Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Zsolt Gál: Argentina on the Danube - Populist Economic Policy as the Biggest Enemy of Sustainable Economic Growth
Zsolt Gál Table 4 shows that the ratio is the worst in Hungary and the best in the Czech Republic; Slovakia is somewhere in between, although closer to the latter. This corresponds to the overall support for populist parties, which is the strongest in Hungary (over 80%), lower but still considerable in Slovakia (between 55-60%) and the lowest in the Czech Republic; however, the overall support for populist subjects is still higher than the ratio of government-financed to market-financed citizens would suggest. There are several plausible explanations for this:- The table does not include all population groups that are financed by government, for instance many people participating in requalification training programs that are financed from public budgets, people who are employed in the private sector but their jobs are (partially) subsidized by government, and hundreds of thousands of young people whose university studies are (completely or partially) financed from the state budget.- The sole fact that people are employed in the private sector does not necessarily rule out their support for populist economic measures, which is often driven by completely rational and selfish reasons. For instance, people who have few years to retirement are likely to endorse jacking up pensions; people who are planning to have children are likely to embrace the idea of increasing children’s allowance or extending the parental leave, etc. Besides, politicians may also offer a broad range of incentives to private sector employees, such as enacting higher minimum wage, longer paid leave, more luncheon vouchers, shorter work hours, higher overtime bonuses, better protection against layoffs (i.e. period of notice, severance pay), etc.- Significant differences in voter participation of government-financed and market-financed citizens may shuffle election cards thoroughly and cause a victory/defeat of one group or another; however, there are no essential differences between the two principal categories’ voter participation in CEE countries.- Voters may not vote rationally as their values and views, personal sympathies or traditions may prevail over their own financial interests. For instance, a pensioner may oppose introduction of the 13lh annual pension because he is aware of the measure’s unsustainable and harmful nature; on the other hand, an employee (who would pay for it eventually) may endorse the measure out of ignorance or his irrational convictions. However, here we are touching upon the second alternative hypothesis, i.e. the model of irrational voters. Further criticism of the hypothesis has one wonder about the Swedish example. Although Lindbeck documented an even worse ratio between mar204
