The communist taboo against unemployment: Ideology, soft-budget constraints, or the politics of de-stalinization?

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 597-635

  Baxandall, Phineas ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0034554873     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325400014003004     Document Type: Review

References (169)

1. The closed nature of the party-state makes it difficult to find concrete evidence of disputes over unemployment within the Communist party. Nor can we simply impute vested interests to important actors such as particular ministries, the party elite, workers, or enterprise managers. Instead of open partisanship, political shifts are evident in the evolution of the terms of forced consensus. Whatever "interests" might be imputed to particular orientations toward unemployment would nonetheless depend on the consequences and possibilities envisioned.
2. See for instance János Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Socialism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); J. L. Porket, Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Communist Economies (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
3. See for instance János Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Socialism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); J. L. Porket, Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Communist Economies (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
4. Typical of the "hidden" unemployment view, Porket asserts that, "unemployment assumes two forms, that of open unemployment and that of hidden unemployment" (J. L. Porket, Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Economist Economies [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995], xv). He extrapolates from the hypothetical situation of "pure command socialism" in which "labour is not free, a labour market does not exist, and open unemployment (whether frictional, voluntary, or involuntary) is absent (7). On hidden unemployment see also George R. Feiwel, "Causes and Consequences of Disguised Industrial Unemployment in a Socialist Economy" Soviet Studies 26:3 (1974): 344-62; Marek Góra and Michal Rutkowski, "The Demand for Labour and the Disguised Unemployment in Poland in the 1980s," Communist Economies 2:3 (1990): 325-334.
5. Typical of the "hidden" unemployment view, Porket asserts that, "unemployment assumes two forms, that of open unemployment and that of hidden unemployment" (J. L. Porket, Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Economist Economies [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995], xv). He extrapolates from the hypothetical situation of "pure command socialism" in which "labour is not free, a labour market does not exist, and open unemployment (whether frictional, voluntary, or involuntary) is absent (7). On hidden unemployment see also George R. Feiwel, "Causes and Consequences of Disguised Industrial Unemployment in a Socialist Economy" Soviet Studies 26:3 (1974): 344-62; Marek Góra and Michal Rutkowski, "The Demand for Labour and the Disguised Unemployment in Poland in the 1980s," Communist Economies 2:3 (1990): 325-334.
6. Typical of the "hidden" unemployment view, Porket asserts that, "unemployment assumes two forms, that of open unemployment and that of hidden unemployment" (J. L. Porket, Unemployment in Capitalist, Communist and Post-Economist Economies [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995], xv). He extrapolates from the hypothetical situation of "pure command socialism" in which "labour is not free, a labour market does not exist, and open unemployment (whether frictional, voluntary, or involuntary) is absent (7). On hidden unemployment see also George R. Feiwel, "Causes and Consequences of Disguised Industrial Unemployment in a Socialist Economy" Soviet Studies 26:3 (1974): 344-62; Marek Góra and Michal Rutkowski, "The Demand for Labour and the Disguised Unemployment in Poland in the 1980s," Communist Economies 2:3 (1990): 325-334.
7. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
8. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
9. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
10. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
11. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
12. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
13. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
14. See for example Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984); Anthony B. Atkinson, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Joseph S. Berliner, "The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics 66:3 (1952): 342-65; Péter Galasi and György Szirácaki, eds., Labour Market and Second Economy in Hungary (New York, and Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1985); Branco Milanovic, "Cash Social Transfers, Direct Taxes, and Income Distribution in Late Socialism," Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 175-97; Charles F. Sabel and David Stark, "Planning, Politics, and Shop-Floor Power: Hidden Forms of Bargaining in Soviet-Imposed State-Socialist Societies," Politics and Society 4 (1982): 439-75; Ivan Szelenyi, "Social Inequalities under State Socialist Redistributive Economies," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 19 (1978): 63-87; Jan Winiecki, "Large Industrial Enterprises in Soviet-type Economies: The Ruling Stratum's Main Rent-seeking Area," Communist Economies 1:4 (1991): 363-83.
