Csaba Lentner - East of Europe, west of Asia

12 | Chapter 1: Theme and Purpose of the Book, a Short Historical Arc of its Subject
Weaknesses of the transition to a market economy, its ineffective implementation,
the overspending state budget, the asymmetric taxing structure
led to a further deterioration of the path of public debt that has resulted in its
unsustainability by the time of the crisis in 2007-2008. The state’s economic
influence, the marginalization of regulation to an extent more than justified,
and the intensification of the deficit of the central budget and the municipal
public finance subsystem, the over-indebtedness of family households predetermined
the inability of the state to operate.
In a new political and economic course reinforced by the new social empowerment
and legal provisions launched in 2010, Hungary implements
an active model of the state’s economic influence. Budgetary discipline, tax
discipline, and the regulation of the operation of financial institutions have
been strengthened. As a result of the above listed and the new type of tax
regulation, the problems of the state budget have eased, the public debt to
GDP ratio has decreased and the conditions of economic growth have been
created. Furthermore, following a “self-consolidation” of the state budget,
municipal governments, social security and households indebted in foreign
currency have gone through a procedure of financial consolidation and task
centralization coordinated by the state. State administration, and within that
economic administration, are characterized by centralization and the dismantling
of parallel public service capacities, as well as the pursuit of efficiency,
to which the monetary policy of the central bank supporting the governance
“has been associated” since 2013.
1.2 THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK,
ITS THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
The dissertation embraces five subsequent courses of economic administration
that may differ occasionally regarding the applied survey method and available
resources. Their common feature is a more markedly displayed presence
of statehood with the – sometimes relative – legalized nature of its legal
framework compared to that in the three-hundred-year period preceding
the 19 th century. In each case, economic development, the determination
of falling into line with Western European standards is at the forefront.
Accordingly, the starting point in the case of each state administration
course is the intention to achieve a more modern statehood and economic
level. Béla Máriássy [10] made his statement in the age of dualism exemplary
for all the five investigated eras that “the basic conditions for statehood
are self-dependence of the state, material wealth, personal and property
security and intelligentsia. Only a financially orderly sate possesses these four
prerequisites, as material wealth means substantial and valuable production,
and production is impossible without state subsidy, while ensuring selfdependence,
personal and property security as well as intelligentsia requires