Left ‘captured’ by obsolete neoliberal ideas

A conservative analyst contends that the Hungarian Left is failing to offer compelling and coherent answers to the challenges of contemporary societies. Instead, its representatives keep repeating the hollow slogans of liberalism – and label their opponents as fascists.

Despite their devastating defeat at two successive parliamentary elections, the Left keeps repeating the same old liberal dogmas of the past, Tibor Löffler writes in Magyar Nemzet. The conservative political scientist suggests that while Social Democrats and Marxists in the US and Western Europe have in the past years become highly critical of fundamentalist free-market ideas, Hungary’s mainstream leftist intellectuals like to label all conservative critics of global capitalism as racist, anti-capitalist and anti-globalist, while at the same time they are more tolerant of rare birds like the Hungarian Marxist critics of neoliberalism. Bearing all this in mind, Löffler is not at all surprised by the Left’s vehement reactions to PM Orbán’s speech at Baile Tusnad (see BudaPost August 4). In conclusion, Löffler recommends that the Left study Anthony Giddens’ ideas on third way Social Democracy, which might help them to realize that they should address problems related to aging societies, environmental threats and the fragmentation of societies – contemporary issues which he thinks Neoliberals do not take seriously.

Tags: Left, liberalism, liberals