15. See David Christian, "Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: the Soviet Counter-Example," in Jill Roe, ed., Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: The Soviet Counter-Example (Sydney, Australia: Hale and Iremonger, 1985), 85-104, 86-7. By the logic of such arbitrary counterfactuals the relatively large portion of German women who take advantage of government incentives to be housewives should be treated as "hidden employees." Or alternately, some portion of American women who are prompted by tax credits and workfare initiatives into employment should be treated as "hidden housewives." Continental European economies in particular "hide" unemployment through early retirement and disability programs. The United States disguises unemployment by making jobless benefits highly restrictive, and by removing large portions of the unemployment-prone population from the labor force through strict criminal sentencing and long prison sentences (See Rebecca Blank and David Card, "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is there an Explanation?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 106:4 [1991] 1157-90; and Richard Freeman, "The Limits of Flexible Labour Markets," Oxford Review of Economic Policy 11:1 [1995].
16. See David Christian, "Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: the Soviet Counter-Example," in Jill Roe, ed., Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: The Soviet Counter-Example (Sydney, Australia: Hale and Iremonger, 1985), 85-104, 86-7. By the logic of such arbitrary counterfactuals the relatively large portion of German women who take advantage of government incentives to be housewives should be treated as "hidden employees." Or alternately, some portion of American women who are prompted by tax credits and workfare initiatives into employment should be treated as "hidden housewives." Continental European economies in particular "hide" unemployment through early retirement and disability programs. The United States disguises unemployment by making jobless benefits highly restrictive, and by removing large portions of the unemployment-prone population from the labor force through strict criminal sentencing and long prison sentences (See Rebecca Blank and David Card, "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is there an Explanation?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 106:4 [1991] 1157-90; and Richard Freeman, "The Limits of Flexible Labour Markets," Oxford Review of Economic Policy 11:1 [1995].
17. See David Christian, "Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: the Soviet Counter-Example," in Jill Roe, ed., Labour in a Non-Capitalist Economy: The Soviet Counter-Example (Sydney, Australia: Hale and Iremonger, 1985), 85-104, 86-7. By the logic of such arbitrary counterfactuals the relatively large portion of German women who take advantage of government incentives to be housewives should be treated as "hidden employees." Or alternately, some portion of American women who are prompted by tax credits and workfare initiatives into employment should be treated as "hidden housewives." Continental European economies in particular "hide" unemployment through early retirement and disability programs. The United States disguises unemployment by making jobless benefits highly restrictive, and by removing large portions of the unemployment-prone population from the labor force through strict criminal sentencing and long prison sentences (See Rebecca Blank and David Card, "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is there an Explanation?" Quarterly Journal of Economics 106:4 [1991] 1157-90; and Richard Freeman, "The Limits of Flexible Labour Markets," Oxford Review of Economic Policy 11:1 [1995].
18. Low productivity, on-the-job "hidden unemployment" is ubiquitous in Third World market economies. Capitalist firms in industrialized countries are also well known to "hoard" significant numbers of workers in order to reduce future search costs, increase dynamic efficiency through slack, and hedge against uncertainty (See for instance, Ray C. Fair, "Excess Labor and the Business Cycle," The American Economic Review 75: 1 [1985]: 239-46; and Bruce C. Horning, "Labor Hoarding and the Business Cycle," International Economic Review 35:1 [1994]: 87-11).
19. Low productivity, on-the-job "hidden unemployment" is ubiquitous in Third World market economies. Capitalist firms in industrialized countries are also well known to "hoard" significant numbers of workers in order to reduce future search costs, increase dynamic efficiency through slack, and hedge against uncertainty (See for instance, Ray C. Fair, "Excess Labor and the Business Cycle," The American Economic Review 75: 1 [1985]: 239-46; and Bruce C. Horning, "Labor Hoarding and the Business Cycle," International Economic Review 35:1 [1994]: 87-11).
20. Soft budgets encourage enterprises to hiring additional labor without consideration of cost or anticipated demand for their outputs. Ministries and enterprises under conditions of endemic shortage face relentless incentives to expand production which in turn creates insatiable demand for hiring more workers. Enterprise managers have powerful incentives to hoard underutilized labor as slack against future production bottlenecks. In the context of shortage and insatiable demand, inefficient or outdated workplaces are not downsized because everything produced is sure to find a buyer. Kornai's analysis has helped illuminate many common characteristics among socialist economies. Soft budget constraints may explain, for instance, how high demand for labor fostered high rates of labor participation. (See János Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy Of Socialism [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992]).
21. János Kornai, Economics of Shortage, 261 italics in original. Kornai claims that once the Communist party gains undivided power, "this historical configuration bears the 'genetic program' that transmits the main characteristics of the system to every cell within it" (Socialist System, 36).
