The Hungarian Reform Process: Visions, Hopes, and Reality

This chapter addresses the general readership of this book, not only the specialist in comparative systems and socialist economies; therefore, it cannot avoid including information known to the experts. It focuses on phenomena that prevailed throughout the 1968–1985 period and characterize the present state of affairs, with only occasional backward glances. The Hungarian economy has undergone major systemic changes in the past thirty years. The impact of the reform is felt by every Hungarian citizen. The influence of the Hungarian experience, however, does not stop at the borders of this small Eastern European country. Reform is a notion used widely by many parties and political movements all over the world. The modernization of a highly bureaucratic regulation of the economy with the aid of computers is not “reform.”