So why not Putin himself? Or the Belorussian guy? Or any of the Central Asian rulers? If the criterion is rejection of liberal democracy, why not China?
Those countries were never very liberal to begin with, so their departure from Western values doesn’t look like what the experiment needs. Hungary, on the other hand, has a solid history of resistance to totalitarianism that only in the past half decade has had to face the threat of dictatorship.
There is more to NRx than just giving up liberal values. For example, Hungary still has elections that this guy has to win, so I guess they would still classify the country as “demotist”.
When they make a revolution, abolish democracy, declare Orbán a hereditary king, and possibly when he hires Ernő Rubik as a Chief Royal Scientist to solve all country’s problems, then we’ll have a good example.
AFAIK NRx are quasi-libertarians in the Hoppean sense (or Pinochetian sense), who want to use political authoritarianism for economic libertarianism largely. Orban is pretty much the opposite—economic statist, on a nationalist basis. Socially they can be similar but economically not. Orban is closer to US palecons like Pat Buchanan who are not full believers of free markets, they accept economic intervention just not on a left-wing / egalitarian basis, but a nationalist-protectionist basis e.g. not shipping jobs abroad.
I admit this is a bit complicated, because economic libertarianism and illibertarianism meshes with different ideologies depending on what aspect of non-intervention they focus on. For example those US righ-wingers who focus primarily on low taxes and social spending, are closer to Orban, those want all kinds of spending low not just social are not so close, those who focus on free trade are far away from him, and those who focus on privatizing things are the farthest—Eastern European right-wing tends to be anti-privatization because privatization tends to lead to foreigners acquriing things and it does not mesh with their nationalism well.
It’s a bit complicated.
But I see the primary difference as Orban is playing the man-of-the-people role, talks about a “plebeian” democracy, asks voters frequently about their opinion of issues, so he would be an NRx “demotist”, he plays that role of the Little Guy against liberal elites type of thing that is closer to perhaps Tea Party folks. In short, far more anti-liberal than anti-democratic, he plays more of the role of a rural conservative democrat against aristocratic liberal elites, and his primary goal seems to be strengthening the national state against international liberal capitalism. He is very much the anti-Soros, and that is explicit (there are few people the Eastern European Right hates more than George Soros, and both because of his liberal views and capitalist exploits).
European terminology tends to call this all populism. Anti-liberalism both in lifestyle and economics, focusing on the working class guy who is both anti-capitalist and conservative/traditional in lifestyle, with a rural tinge.
And I don’t think populism and NRx would mesh well unless I really ignored a big aspect of NRx but e.g. Anissinov looks like an anti-populist pro-aristocrat to me.
As long as you don’t care much about economic libertarianism, privatizing all the things etc. but only social conservatism, you can be on the same page.
Admittedly, the whole economic libertarianism thing is different in the center vs. peripheria of globalization. In the center, such as the US where businesses are owned by people of those countries, anti-libertarianism usually means egalitarianism. In the peripheria, where businesses are usually foreign-owned, anti-libertarianism usually means economic nationalism, protectionism. The later is culturally far more palatable for culturally conservative people, but Rothbard types would still be disgusted by it.
BTW you see the same story on a far larger and transparenter case in Russia. Classical liberalism / libertarianism is equated with Yeltsin and that equated with selling all the things to foreigners and his memory very much hated on the Russian Right. They may be down with those types of libertarianism that is mostly about tax cuts, but they really draw lines at not letting foreigners get a lot of economic influence. (Not that Yeltsin was anywhere near being a principled libertarian—he just really liked selling things. I think the only principled libertarian to the east from Germany is Vaclav Klaus.)
Example and example.
So why not Putin himself? Or the Belorussian guy? Or any of the Central Asian rulers? If the criterion is rejection of liberal democracy, why not China?
Those countries were never very liberal to begin with, so their departure from Western values doesn’t look like what the experiment needs. Hungary, on the other hand, has a solid history of resistance to totalitarianism that only in the past half decade has had to face the threat of dictatorship.
There is more to NRx than just giving up liberal values. For example, Hungary still has elections that this guy has to win, so I guess they would still classify the country as “demotist”.
When they make a revolution, abolish democracy, declare Orbán a hereditary king, and possibly when he hires Ernő Rubik as a Chief Royal Scientist to solve all country’s problems, then we’ll have a good example.
AFAIK NRx are quasi-libertarians in the Hoppean sense (or Pinochetian sense), who want to use political authoritarianism for economic libertarianism largely. Orban is pretty much the opposite—economic statist, on a nationalist basis. Socially they can be similar but economically not. Orban is closer to US palecons like Pat Buchanan who are not full believers of free markets, they accept economic intervention just not on a left-wing / egalitarian basis, but a nationalist-protectionist basis e.g. not shipping jobs abroad.
I admit this is a bit complicated, because economic libertarianism and illibertarianism meshes with different ideologies depending on what aspect of non-intervention they focus on. For example those US righ-wingers who focus primarily on low taxes and social spending, are closer to Orban, those want all kinds of spending low not just social are not so close, those who focus on free trade are far away from him, and those who focus on privatizing things are the farthest—Eastern European right-wing tends to be anti-privatization because privatization tends to lead to foreigners acquriing things and it does not mesh with their nationalism well.
It’s a bit complicated.
But I see the primary difference as Orban is playing the man-of-the-people role, talks about a “plebeian” democracy, asks voters frequently about their opinion of issues, so he would be an NRx “demotist”, he plays that role of the Little Guy against liberal elites type of thing that is closer to perhaps Tea Party folks. In short, far more anti-liberal than anti-democratic, he plays more of the role of a rural conservative democrat against aristocratic liberal elites, and his primary goal seems to be strengthening the national state against international liberal capitalism. He is very much the anti-Soros, and that is explicit (there are few people the Eastern European Right hates more than George Soros, and both because of his liberal views and capitalist exploits).
European terminology tends to call this all populism. Anti-liberalism both in lifestyle and economics, focusing on the working class guy who is both anti-capitalist and conservative/traditional in lifestyle, with a rural tinge.
And I don’t think populism and NRx would mesh well unless I really ignored a big aspect of NRx but e.g. Anissinov looks like an anti-populist pro-aristocrat to me.
I’m not quite a NRx but from what I hear about him I like Orban.
As long as you don’t care much about economic libertarianism, privatizing all the things etc. but only social conservatism, you can be on the same page.
Admittedly, the whole economic libertarianism thing is different in the center vs. peripheria of globalization. In the center, such as the US where businesses are owned by people of those countries, anti-libertarianism usually means egalitarianism. In the peripheria, where businesses are usually foreign-owned, anti-libertarianism usually means economic nationalism, protectionism. The later is culturally far more palatable for culturally conservative people, but Rothbard types would still be disgusted by it.
BTW you see the same story on a far larger and transparenter case in Russia. Classical liberalism / libertarianism is equated with Yeltsin and that equated with selling all the things to foreigners and his memory very much hated on the Russian Right. They may be down with those types of libertarianism that is mostly about tax cuts, but they really draw lines at not letting foreigners get a lot of economic influence. (Not that Yeltsin was anywhere near being a principled libertarian—he just really liked selling things. I think the only principled libertarian to the east from Germany is Vaclav Klaus.)