The following article is an analysis of how the Orbán government transformed the form of conditional distribution in Hungary over the past 12 years. How did the support system for the poor become the support system of the middle and upper middle class and how did it exclude the most disadvantaged groups from almost all benefits?
While for the second year now we have been tracking new numbers of coronavirus-related cases and deaths several times a day, and estimates for the cost of the economic lockdown range between two and four billion CZK a day (for the Czech Republic), another crucial figure has escaped our attention.
Just a few weeks ago IME presented the main challenges to social protection faced by Bulgaria in the post-pandemic period. One of the key takeaways was that Bulgarian social policy is unfocused, ineffective and that it flat out fails to address poverty and inequality. While such issues are mainly solved through economic recovery, new jobs and wage growth, the role of social policy should be focused as much as possible on those most in need.
Reflecting and reporting on the impact of the new coronavirus on the ages-old obsessive (in)equality academia, media and others are swinging between claims that SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 (the pathogen / the disease) is either a blindfolded leveler or, on the contrary, a balance destroyer.
Oman started 2020 off on the right foot when it comes to economic freedom. A new Foreign Capital Investment Law (FCIL) came into force to visibly lower barriers to foreign investment in the Sultanate. The crucial change is that 100% foreign ownership is now possible in Oman.
Although we must admit the existence of inequality, why do we get so irritated by it? What is that 16-year-old missing to understand? It is the knowledge that inequality isn’t caused by someone biting a bigger chunk off a single global pie.
The aim of eradicating homelessness has inspired numerous solutions worldwide. Hungary came up with the simplest of these: a constitutional ban outright prohibits living on the streets. Yet, the targeting of thousands of homeless people living in Hungary is not a new phenomenon.
We sometimes hear that the only type of liberalism we need today is “political liberalism” while classical liberal ideas in the economy can be neglected. The view that we need only political freedom, without a broad range of economic freedoms, is not isolated and requires a response.
With the increasing number of terrorist attacks in Europe passionate debates all around in the ether picked up in pace, scrutinizing a range of complementary topics – from the circumstances of individual attacks, sources and causes of terrorism to distinct analyses of motives presumably prompting terrorists to carry out their disdainful acts of violence.
Helping the poor to free themselves from poverty should not mean absolving the individual from all responsibility and nurturing a culture of victimhood, entitlement and dependency.