22. János Kornai, Economics of Shortage, 261 italics in original. Kornai claims that once the Communist party gains undivided power, "this historical configuration bears the 'genetic program' that transmits the main characteristics of the system to every cell within it" (Socialist System, 36).
23. There is scattered discussion within Kornai's work of how the limits of soft budgets varied in ways that are easy to ascribe to politics. He observes how, unlike the powerful ministries and state enterprises, households did not fall under the penumbra of the system's soft-budget constraints. For socialist households, "The constraint may be even harder in a socialist economy than in a capitalist one" (Kornai, Economics of Shortage, 444).
24. As David Lane argues, "It would not be impossible to reduce the level of labour utilization and increase unemployment in the USSR. But the economic processes leading to present overemployment are not countered by the government because political values stress the importance of work and occupation: loyalty and solidarity are politically dependent on full employment" (David Lane, Soviet Labour and the Ethic of Communism [Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987], 231).
25. According to Marx and the influential Polish theoretician Michal Kalecki unemployment was a functional tool of capitalists in the class struggle against the proletariat. Unemployment was viewed as a cudgel that capitalists wielded to moderate workers' claims for higher wages and greater control of production.
26. Grannick, for instance, posits that the ideological commitment to what he calls "overly full employment," was a basic premise and unshakable commitment around which planners oriented their management of the economy (See David Grannick, Job Rights in the Soviet Union: Their Consequences [Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987]).
27. The right and obligation to labor was explicit in the state-socialist constitutions. The Bolsheviks in the 1918 Constitutional Assembly declared that "in order to do away with the parasitic classes of society and to organize the economic life of the country, universal labour duty is introduced." The 1936 Soviet constitution similarly declared that "Work in the USSR is a duty, a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen -He who does not work shall not eat" (See Lane, Soviet Labour, 14).
28. György Borsányi, "The Great Depression and the Organized Working Class in Hungary (1929-33)," in E. and A. Zsilák Kabos, eds., The Great Depression and the Organized Working Class in Hungary (1929-33) (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977).
29. Borsányi, "The Great Depression," 154.
30. The Bethlen-Peyer Pact was signed on 22 December 1921.
31. Borsányi, "The Great Depression," 160.
32. Béla Esti, Ilona S. Balog and Tibor Szánto, A Magyar Munkásmozgalom Képeskönyve [Illustrated book of the Hungarian workers movement] (Budapest: Kossuth Könyvkiadó, 1984).
33. György Borsányi, "The Great Depression," 153-81, 162.
34. The main speaker, trade union leader Károly Peyer, a Social Democrat, claimed that at the beginning of the year there had been 150,000 industrial unemployed and twice that many unemployed in agriculture, a total that came to a million when the families were included (See Borsányi, "The Great Depression").
35. Employed union members would no longer have to go to the municipal relief kitchens but could receive their portion in a cash amount equivalent to about 12 kilos of bread per month.
36. Esti, Balog and Szánto, Magyar Munkásmozgalom, 199.
37. Esti, Balog and Szánto, Magyar Munkásmozgalom.
38. Borsányi, "The Great Depression," 153-81.
39. Zoltán Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása és a Munkanélküliség Felszámolasa Margyarországon (1945-49) (Budapest: Adadémiai Kiadó 1983).
40. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása., 157-58.
41. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása, 156.
42. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása, 156.
43. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása, 68.
44. Ákos Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise of the Small Transformation: The Demise of Communism and the Rise of the Private Sector in Hungary (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 53.
45. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása, 123.
46. Baksay, A Munkaerohelzet Alakulása, 117.
47. Zsuzsa Ferge, A Society in the Making (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1979), 62.
48. M. Kaser and E. Radice, The Economic History of Eastern Europe 1919-75 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). The economic chaos was also compounded by hyper-inflation in 1946 that effectively de-monetized the economy and left week-to-week industrial wages to be calculated in calorie equivalent (See Berend and Ránki, the Hungarian Economy, 189).
49. M. Kaser and E. Radice, The Economic History of Eastern Europe 1919-75 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). The economic chaos was also compounded by hyper-inflation in 1946 that effectively de-monetized the economy and left week-to-week industrial wages to be calculated in calorie equivalent (See Berend and Ránki, the Hungarian Economy, 189).
