IDEAS Insights Hungary's Social Enterprise Landscape | Page 5

Losing the Great War in 1918 entailed the loss of a significant portion of the nation’s
economic resources, and the pro-Nazi interwar government’s efforts at reform did not
survive long, due to the next all-encompassing war that occupied the continent again.
Following the Communist takeover after the Second World War, the impoverished
country’s new omnipotent state gradually hijacked and absorbed all cooperatives and
forced economic actors to join them (mainly all rural smallholders). The Hangya network
became obsolete in 1947.
Fig. 3: A Hungarian bus stop in 1952, at the height of Stalinism
Socio-economic tensions
started easing from the
’60s, but only the 1989
transition to democracy
welcomed a new epoch in
Hungarian
history.
Entering the European
Union
in
2004
entrenched
liberal
democratic norms and
market mechanisms, by
bringing the nation under
the aegis of European
integration. To this day,
Hungary remains a prime
recipient of structural
funds, and enjoys the
benefits of the EU-wide
free flow of knowledge
and capital that support
its
social
economy.
Nonetheless, social and
environmental objectives
remain marginal on the
state’s
agenda,
with
different
private
associations filling the
vacuum. Moreover, the
legacy of the public
sector’s long dominance
under
socialism
still
permeates
Hungary’s
economic culture. [4]
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