The post-communist transition changed many things, but beneath the surface, the main rules didn't change much. Hungary keeps performing below its capacity. Not mainly because the right people don't run it, but because its operating system’s reward rule is bad. However, the elite writes that rule. The transition was not innocent or given, and it deserves many essays of its own. Much of the nomenklatura kept its elite status, and most wealth changed hands through connections rather than on a market. But this is not the scope now. Nor is the scope to take the Orbán era apart. The reason why is precisely that it is not the explanation of the problems. The Orbán regime, or the NER, is not the cause of this system. They are the operating system’s most consistent exploiters and its gravest symptom. If the problem had begun in 2010, we would not find the same phenomena before it. We do, and most of my evidence comes from before 2010. So this is not a party matter. Anyone looking for one side only will be disappointed.
“The Hungarian elite is predominantly composed of takers rather than makers. It’s a poor-quality elite.” — Küllői Péter, investment banker, self-described winner of the 1990 transition
Figures and fissures
The problem begins with two facts that do not fit together.
Gabriella Ilonszki’s 2009 monograph found that from the 1990s onward, our parliamentary elite steadily “blended into the European average”.1 More than ninety percent of members of parliament hold degrees— a higher share than in Western European legislatures. Across the wider elite this figure is ninety-two to ninety-six percent. On paper, none of them look uneducated.
Benchmarked against the EU average, our labour productivity is about thirty percent below, while GDP per capita is seventy-seven percent of it. Only about half of the value added in our exports comes from us. Czechia has this share closer to sixty percent, and Romania above seventy percent. We spend 1.5 to 1.7 percent of GDP on research and development, compared with a European average above two. And €17.9 billion in EU funds remain suspended.2
The two facts. We have one of the best-educated elites in the region and one of its worst-performing economies. That gap needs an explanation, but it is not because our leaders failed to finish school.
The answer is in what this country rewards systemically. And most importantly, in who writes that rule.
A word that has lost its meaning
In my 2025 essay, “A Leadership Culture That Holds Back,” I looked at one elite problem, namely leadership culture, that has produced many of the country’s structural failures. This piece continues that discussion.3
Péter Küllői is a good place to start. I heard him on the Forbes Deal 2036 podcast. The podcast is an interview series that asks Hungarian prominent figures what kind of country Hungary should be by 2036. Got my essay title from him and the drive to build on his points about the Hungarian elite. Trained as a civil engineer, moving into finance at a key moment, he co-founded an advisory firm later partly sold to Coopers & Lybrand,4 helped with the flotations of MOL, Richter, and Matáv, and eventually led an investment bank’s London office. He also chaired Bátor Tábor, the foundation running therapeutic camps for seriously ill children, for more than twenty years. Asked whether he gained a lot from the post-communist transition, he replied, “Absolutely. I was in the right place at the right time.”5
Küllői, as a winner of the transition, talks about the opportunity Hungary had in 1990 and why it was not taken well. During the discussion, he talks frequently about the Hungarian elite, borrowing a framework from the organizational psychologist Adam Grant.6 Grant sorts people into givers, matchers and takers. Givers give without expecting anything back, matchers trade fairly, takers only want to receive. Küllői applies the labels to an entire elite rather than to individuals, as Grant does not. On that basis, he ends up claiming:
“the Hungarian elite is predominantly taker… This is a poor-quality elite.” - Péter Küllői (2026); my translation.
I fully agree with his opinions regarding the predominant Hungarian elite!
However, framed this way, it offers little practical value. This label doesn't help with analysis, since it’s a moral judgment, not an explanation. All elites act in their own interest to some degree. Every elite group takes something. If being a taker is just a human trait, it doesn't explain why Hungary stays at seventy-seven percent of the European average while Czechia does better. The term also makes it easy to argue that all elites act the same, which weakens any point based on character. If our elite are takers by nature, then there is no way forward and any further analysis is pointless.
So, in this context, the term needs a clearer definition:
A taker is not necessarily someone without a conscience. Takers occupy extractive positions: their income, status, or influence does not depend on the value they create, but on what they can obtain from others.
This already concerns a position, not a personality or personal quality. Therefore, it can be measured better. Péter Mihályi and Iván Szelényi7 wrote a book that separates income earned as rent (taken through monopoly, licences, political connections, or regulatory privilege) from income earned as profit or wages in competition. These patterns vary by country, which matters when discussing Hungary. The position remains even when the people change. This view also helps in explaining why Hungarians act differently once they cross a border, which a character-based explanation cannot do so.
Seen this way, the statement makes a point. It’s not meant to offend. In Hungary, people predominantly achieve high income and status by securing allocated rents instead of creating value through competition. Over the years, the sources of these rents have shifted: state assets in the early 1990s, bank recapitalisations, EU cohesion funds after joining the EU, tax diversions after 2011, and public procurement throughout. However, the basic reward system has stayed the same. As a result, the elite has little personal interest in improving national productivity,8 which helps explain why it remains low.
The bargain that was broken
What is the purpose of an “elite”? At its core, being part of an elite means getting greater rewards in exchange for taking on greater responsibility.
