Mate Hajba

Director of the Free Market Foundation, which advocates economic freedom, civil rights and tolerance. He is also the Vice President of Civic Platform, which runs anti-racist campaigns and promotes democratic values. He is interested in the relationship between the state and the individual and in the concept and history of liberty. He writes for international press on issues such as intolerance in Hungary and international relations. To promote the concept of individualism, liberty, tolerance and free market, he co-founded a youth organization named Eötvös Club.

Politics

A Historic Chance to Dispose of the Orbán’s Regime: Interview with Zoltán Kész

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / August 7, 2017

We don’t have a lot of time. If we don\'t act now, we will entrench the semi-feudal, crypto-communist government. Our current situation is like extinguishing a fire: We shouldn’t care who hands us a bucket of water, the most important things is to put out the fire.

Politics

Hungarian Hypocrisy

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / April 25, 2017

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would make an excellent magician. While he diverts people\'s attention with one hand, he steals with the other. Often literally.

Politics, Society

Is Hungary Becoming the Second Russia?

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / April 25, 2017

We may recently often hear that something is a \"Putinesque measure\". However, in Hungary, the governing party Fidesz, lead by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is really using Putin’s solutions as its point of reference. Let’s see how similar Orbán’s and Putin’s methods are.

Politics, Society

Hungarian Choices in the Light of State Propaganda

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / April 22, 2017

Just like communism, Orbán’s regime is unsustainable and doomed to fail. Just like the communists, the current government sees only the collective, rather than the individuals. And the individuals who don’t share Orbán’s illiberal ideas are getting angry.Once again, they want liberty.

Society

Harry Potter and the Deathly Fake News

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / March 2, 2017

Fake news are like religion, you must believe them despite of all common sense and evidence to the contrary. Like any radical religion, it must be protected at all costs. And so, in the fifth volume, Dolores Umbridge made Harry write lines, etching them into his own skin, saying: “I must not tell lies”.

Politics, Society

Terrified Hungary

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / February 7, 2017

We must not remain silent, we must not accept fear. The government is still in power because it made people believe that it will protect them from the immigrants, NGOs, the EU and capitalistic and imperialistic American interests. And in the meantime they make people terrified of dissent.

Think Tank News

Hungarian Civility

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / January 11, 2017

With no independent media, no checks and balances, no civil oversight, one of the most corrupt governments in the EU can expand on its already immense powers and get even closer to Putin’s Russia. But it is not too late to act and save what remains of civil society in Hungary.

Politics

Castro’s Looming Shadow

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / January 10, 2017

Years after communism failed spectacularly with the demise of the Soviet Union, long after the horrendous deeds of the collectivist dictatorships became well known, there are still people who have the audacity to laud mass murderers of the likes of Fidel Castro.

Politics, Society

Blockbuster Politics

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / January 7, 2017

The answer to populism is not more populism. Demagogues can be defeated without lies. In the recent U.S. election two extremely untrustworthy candidates tried to outbid each other in telling the biggest lies. You can promise blood, sweat and tears and still be loved.

Politics, Society

South Park Politics

BY Mate Hajba AND Free Market Foundation / November 2, 2016

The Trump phenomenon has left analysts baffled. Who would have thought that such a clown can stand a real chance of becoming the next President of the United States? While most of the experts were still figuring out what on earth has happened, the explanation came from an unlikely source: South Park.