(Hungary's PM) Orban wants to build 'illiberal state' (like Russia and China)

[pampango]

Hungary leader Viktor Orban has said he wants to build an illiberal state based on national foundations, citing Russia and China as examples.

The experience of the financial crisis showed that “liberal democratic states cannot remain globally competitive.”

"Today, the world tries to understand systems which are not Western, not liberal, maybe not even democracies yet they are successful" he said, and mentioned Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey as examples.

He said that these efforts were being obstructed by civil society groups and that NGO workers are political activists representing foreign interests. Budapest recently got into a political dispute with Norway after the Hungarian authorities raided the offices of NGOs involved in administrating aid from the Nordic country. Orban's goverment had accused the Norwegian Fund of supporting opposition political groups.

http://euobserver.com/political/125128

I knew this guy was far-right but not this far out there.

[Igel]

1. Really?

I thought it was obvious.

One problem that democracy has is that it requires civil society. If all you have are unconnected, disconnected local groups that don't talk and are small with the government as the next real layer up, democracy's a tough call. You get "managed democracies" that rely crucially on the noblesse oblige attitude of those in charge. Or you get mass movements that are shaped by their leaders.

What's needed are a lot of groups that are interconnected, some small and some large, some with more power and some with less. They balance the PTB, they help get smaller groups connected. That's "civil society." Only when "civil society" became a career choice did it become things like Green Peace or the NRA, which are mostly small groups with a mailing list. There's little "social" about them, and that means there's little reason for them to be "civil" in any sense that's not "non-military" or "non-governmental." Even then, because they're small groups that manipulate power bases there's every reason for their leaders to try to cozy up to government for power. It upends the idea of "civil society," which wasn't always pretty but made people work together for common ends at most levels of society. Not everywhere, to be sure, and groups were left out. But it was enough, and instead of spreading the phenomenon contracted.

[cprise]

2. Europeans typically use "liberal" as an economic term

Even so, it wouldn't be surprising if social policy got swept up in a move away from economic "liberalisation" and "modernization" as they tend to call it.

It all falls under the rubric of Globalization, which is putting most of the world under the control of the 99%. Outside of the US, it has given the word "liberal" a very dark connotation.