This trade-off is what makes elite status legitimate. In the past, successful elites earned their place by serving in the military, fighting wars, risking their own life or money, managing important tasks, upholding high standards or investing for the public good. Noblesse oblige is not simply a nice idea, but the price of these roles. The rewards are meant to balance the responsibilities that help a group, an institution, or a country. Today, Hungarian elite have stopped accepting this responsibility predominantly. Some keep the rewards but ignore the duties. This difference is key to what comes next.
This idea of a problematic elite is not mine alone. In 2011, the Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Institute for Minority Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Argumentum Publishing published the volume called Elites in the Age of Crisis.9 The book shares results from a 2009–2010 survey of Hungary’s political, economic, and cultural elites. This survey was part of a research project that began back in 1992–93 with Iván Szelényi and Donald Treiman’s six-country elite study, and continued in Hungary with more surveys in 1997 and 2001. That gives longitudinal data on the same elite positions. In the book’s preface, editor Imre Kovách asks:
“I wonder what this elite is capable of in a time when it truly is necessary to not only accumulate their material, cultural, power, relational, and symbolic capital but also to use it for the common good. The answers are not very encouraging.” — Kovách, 2011; my translation.
This fits Küllői’s giver-and-taker framing. Kovách wrote it in the preface to that volume, and survey data stand behind the claim. The fieldwork was done in 2009, a year before the post-2010 order acquired its name.10
Two contributors to the same volume sharpened the point. Noémi Girst and András Keil,11 working from the same 2009 data, found that only 36% of the political elite regarded themselves as elite, against 76% of the cultural elite.
If an elite group does not see itself as elite, it has already turned down the bargain. You cannot take on responsibility if you do not recognize it.
Five ways to take
This typology is based on what is taken, not on specific scandals. All five types exist simultaneously, but they have different weights at different times.
I. Taking assets: the converter
This means turning a position into property. For example, a state enterprise director or a KISZ (Communist Youth Alliance) secretary might end up owning the enterprise or trading company with zero or close to zero investment.
A foreign observer noticed this trend early on. In 1990, American sociologist David Stark published an article called “Privatisation in Hungary: from Plan to Market or from Plan to Clan?”. He warned that a clan was forming instead of a market, including a close network of enterprise directors and party officials, “clanlike to the extent that its density and its extensiveness makes coordinated action possible even without a coordinating centre.”12 People with the right positions and information gained assets, and old hierarchies stayed in place under new ownership. Stark’s analysis came twenty years before the 2010 Orbán government, which many now criticize for corruption, nepotism and clientelism.
Later data backed up Stark’s points. In a 1992–93 study of six countries, Szelényi and colleagues13 found a pattern: the political elite changed, but the economic elite stayed the same. In 1997, Tamás Kolosi and Matild Sági14 surveyed 331 members of Hungary’s large-business elite (company owners with annual revenues of at least HUF 500 million, equivalent to HUF 2.3 billion today).15 Almost three-quarters had held top economic jobs before the transition, either as managers of state-owned companies, independent entrepreneurs, or participants in the “second economy,” or both. Kolosi showed this continuity and also looked at which group ended up on top. Unlike Erzsébet Szalai’s technocratic-managerial model,16 Kolosi called it “the revolution of the deputy department heads.”
Küllői’s view is important because he disagrees. He says this was not looting:
“It wasn’t about the elite wanting to exploit and use all of this for themselves and to steal it, but rather about having a belief that such a path could be followed... [but] there was not enough maturity and professionalism in any area for it to succeed.” — Küllői, 2026; my translation.
Regardless of whether the real problem was a lack of maturity or professionalism, rather than personal gain, most of the state-owned wealth ended up in private hands for pennies. The main point is that in both cases, people got public assets without competition, not just because of their intentions. The reward rule does not depend on motives.
II. Taking tolls: the gatekeeper
The second way of taking adds no value. Instead, it acts as a barrier. Consultants, grant writers, fixers, and middlemen who earn success fees or launder money through payroll do not make, build, or provide real goods or services. They get paid only because others need their help to gain access.
These numbers are documented. In 2009, the Public Procurement Council commissioned GKI Economic Research to survey the field. The study found that corruption affects roughly two-thirds to three-quarters of Hungarian public procurement procedures, raising prices by about 25 percent.17 These are deliberately cautious figures, since a widely cited estimate put the share at 90 percent. The researchers give a whole section to why the real figure must be lower.18 Even on their cautious number, only one procedure in three or four comes out clean.
This is not limited to public procurement.
Mihály Fazekas’s 2010 diagnosis19 reports that parties gravely exceed campaign spending limits, with the money coming from the business sector awaiting special favours after the election. It also records a second mechanism: parties set up foundations that can legally take money from anonymous donors, which cannot be tracked. Whoever finances a campaign is well placed to be on the right side of access afterwards. And the paper is blunt about who does it:
“There is no evidence supporting that one or another party would be less corrupted among those in the parliament.” — Fazekas, 2010: 11.
That sentence deserves a place in every Hungarian politician’s memoir.
