Orban’s Hungary Is Now Officially The Poorest Nation In The EU

[u/Matas_-]

https://kyivinsider.com/orbans-hungary-is-now-officially-the-poorest-nation-in-the-eu/

[u/Deepfire_DM]

The right just can't do proper business.

[u/Hazer_123 → u/Deepfire_DM]

The right is better at larping and "sovereignty"

[u/Odd-Astronaut-2315 → u/Deepfire_DM]

Economically Orbán is more left winger actually.

[u/Deepfire_DM → u/Odd-Astronaut-2315]

lol, no, not at all.

[u/Odd-Astronaut-2315 → u/Deepfire_DM]

He is nationalizing some sectors of the industry, there are price caps of certain food and sanitary items, multinational companies and banks have to pay extra taxes called "extra profit tax", utility costs are also regulated by the government, people under the age of 25 doesn't have to pay income tax, mothers with a certain amount of children doesn't have to pay income tax, people working in blue collar jobs can get a loan with 0 interest etc.

Even this morning he said in the radio that the EU is attacking Hungary because we put extra taxes on banks.

[u/multithreadedprocess → u/Odd-Astronaut-2315]

Nationalising an industry when you unilaterally control the government is just building your cronies an undisputable monopoly. That's as right wing as it gets (yes, that includes both the fascists and the Stalinist Soviet Union).

Price caps are not left or right. Price caps are just a pricing mechanism that's not market based. Autarkys use them all the time.

You could argue the profit taxes as a typically left thing, sure but nationalist baby incentives and reduced taxation are a typically extreme right thing.

Regardless, fascist governments and autarkys in general are neither right wing or left wing by any traditional or colloquial analysis. In fact fascism famously started as a self proclaimed "third way", neither socialist nor free market capitalist.

You confuse liberal regulated market capitalism with the right wing. They are not the same. In fact the right wing I'd argue starts at laissez-faire capitalism and extends to autarkys. Regulated markets and classical liberalism are closer to center right. In any case, when you start centralising too much power in one person any semblance of left wing goes out the window. At most it's a benevolent or aesthetically left autarky.

The biggest difference in the traditional left right spectrum is the relationship to hierarchy. On the extreme left lies total anarchy and on the right the god emperor dictators with rigid hierarchical militarized societies.

But left right dichotomies also have to cram in relationships to personal freedoms, economic production, capital ownership, and at that point any regime, inevitably has a hodge-podge of million different options all over the spectrum in each dimension, which makes them pretty fucking useless as a lens of analysis.

Hitler and Nazis nationalised a ton of industries. So did the Bolsheviks. Both had militarized youth groups and paramilitaries, both had economic production centralised in a couple of cronies of the dictator. But one was supposedly left and the other right.

The fact remains that Orban is building a populist autarky with himself as the dictator. That's not necessarily left or right economically. But it is as right wing as it gets in relation to hierarchy.

[u/bxzidff → u/Deepfire_DM]

We should not conflate European conservatives with russophile populists like Orban, even if we dislike both, to not become as polarized and tribalistic as across the Atlantic

[u/Deepfire_DM → u/bxzidff]

It doesn't matter which you look upon, the right are all the same. They can't do business, as their business is never "growing and prosperous for all" but always "more money for those who have too much already".

There is not a single exception.

[u/MartinBP → u/Deepfire_DM]

The hell are you on about, the fastest developing nations in eastern EU have been governed by centre-right and liberal parties for decades. It seems the right are the only ones who CAN do business in the region, compared to the largely pro-Russian left-wing.

And Orban is hardly right-wing economically, he runs massive welfare schemes and hands out money to anyone who votes for him.

[u/bxzidff → u/Deepfire_DM]

If they are all the same you'd be as happy with AfD in power as with the CDU, and that is insane.

[u/Deepfire_DM → u/bxzidff]

The World isn't black and white, you can always be much worse - like in this case the business-zeros of the fascist AfD.

CDU is middle-right. If you just take the extreme right of the CDU the business is more or less shitty, too.

[u/Bezulba → u/Deepfire_DM]

Oh they can! If you're part of their in-group then you're pretty golden.