RE: Please send this guy free subs

["Michael Lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

In Message Thu, 06 Jan 1994 16:11:46 -0500 (EST),
  MMEEROPO%WNEC.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

>A bit of background.  While at the CSE conference this summer, I happened to
>meet Laszlo Andor.  He's a Hungarian Marxist, just finishing his Ph D at U. of
>Manchester who is involved in Hungary with a group of Marxist Political
>Economists at the Budapest University.  He and his group are in a relatively
>safe position because:  (get this)  When the end of communism came to Hungary
>and the old successful economists and other academics who had occupied the
>senior positions LEFT the university to pursue lucrative careers in the
>private sector [note all the evidence that in Poland (the most advanced on the
>path to capitalism of all the ex-communist nations) the nomenklatura are very
>prominent among the new capitalists!], the younger generation became SUDDENLY
>the senior academics.  These folks, at least some of them, have imbibed the
>theory of socialism and were young enough not to have gotten cynical.  They
>now can see the damage that capitalism is doing and want to be part of a new
>vibrant intellectual dissenting tradition.
>

Mike,
  The story I've heard about Budapest University is *quite* different---if
Budapest University is the former Karl Marx University of Economics. My
source is Peter Bihari, who previously taught there and whose job
disappeared along with that of most of the Marxists and party-linked
people. The process began *before* the new regime (as much else did
--see Peter's article in the 1991 Socialist Register); eg., Samuelson
became the intro text a number of years back. (Ultimately, jobs disappeared
through restructuring departments.) He ended up trying to piece together
a number of part-time jobs (eg., writing for a business paper, doing
editorial work with the x-party theoretical journal), while folks in
Canada (where he had taught as a visitor in several places) tried to
find him a permanent job (to no avail). Compared to former colleagues,
Peter landed on his feet when he got a job heading up the research
department at one of the (as yet unprivatised) banks and was able to
pull together a research staff he was happy with. Nevertheless, his
first choice, I'm sure, would be to be teaching at the university (which
appears to be closed to him).
   The two stories may be compatible. The very people who ousted faculty
they considered party hacks, communists,etc may have then gone on to
become part of the new government's cronies in Hungary's version of
crony-capitalism (the government's attempt to create its own instant
capitalist supporters) and this process may have provided space for
a younger group of less-market-enchanted economists to advance within
the universities; however, the latter group was presumably hired by
the departees and I'm not aware that any of Peter's generation (he's
in his early 40s) were invited back.
    in solidarity,
      mike
Mike Lebowitz, Economics Dept.,Simon Fraser University
              Burnaby,B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
    Office: (604) 291-3508 or 291-4669
    Home: (604) 255-0382
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