Fazekas came back to public procurement with a different kind of evidence: an objective corruption risk index built from the procurement records themselves. Restricted competition, repeat awards to the same firms, rather than what anyone said in an interview. The picture did not improve. Firms scoring high on the index were more profitable, won contracts further above their estimated price, and were likelier to have political owners or managers and offshore registration.20
The Tocsik affair of 1996, a privatization-consultancy scandal involving the Socialist–Free Democrat coalition, became a symbol of the era. Its impact is clear in the language: the term ‘Tocsikolás’21 was created, showing that the practice had become routine. The gatekeeper adds nothing of value. Every forint spent is a total loss.
This way is the most harmful to the economy out of the five. While the converter at least manages operations and might do it well, the gatekeeper adds no value. All related costs are lost.
III. Taking markets: the concessionaire
The third approach does not involve taking assets or collecting fees. Instead, it gives access to a market set up by the state. Examples are tobacco concessions, land leases, procurement channels, media, and required online cashiers. In each case, laws created demand and chose the suppliers.
Gábor Scheiring22 calls this result the accumulative state, where the main goal is to build up capital for a politically loyal national bourgeoisie.
It is possible to measure the background, but I doubt the reliability of current tools. I see Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index as subjective, open to media and political influence since it measures perception only. Still, the 2025 CPI gave Hungary 40 points, putting it last in the European Union for the fourth year in a row (tied with Bulgaria) and 15 points lower than in 2012. This is the biggest drop among member states.23 Their summary:
“Systemic corruption, manifested in the organised theft of public funds, is the main reason behind the country’s now chronic economic decline.” — Transparency International CPI, 2025.
I would add that the real cause of long-term decline is not theft itself, but the rules that make theft a logical choice and determine who benefits in the future.
IV. Taking budgets: the subsidised producer
The fourth way is subtle and rarely talked about. Here, the recipient actually creates something, like a musical, a football academy, or a stadium. But the funding does not depend on the project's success. Without this link, it is hard to tell the difference between real production and simply taking resources, so the producer faces no real risk.
The scale of funding is large. Between 2011 and 2024, Hungary spent HUF 4,416 billion on sports. Of this, HUF 1,411 billion was given out through the TAO scheme, which let companies choose where their corporate tax went.24 The Hungarian Football Federation got the biggest share: HUF 600.2 billion between 2011 and 2025, with HUF 186.4 billion for youth development. By 2019, the Foundation for Youth Development in Felcsút had received over HUF 27 billion.25 Most of this money came from companies in the MOL group and businesses owned by Lőrinc Mészáros and his associates. For years, the names of the donors were not made public.
The Hungarian Olympic Committee ordered a review of twenty years of Hungarian sport, nearly three hundred pages long, as a self-audit. The study showed that in nine of sixteen key sports, performance worsened even as funding increased. For example, handball got about one hundred times more money but fell to just twenty-one percent of its performance before 2010. The full study has not been published; only the first few pages of the report are on the Committee’s website. Some journalists were able to share the findings with the public.26 The institution that benefited from the funding did the review, found the problem, and then kept the results hidden. If this is common, outside criticism loses its purpose.
The performing-arts funding model operated in parallel to sports until 2019, when it was replaced by HUF 37.4 billion in direct budget support.27 Allocation rules were unclear at the time. According to Magyar Narancs, concerns arose about increased political influence over theatres. These concerns were confirmed: theatres received more funding but became more politically dependent.28 This shift is significant. The system moved to a directly political model. Removing the previous funding diversion did not restore independence; it only made the connection more explicit.
When funding is not linked to results, even real production turns into a kind of rent. For example, no one checked the deliverables (like the musical) because no one needed to.
V. Taking positions: the credentialed rider
Let’s return to the two important numbers: more than ninety percent of Hungary’s elite have a degree, but the productivity is still thirty percent lower than the EU average.
Hajnalka Fényes’s analysis of the 2009–2010 survey finds that education is closely tied to social status. The elite matches what a modernizing country would aim for.29
This view is different from what the editor says in the preface of the same book:
“The hierarchy within the elite is clearly evident: higher status within the elite is associated with a larger network of connections, and this is not determined by performance, as one would expect in a legitimately functioning system of institutions and rules.”30 — Kovách, 2011: 11.
The same study offers two different conclusions in separate chapters. One shows that having a degree gets you in, but the other finds that, after entry, performance does not decide your rank. The research began in 2009, and the book came out in 2011, before the Orbán system was often blamed for these results.
Taken together, these results suggest that a diploma is more like a ticket to enter than proof of real ability. Hungary’s elite is not lacking in qualifications; instead, they are prepared for a competition that does not demand real merit.
For this reason, it is better not to use the word incompetent here, even in Küllői’s view. The facts do not support it, and using it weakens the case. More accurate terms are contra-selected, rent-dependent, and connection-selected. These are clearer and harder to dispute.
The two takings that matter more than money
The five ways mentioned earlier show how resources are taken in ways we can see. But two less obvious forms do even more lasting damage and set elites apart from simply wealthy people.
The first is entry. Elites set themselves apart by deciding who can join, which is their most important but least obvious power. A 2009 survey in Hungary showed that people from lower social classes have little chance of joining the elite. Most new members come from the middle and upper-middle classes.31 Kovách points out that this trend is getting worse:
“The elites respond to the challenges of the crisis era with closure.” — Kovách, 2011: 11.