50. Magyar Közlöny, August 20, 1949. Hungarian Constitution - Statute 20 of year 1949, Section 9.
51. Kaser and Radice, Economic History, 626.
52. "Between 1948 and 1950, while national income increased about 20 per cent, capital accumulation achieved an increase of 54 per cent. In 1951 accumulation increased by 70 per cent. In general, between 1949 and 1953, the volume of accumulation developed more than twice as fast as the growth of national income. As a result, during the first 5-year-plan period instead of the pre-war 5-6 per cent level, capital accumulation achieved about 35 per cent [within] the national income. (See Berend and Ránki, The Hungarian Economy, 202).
53. Berend and Ránki, The Hungarian Economy, 195.
54. Berend and Ránki, The Hungarian Economy, 204.
55. Iván Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms 1953-1988 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
56. Berend and Ránki, The Hungarian Economy, 205.
57. "The common core of the socialist experience can be traced to Marxism-Leninism and its underlying vision of development as an unceasing march toward increasing concentration and a modern economy organized as a single factory" (See Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 15).
58. The peasant lived in the landlords huts and depended on their employer for all aspects of their lives. As under communism, peasant mobility was restricted, and they were required to carry a little book which they would turn over to new employers (Martha Lampland, The Object of Labor: Commodification in Socialist Hungary (Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
59. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1998).
60. William Juhász, ed., Hungarian Social Science Reader (1945-65) (New York: Aurora Editions, 1965), cited from Magyar Közlöny, 20 August 1949. Hungarian Constitution - Statute 20, 1949.
61. William Juhász, ed., Hungarian Social Science Reader (1945-65) (New York: Aurora Editions, 1965), cited from Magyar Közlöny, 20 August 1949. Hungarian Constitution -Statute 20, 1949.
62. Lenin and others embraced the American production philosophy of Taylorism as a way to use capitalist production techniques to prepare the state-led path to socialism. See Zenovia A. Sochor, "Soviet Taylorism Revisited," Soviet Studies 33:2 (1981): 246-64.
63. Karl Marx, "The Communist Manifesto," in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Communist Manifesto (New York: W. W. Norton, 1848 [1978]), 469-500.
64. Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982), 32.
65. For instance, the proclivity to see only large enterprises as economically relevant was reflected in the regular "manpower estimates" reported by firms. This survey, which was the chief mechanism for tabulating macro-data, excluded entities with fewer than 50 workers. Up through the 1980s labor statistics came only from these manpower estimates reported by firms. Although day laborers were not included, these statistics most likely over-estimated the number of employed persons because enterprise managers wanted to seem larger for power and status (Interview with János Timár, employed within Labor and Statistical Ministries from 1950s to 1980s, subsequently a government consultant and emeritus professor at the University of Economics, 28 May 1998).
66. Initially it was strictly prohibited to hire pensioners in Hungary, and exceptions could only be personally granted from the ministerial level and were only for "exceptional persons" such as the party leaders. As labor shortages grew there were more exceptions to the 1952 COMECON rule. First, deputy ministers could grant them; then the maximum earnings levels changed, with an employed person by the mid-1950s able to collect a pension up to five thousand forints without special permission. By the mid-1960s this grew to sixty thousand; and by the 1980s there was no limit (Timár interview).
67. Statisticians kept the old 1952 COMECON accounting system (even though they had effectively neutralized its premise by allowing pensioners to work) and counted the labor force in terms of active and inactive earners (Timár interview).
68. Gaspar Fajth, "Measuring Unemployment in Central and Eastern European Countries," in OECD, ed., Measuring Unemployment in Central and Eastern European Countries (Paris: OECD, Centre for Cooperation with the European Economies in Transition, 1993), 87-99.
69. Included were members of cooperative farms, the self-employed, apprentices, family workers and others having worked at least 90 days during the year (including the armed forces).
70. Alena Nesporová, "Measuring Employment in Central and Eastern Europe," 43.
71. Népszabadság, March 14, 1957. The official Central Statistical Office estimate appears in U.S. Bureau of the Census, "The Labor Force of Hungary," (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962).
72. Népszabadság, March 14, 1957. The official Central Statistical Office estimate appears in U.S. Bureau of the Census, "The Labor Force of Hungary," (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962).
