whether less-sensational, but crucial, issues are being drowned out by the commotion. Certainly don't expect journalists to do it for you. Without the circus, most of us would have to fold up tent and move on.
So as we gear up for next year's election spectacle, feel free to enjoy the show. Just remember that the main event is the high-wire act, not the clowns.
Former Budapest Business Journal Editor Erik D'Amato can be reached at erik@bbj.hu (mailto:erik@bbj.hu)