The average age of elite members is going up, and fewer young people are joining. The cultural elite is the hardest group to enter, especially for young people or those from lower social classes. As the book’s sampling chapter explains, in Hungary today, most new elite members come from the middle and upper-middle classes.
One detail from the book stands out besides the numbers. In 2009, researchers had a much harder time getting elite members to take part. Many were uncooperative, and some even complained to the researchers’ bosses about the invitation and questions. This had not happened in earlier surveys. When elite members respond to a survey by contacting your supervisor, as they did in 2009, it shows how they feel about being held accountable.
The second is the standard. Elites decide what counts as good. Their role is to keep a standard that stands apart from power, so problems can be noticed. The same 2009 survey found that the Hungarian cultural elite are
“at the mercy of state funds and the decision-makers who allocate them.” — Kovách, 2011: 11.
A cultural elite in this situation cannot keep its own standard of quality. Instead, what is seen as good ends up being decided by whoever provides the money.
This is the real problem with the subsidy era in Hungarian culture, not just personal judgements about certain works. The main issue is not that poor-quality works were made, but that people lost the ability to notice and fix this.
These two factors together explain how elites keep their power. Without entry, no new people can join. Without a standard, no one can question who is already there. While money is what a taking elite gets, controlling entry and standards lets them keep getting it in the future.
The view that every nation gets the leaders it deserves is not accurate
A simple version of this argument says that if everyone is complicit, then no one is responsible. It is important to show why this idea is wrong.
From an organisational standpoint, Edgar Schein’s32 view is that culture is not an intangible presence within an institution. Instead, it is influenced by what leadership rewards, reflected in leaders’ priorities, status allocation, and crisis behavior. Therefore, elite and culture are distinct; one largely shapes the other. A leader who rewards loyalty over performance does not simply reflect a low-trust culture but strongly creates it.
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön33 build on this idea by making a distinction between what leaders say they value (espoused theories) and what they actually reward (theories-in-use).
In Hungary, unusually, both halves have been measured. On the espoused side, a 2008 survey coordinated by György Lengyel and Gabriella Ilonszki questioned eighty members of parliament and forty senior business leaders (heads of major companies, banks and employers’ associations).34 It found support for competition running through the whole elite. The same elite was more sceptical about the EU than its European counterparts, but on competition there was no ambiguity. On the theory-in-use side, the elite survey a year later found that within this same stratum, higher status went with a larger network of connections, not with better performance.35
Although these are two different studies with similar but not identical groups, the conclusion is clear: the elite claim to support competition, but they actually reward personal connections. This shows the gap Argyris and Schön describe, not just in one organization but across the country’s elite.
A third measurement concerns responsibility. Only 36 percent of political elite members identify themselves as such.36 An elite that does not recognize its own status will not accept the responsibilities that come with it.
Because of this, the actions of the wider society should be seen as a result of the system, not as shared guilt. TÁRKI’s 2009 report37 looked at the values in Hungarian society and found a lack of trust, a sense that rules do not matter, feelings of injustice, and paternalism. Here, paternalism means expecting the state to provide for people, instead of the market or individual effort. In this situation, building personal connections to those in power is not a character defect but a sensible strategy. Practices like hálapénz, getting around rules, and ügyeskedés, which are often seen as cleverness, are logical responses to a system set up by those who benefit from it.
Simon Gächter and Jonathan Schulz38 showed through experiments that people are less honest in societies where breaking rules is common. This means that institutions shape people’s character just as much as the other way around. Even though their study did not include Hungary, the point still applies: responsibility belongs to those who make the rules, not those who follow them.
The test that settles it: the border
Some readers might think this argument is just about Hungarians having certain traits. But for the past twenty years, the answer has been clear: it is often called “brain drain.”
Hungarian doctors, nurses, engineers, researchers, or other highly skilled professionals who move to cities like Munich, Vienna, Manchester, or Copenhagen settle in quickly. They follow the rules, avoid informal shortcuts, and earn promotions based on their work. Within a year, they modify their expectations to fit the new environment.
These people have the same background, education, cultural traditions, and even share the same jokes about their homeland. The real difference is in the incentives. Their behavior changes not because life abroad is perfect, but because moving to another country changes what is most rewarding.
The problem in Hungary is not with its people, but with the opportunities they have, which depend on those who set the incentives. This also helps explain why there is little pressure for reform. The people most keen for change are often the ones who can leave, and it is easier to emigrate than to push for big changes at home. As Hirschman pointed out, exit substitutes for voice,39 and every person who leaves makes change feel less urgent.
Three things I might be wrong about
Not alone in this situation.
Comparative data show that my argument cannot rest on Hungary having been worse than its neighbours. On the measures available, it wasn’t.