73. Whereas in 1949 two-thirds of the working-age population was economically active, this portion had risen to three-quarters by 1960. From 1949 to 1961 the number of employed workers increased from 3.9 million to 4.6 million, with industrial and construction employment increasing from 750 thousand to 1.35 million. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, "The Labor Force of Hungary," 8, 31.
74. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 54.
75. The Bolsheviks, faced with a mostly peasant economy, had to implement wage labor and Taylorism (in Lenin's words) "to teach the people how to work." On the difference between agricultural and industrial norms of work see E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism," Past and Present 38 (1967): 56-97.
76. Magyar Nemzet, 2 September 1949; quoted in Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 56-7.
77. Magyar Nemzet, 2 September 1949; quoted in Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 56-7.
78. In neoclassical economics this relationship has been expressed in the theory of the Phillips Curve, the natural rate of unemployment, and the non-inflation accelerating rate of unemployment.
79. Enterprise managers were officially required to consult with the trade union committee and, if the worker had been employed for over a year or if it was their first job, then the decision had to be justified in terms of reorganization or staffing problems. Enterprises could not dismiss workers just called up for military service, those incapacitated for work, or pregnant or nursing mothers (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, March 1965, 2A). Workers whose employment was interrupted by forces of nature outside their control (such as flood or fire) would be paid 80 percent of their average wages. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, January 1966, 19). It was not until the mid-1960s that the Communist party explicitly resolved to extend the guarantee of employment to the Gypsy (Roma) minority. As late as 1965 it was considered "progress" and not inconsistent with having eradicated unemployment to note that almost half of gypsies had permanent jobs and 30 percent had seasonal employment for eight to ten months of the year. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, June 1965, 20).
80. Enterprise managers were officially required to consult with the trade union committee and, if the worker had been employed for over a year or if it was their first job, then the decision had to be justified in terms of reorganization or staffing problems. Enterprises could not dismiss workers just called up for military service, those incapacitated for work, or pregnant or nursing mothers (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, March 1965, 2A). Workers whose employment was interrupted by forces of nature outside their control (such as flood or fire) would be paid 80 percent of their average wages. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, January 1966, 19). It was not until the mid-1960s that the Communist party explicitly resolved to extend the guarantee of employment to the Gypsy (Roma) minority. As late as 1965 it was considered "progress" and not inconsistent with having eradicated unemployment to note that almost half of gypsies had permanent jobs and 30 percent had seasonal employment for eight to ten months of the year. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, June 1965, 20).
81. Enterprise managers were officially required to consult with the trade union committee and, if the worker had been employed for over a year or if it was their first job, then the decision had to be justified in terms of reorganization or staffing problems. Enterprises could not dismiss workers just called up for military service, those incapacitated for work, or pregnant or nursing mothers (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, March 1965, 2A). Workers whose employment was interrupted by forces of nature outside their control (such as flood or fire) would be paid 80 percent of their average wages. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, January 1966, 19). It was not until the mid-1960s that the Communist party explicitly resolved to extend the guarantee of employment to the Gypsy (Roma) minority. As late as 1965 it was considered "progress" and not inconsistent with having eradicated unemployment to note that almost half of gypsies had permanent jobs and 30 percent had seasonal employment for eight to ten months of the year. (See Free Hungarian Trade Unions, June 1965, 20).
82. Szakszervezeti Tanács, November 1949, 12.
83. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 52.
84. Vladimir Gsovski, Church and State Behind the Iron Curtain (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), 139-40.
85. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 57. "A person commits sabotage when he hinders or stops production . . . wastes material or manpower, or leaves capital unused." This is punishable by up to 5 years in prison or, in serious cases, death. (See Szabad Nép, 17 February 1950 as quoted in Juhász, Hungarian Social Science Reader, 141).
86. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 57. "A person commits sabotage when he hinders or stops production . . . wastes material or manpower, or leaves capital unused." This is punishable by up to 5 years in prison or, in serious cases, death. (See Szabad Nép, 17 February 1950 as quoted in Juhász, Hungarian Social Science Reader, 141).
87. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 57. "A person commits sabotage when he hinders or stops production . . . wastes material or manpower, or leaves capital unused." This is punishable by up to 5 years in prison or, in serious cases, death. (See Szabad Nép, 17 February 1950 as quoted in Juhász, Hungarian Social Science Reader, 141).