In the 1992–93 study, Hungary had the highest rate of elite circulation among the countries examined, and its elite selection was already more merit-based than in Poland or Russia before the transition began.40 Jacek Wasilewski found that the persistence of the nomenklatura was nearly identical in Hungary, Poland, and Russia, with about two-thirds keeping elite status once retirements are excluded.41 John Higley and György Lengyel described all three transitions as classic cases of elite circulation, peaceful and gradual, but large enough to filter out those unsuited to elite roles.42 The authors of the 1992–93 study added a caveat of their own: the 1993 data exaggerated circulation, since the initial forced turnover was followed by a partial return to earlier patterns.
The Czech voucher privatization, which Küllői suggests was a better option, did not lead to better outcomes. After vouchers were handed out, tunelování (tunnelling) started, which meant systematically stripping assets from investment funds and leaving minority shareholders out. Viktor Kožený, the best-known figure in that process, promised investors “ten times the value,” drew in many Czech households, and moved the assets elsewhere. A Czech financial analyst estimated in 2005 that around three-quarters of Czechs had come to regard the voucher scheme as a bad thing.43
My argument is about a reward rule, not about national inferiority. This is the evidence that forces me to be precise about that.
There were real changes too.
According to research by András Csite, Zsuzsa Himesi and Imre Kovách,44 found that by 2001 political capital had become less important as a route into the elite, while the founders of domestic private companies had emerged as the largest group within the economic elite. Their conclusion was that, by the turn of the millennium, post-socialism had ended in the Hungarian economy. If that is correct—and these are their data, not mine—then 2010 marked the return of politics, a genuine rupture. I am not saying nothing changed, but that the way people were chosen stayed the same, which made it easy for the old system to come back after 2010. The market period changed who benefited, but not what was valued.
Not a particularly deferential society.
We are not a particularly deferential society — even though I almost wrote this essay as if we were. Hungary’s Hofstede power-distance score is 46, moderate to low.45 Hogan Assessments’ 2025 benchmark of more than 350 Hungarian managers and executives puts them twelve percentile points below the global average on Dutiful: independent-minded, willing to challenge authority, and on that scale no risk at all. Recognition is their highest-scoring value, indicating a strong desire for visibility and acknowledgement. Altruism is the lowest.46 We do not defer much, and our leaders would rather be seen than hidden.
That is not a passive population under a strict hierarchy. Put plainly, the reality is harsher than the one I expected to find. Hungary is not a servile society, but rather an uncooperative one. People here show little deference or altruism, are highly competitive, and do not indulge much. Instead of being a nation of followers, Hungary is made up of assertive individuals with weak group norms, each thinking they are in a zero-sum game.
Küllői named the symptom but not the cause: “We have always played a zero-sum game.” Which means the elite is not a separate group above society but the winning end of a spectrum that runs through all of it. That is a less comfortable conclusion than the one I set out to write. But sharing a spectrum does not spread the responsibility evenly. Only one end writes the rules.
The first hundred days are not a verdict
In April 2026, Hungarian voters ended the sixteen-year Orbán government, even though media control was strong. This is one of most important political changes since 1989, and it deserves recognition. Still, it is not yet clear what the new government will represent after its first hundred days. So far, the early signs are few and not especially promising.
At this stage, all we can say today is that the tools of power were not taken away; they just have new owners. Control over public media, state advertising, university boards, and procurement decisions all remain in place. Only the people have changed or are changing. How these tools are used depends on the people in charge, but the continued existence shows the system has not changed. Yet.
I want to share just a few examples out of many, but I do so carefully, since one appointment or error does not define the whole system.
The first example: On 30 April 2026, just eighteen days after the election, the new prime minister chose his brother-in-law to be Minister of Justice.47 He defended this choice the next day, calling the family tie “a serious dilemma,” accepting the criticism, and pointing out the nominee’s long involvement in the movement. Péter Magyar also said his sister would step back from her role as a judge and promised the minister’s work would be fully transparent. This is a reasonable answer, but it brings up the main issue. The problem is not the appointment itself, but the reason given: “He was with us from the start” is the kind of explanation expected from someone who was supposed to end these practices, and it happened within the first two weeks.
There is a second example, and this is not meant as an accusation. On 13 May 2026, Hungary named a new Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy. Before joining the government, he spent thirty-seven years at Shell in many roles, most recently as Global Executive Vice President, overseeing 45,000 service stations in 85 countries.48 At first, this seemed like the kind of appointment Hungary had been waiting for: someone who succeeded abroad at a top company and then returned home. His public asset declaration shows he is the wealthiest member of the government, with about €8.7 million in shares in his portfolio.49 The declaration does not say how much of that is Shell stock. In July, the opposition party Fidesz called for him to sell his Shell shares, saying he was making almost one billion HUF from rising oil prices.50 But what matters more is what is left after setting aside the accusation.
For thirty-seven years, the minister worked at a company that would not have let him own shares in any business affected by his decisions at Shell. All big multinational companies have this rule, and employees sign yearly forms listing restricted stocks. Now, as a government minister, he decides national energy and fuel policy, owns an unknown amount of stock in a global energy company, and is not required to sell, use a blind trust, or reveal the details. is no evidence of improper conduct, nor is any alleged. The issue is structural: the Hungarian state applies a weaker conflict-of-interest standard to its energy minister than his former employer did. A compliance department in London would have resolved this quickly with a form. In Hungary, the rules do not require resolution, so the question remains open, and the outcome depends entirely on the officeholder’s integrity.
This is how a weak reward rule operates. It does not create corruption, but it fails to make integrity a structural requirement, leaving the public reliant on individual character.
The list
Essays like this often follow a pattern. They criticize the system, decide the system itself is the problem, and end up giving readers a reason not to do anything. This result is discouraging and actually benefits those being criticized.
But I want to make it clear: there is a solution.
The reward rule isn’t just a theory. It appears in procurement thresholds, single-bidder limits, state advertising rules, governance laws for public-interest foundations, tax-diversion plans, and public media appointment rules. A government with a strong mandate can change these documents, and this government has the biggest mandate in sixteen years.
This approach turns the general wish for better leadership into a clear, practical list. I will go over five key questions.
1. Does this government write rules that bind itself?
This question is the most important and shapes the rest. A regime that truly wants reform sets rules for itself. One that just wants power sets rules for others but not for itself. These intentions might sound the same in speeches, but you can tell the difference in the laws by seeing who the rules apply to and when they start.
For example, do the new conflict-of-interest and asset-disclosure rules apply to the current cabinet, including the Minister of Economy and Energy, this year, or only after the next election? Can institutions like the constitutional court, ombudsman, state audit office, prosecutors, and freedom-of-information law act on their own and hold the government to account? Would this government accept legal limits that future opponents could use against it? Does it share information beyond what the law requires? Do all government officials and party MPs answer media questions, no matter the outlet’s politics?
Even before any new laws, you can look at how the government talks about the past sixteen years. If it says “Orbán was corrupt,” it is getting ready to take over. If it says “this machine allocates rents, and we are dismantling it,” it is aiming for real reform. How a problem is described shows what kind of solution is planned. Since it costs nothing to diagnose a problem, these statements are usually honest.
The next four questions help you judge the answer.
2. Are the tools—like public-media governance, state advertising, university foundation boards, and procurement rules—actually dismantled, or are they just given new staff?
3.By 2027-2028, will the indicators of single-bidder deals and cronyism in procurement data decrease, or will only the winners' names change?
4. Does the ruling party build real internal democracy, with open candidate selection, different groups, and a congress that can say no, or does it stay as one person’s tool?
5. When the €17.9 billion in suspended EU funds is released, will the money move through reformed channels or the old ones?
My argument makes a clear prediction: leadership might change, but the system underneath will stay the same. This can be tested. If by 2028, the single-bidder rate and procurement risk numbers drop a lot, and public funds are less concentrated—not just with new names—then I was wrong. I would be glad to see that happen.
Final reflection
The elite deal offers bigger rewards for taking on more responsibility, all meant to serve the common good. For thirty-six years, Hungary has focused on the rewards and ignored the responsibilities. The main question is not whether today’s leaders are better than those before, even if many are. The real issue is whether anyone plans to change the values and incentives that form our country.
This question creates a record that, for once, can actually be checked.
Disagree? Good. I don’t write to be right—I write to be tested. Bring your “Tenth Man” view, your sharpest counterpoint, or even a quiet doubt. Sometimes the most useful critique is the one that unsettles my own thinking.
Don’t forget to subscribe for more Critical Hungary Insights!
Ilonszki, Gabriella (2009): Képviselők és képviselet Magyarországon a 19. és 20. században. Quoted by: Kristóf Luca (2011): Elitkutatások Magyarországon 1989–2010. In: Kovách Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum Kiadó, 231-252.
Gizińska, Ilona (2026): Stable stagnation: Hungary's economic standing after 16 years of Orbán's rule. OSW Commentary No. 719. Centre for Eastern Studies, 2026, March 20. Online: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2026-03-20/stable-stagnation-hungarys-economic-standing-after-16-years
Bodó, Zoltán (2025): A Leadership Culture That Holds Back. Diagnosing Hungarian Realities Through the Lens of Organizational Dysfunction. criticalhungary.hu, 2025, November 20. Online: https://www.criticalhungary.hu/p/a-leadership-culture-that-holds-back
Coopers & Lybrand was one of the "Big Six" international accounting and consulting firms; in 1998 it merged with Price Waterhouse to form PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Forbes Deal 2036 (2026): Küllői Péter: Nincs meg az a fajta bátorság, ami nemzetközi világra való nyitottságot jelenti. forbes.hu, 2026, June 6. Online: https://www.forbes.hu/podcast/forbes-deal2036-kulloi-peter-bator-tabor-filantropia/
Grant, Adam M. (2013): Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. New York: Viking.
Szelényi, Iván – Mihályi, Péter (2026): Az egyenlőtlenségek új formái. Magyarország az Orbán-korszakban, 2010–2025. Budapest: TÁRKI.
Mihályi, Péter – Szelényi, Iván (2019). Rent-seekers, profits, wages and inequality: The top 20%. Cham: Palgrave Pivot.
This deserves fuller treatment than a footnote. Foreign-owned multinationals already accounted for more than half of Hungarian GDP by 2019 (see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20190411-1), and they are productive by international standards, not merely by Hungarian ones. The shortfall is therefore domestic — and it is not that domestic owners are worse at their jobs. Tax, regulatory, playbook settings, and market specificity make productive operation at small scale close to impossible. That is a reward rule too. It rewards staying small, staying informal, or staying connected, over becoming productive. I set out the arithmetic in The Brake-Even Lie.
Kovách, Imre (szerk.) (2011): Elitek a válság korában. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum
NER — Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere, [System of National Cooperation], the name Viktor Orbán gave the post-2010 order in his May 2010 declaration to Parliament, now used mainly by critics as shorthand for that order and its patronage networks.
Girst, Noémi – Keil, András. (2011). Zavar a fejekben? – A magyarországi elitek és a politika 2009-ben. In Kovách Imre (ed.), Elitek a válság korában: Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA PTI–ENKI / Argumentum, 315–336.
Stark, David (1990). Privatization in Hungary: from Plan to Market or from Plan to Clan? East European Politics and Societies, 4(3), 351-392.
Szelényi, Szonja – Szelényi, Iván – Kovách, Imre (1995): The making of the Hungarian postcommunist elite: Circulation in politics, reproduction in the economy. Theory and Society, 24, 697–722. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993403
Kolosi, Tamás – Sági, Matild (1997): Nagyvállalkozók és társadalmi környezetük. Budapest: Tárki.
See www.inflationtool.com
Szalai, Erzsébet (1994): Útelágazás. Hatalom és értelmiség az államszocializmus után; Budapest-Szombathely: Pesti Szalon Könyvkiadó/ Savaria University Press
Szalai, Erzsébet (1998): Az elitek átváltozása. Budapest: Új Mandátum Kiadó.
GKI Gazdaságkutató Zrt. (2009): A korrupció és a közbeszerzési korrupció Magyarországon [Corruption and public procurement corruption in Hungary], vol. I. Papanek, Gábor (ed.). Budapest: GKI. Commissioned by the Public Procurement Council (Közbeszerzések Tanácsa). Pp. 1, 3; the detailed estimate of the price effect, 23–26%, at p. 20.
Ibid., section 3.3.1, "A 90%-nál alacsonyabb értéket alátámasztó érvek" [Arguments for a figure below 90%], pp. 224–225: "a korrupció valós hazai gyakoriságát a fenti 90%-os becslésnél mindenképp kisebbre kell tennünk" — the real domestic frequency of corruption must in any case be put lower than the 90% estimate above. Fazekas (2010: 4) passes these figures on as "corruption fees… 22-26% of the procurement contract value involving 70-90% of all public procurement procedures." Both differ from the source: the 22–26% is GKI's estimate of how much more procurement there would be if everything were properly tendered, not the corruption mark-up; and the report's own frequency estimate is 65–75%, the 90% figure being precisely the one it argues against.
Fazekas, Mihály (2010): A Diagnosis of Corruption in Hungary. ERCAS Working, Working Paper No. 7, 1-18.
Fazekas, Mihály – Tóth, István János – King, Lawrence Peter (2016): An Objective Corruption Risk Index Using Public Procurement Data. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 22(3), 369–397. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-016-9308-z
Hvg (2003): Tocsikolás. Hvg.hu, 2003, April 8. Online: https://hvg.hu/itthon/00000000004B659D
Scheiring, Gábor (2019): Egy demokrácia halála. Az autoriter kapitalizmus és a felhalmozó állam felemelkedése Magyarországon. Budapest: Napvilág Kiadó (Társadalomelméleti Műhely).
Transparency International (2025): Corruptions Perceptions Index 2025. trasparency.hu. Online: https://transparency.hu/hirek/cpi-2025-eredmenyek-jelentes/
Horn, Andrea (2026): Milyen sporteredményeket hozott az utánpótlásra öntött közpénzeső?hvg360, 2026. April 2. Online: https://hvg.hu/360/20260428_utanpotlas-sport-forrasok-latvany-csapatsportok-ner
Jávor, Bence (2019): 658 milliárd forint jutott taóból a látványsportok támogatására — Index, 2019. April 25. Online: https://index.hu/sport/2019/04/25/658_milliard_tao_tamogatas_felcsut_labdarugas_kezilabda_latvanysportag_kozpenz/
Ághassi, Attila (2023): A magyar sport két évtizede (2000–2020) a számok tükrében — MOB-tanulmány, Telex, 2023. February 11. Online: https://telex.hu/sport/2023/02/11/magyar-sport-adatok-2000-es-2020-elemzes
Magyar Narancs (2019): Jön a kézivezérlés a színházaknál? Magyar Narancs. 2019. January 29. Online: https://magyarnarancs.hu/szinhaz2/tao-szinhaz-finanszirozas-116869
Czenkli, Dorka (2019): Több pénzt kapnak a színházak, de ez együtt jár a politikai függőséggel. Magyar Narancs. 2019, April 26. Online: https://magyarnarancs.hu/szinhaz2/szinhazi-tao-helyett-119245
Fényes, Hajnalka (2011): A magyarországi elit kulturális és anyagi tőkéi és társadalmi mobilitása. In: Kovách Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum Kiadó, 177–206.
Kovách, Imre (2011): Előszó – Elitek a válság korában. In: Kovách, Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum Kiadó, 11.
Csurgó, Bernadett – Megyesi, Boldizsár (2011): Elit-meghatározások és elitcsoportok — A 2009-es magyarországi elitkutatás mintáiról. In: Kovách, Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum Kiadó, 173.
Schein, Edgar. H. – Schein, Peter A. (2016): Organizational Culture and Leadership. 5th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Argyris, Chris – Schön, Donald A. (1974): Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Szabó, Károly (2008): A gazdasági elit egyes csoportjainak EU-képe: Bankárok, menedzserek és a gazdasági érdekvédelmi szervezetek vezetői. In Lengyel, György (ed.) (2008): A magyar politikai és gazdasági elit EU-képe. Budapest: Corvinus Egyetem. 137–161. Online: https://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/1002/1/LengyelGy_EUkep_elit.pdf
Jáger, Krisztina (2008): Különbségek az Európai Unió megítélésében – attitűd vagy pozíció? A kormánypárti és ellenzéki képviselők nézetei. In Lengyel, György (ed.) (2008): A magyar politikai és gazdasági elit EU-képe. Budapest: Corvinus Egyetem. 120–136. Online: https://unipub.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/1002/1/LengyelGy_EUkep_elit.pdf
Kovách, Imre (2011): Előszó. In Kovách, Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA PTI – MTA ENKI – Argumentum Kiadó, 11.
Girst, Noémi – Keil, András. (2011). Zavar a fejekben? – A magyarországi elitek és a politika 2009-ben. In Kovách Imre (ed.), Elitek a válság korában: Magyarországi elitek, kisebbségi magyar elitek. Budapest: MTA PTI–ENKI / Argumentum, 315–336.
Tóth, István György (2009): Bizalomhiány, normazavarok, igazságtalanságérzet és paternalizmus a magyar társadalom értékszerkezetében. A gazdasági felemelkedés társadalmi-kulturális feltételei című kutatás zárójelentése. Budapest: TÁRKI. Online: https://www.tarki.hu/hu/research/gazdkult/gazdkult_elemzeszaro_toth.pdf
Gächter, Simon – Schulz, Jonathan. F. (2016): Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies. Nature, 531, 496–499.
Hirschman Albert O. (1995): Kivonulás, tiltakozás, hűség. Hogyan reagálnak vállalatok, szervezetek és államok hanyatlására az érintettek? Trans. Mezei, I. György. Osiris Kiadó, Budapest. 171.
See Kristóf Luca (2011): Elitkutatások Magyarországon 1989–2010. In: Kovách Imre (ed.): Elitek a válság korában. Budapest: MTA Politikatudományi Intézet – MTA Etnikai-nemzeti Kisebbségkutató Intézet – Argumentum Kiadó, 40, 41.
Wasilewski, Jacek (1998): Hungary, Poland and Russia: The Fate of Nomenklatura Elites. In: Dogan, Mattei – Higley, John (eds.): Elites, Crises and the Origins of Regimes. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 147–168. Quoted by: Luca, Kristóf.
Higley, John – Lengyel, György (eds.) (2000): Elites after State Socialism: Theories and Analysis. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. As summarised by Kristóf 2011: 40–41.
Willoughby, Ian (2005): Why do most Czechs regard early 90s voucher privatisation as unfair? Radio Prague International, 2005, June 1. Online: https://english.radio.cz/why-do-most-czechs-regard-early-90s-voucher-privatisation-unfair-8099520
Csite, András – Himesi, Zsuzsa – Kovách, Imre (2001): A gazdasági elit szociológiai összetételének és jellemzőinek empirikus vizsgálata. Budapest: MTA Politikai Tudományok Intézete – Rurális Európa Ház Kutatóközpont
Hofstede, Geert – Hofstede, Gert Jan – Minkov, Michael (2010): Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind — Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hogan Assessments (2025): Personality trends of emergent Hungarian leaders. Online: https://www.hoganassessments.com/news-events/updates/personality-trends-of-emergent-hungarian-leaders/
Tanács, Gábor (2026): Hungary’s Péter Magyar defends appointing brother-in-law as justice minister. Euronews, 2026. May 1. Online: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/05/01/hungarys-peter-magyar-defends-appointing-brother-in-law-as-countrys-justice-minister
Krász, Zsombor (2026): Kapitány István gazdasági és energetikai miniszter kinevezése. Telex.hu. 2026, April 20. Online: https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2026/04/20/kapitany-istvan-gazdasagi-es-energetikai-miniszter-kinevezes-tisza-kormany
Kontroll (2026): Hatmilliótól a hatmilliárdig — a magyar kormány első vagyonnyilatkozatai. Kontroll.hu, 2026. June 9. Online: https://kontroll.hu/cikk/belfold/2026/06/09/hatmilliotol-a-hatmilliardig-terjed-a-skala-itt-vannak-a-magyar-kormany-elso-vagyonnyilatkozatai
Contextus (2026): Kapitány István Shell-részvényei. Contextus.hu, 2026. July 20. Online: https://contextus.hu/kapitany-istvan-shell-reszvenyei-fidesz/