88. In 1952, seven thousand cases of "refusing to continue employment" came to trial. Many more cases were brought on charges of embezzlement, "crime against the plan," "endangering the public by shirking" (See Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 59). Few people were actually jailed, but fines and corrective labor were used.
89. In 1951 Hungary had a currency reform that increased the prices of consumer goods by 50-100 percent while lifting wages a mere 20 percent. Real wages fell 19 percent from 1950 to 1952.
90. Zsuzsa Ferge in Bob Deacon, The New Eastern Europe: Social Policy Past, Present and Future (London: Sage, 1991), 162.
91. Szakszervezeti Tanács, September-October 1950, 18.
92. Free Hungarian Trade Union News, June 1961, 5-6.
93. Jan Adam, Employment and Wage Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Since 1950 (London: Macmillan, 1984), 97.
94. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 43.
95. Elemér Hankiss, East European Alternatives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 29.
96. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 45.
97. Iván Petö and Sándor Szakács, A Hazai Gazdaság Négy Évtizedének Története, 1945-1985 (Budapest: Közgazdasági, 1985), 144-45, 713) as cited in Hankiss, East European Alternatives, 28.
98. Iván Petö and Sándor Szakács, A Hazai Gazdaság Négy Évtizedének Története, 1945-1985 (Budapest: Közgazdasági, 1985), 144-45, 713) as cited in Hankiss, East European Alternatives, 28.
99. Decree of the Eighth Congress of the MSZMP, November 1962, cited in Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 64.
100. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 64.
101. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 52.
102. As one testimonial chimed in a communist women's' publication, "The State gives a happy home and bountiful care to my child - I must prove with my work that I am worthy of this solicitude" (MNDSz, Mindent a családért! [Everything for the family]) [BP, 1953] quoted in Joanna Goven, The Gendered Foundations of Hungarian Socialism: State, Society, and the Anti-Politics of Anti-Feminism [Ph.D. dis. University of California, Berkeley, (1993), 40-41]).
103. Hungarian Statistical Office (KSH) annual report. These numbers are for women aged 15-64.
104. Barnabás and András Klinger Barta, Károly Miltényi and György Vukovich, "Hungary," in Valentina Bodrova and Richard Anker, ed., Hungary (Geneva: ILO, 1985), 24.
105. Berend and Ránki, The Hungarian Economy, 207.
106. "The Work Code concerns itself with the fact that the working people shall receive in their places of work, one meal - if necessary, three - a day at reduced prices" (Szakszervezeti Tanács, January-February 1951, 7).
107. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, July-August 1958, 26. Wage supplement value is derived by taking the official calculation of 39.5 percent and subtracting the value of paid vacations and lunch breaks, calculated at 12.8 percent of wages.
108. This position was eloquently defended during the conservative backlash to reform in the mid-1970s by a union periodical which mused, "We consider it more important, for example, to develop social benefits than wages. It is more important for us to provide rapid and comfortable public transport than to increase the number of private cars. . . . We consider it more desirable for an enterprise to build a holiday home where all of its workers can spend their holidays, than to increase wages so that a few workers can build their own holiday homes" (Free Hungarian Trade Unions, April 1975, 17).
109. This was an important legacy of the communist era that is reflected in the unusually low portion of wage income in the GDP of postcommunist countries as well (See Imre Kovács, "Did We Indeed Consume Too Much?" Acta Oeconomica 46:1-2 (1994) 143-62).
110. Népszabadság, 14 March 1957 as reported in Adam, Employment and Wage, 120.
111. Népszabadság, 14 March 1957 as reported in Adam, Employment and Wage, 120.
112. Hungarian Trade Union News, March 1957, 8.
113. In 1941 the ratio had been one-to-nine but swelled to one-to-four by 1957 (See Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms, 11).
114. Hungarian Trade Union News, March 1957, 23.
115. Baksay, A Munkaeröhelzet Alakulása.
116. Iván Berend, Capital Intensity and Development Policy (Budapest: Adadémiai Kiadó, 1985).
117. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 61.
118. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, April 1957, 25. According to Ekiert the government supported these benefits as a way to support the pro-government trade unions in their struggle against the upstart workers councils which had effectively replaced the unions as political representatives of the workers during 1956 (See Grzegorz Ekiert, The State Against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe [Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1996], 92).
119. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, April 1957, 25. According to Ekiert the government supported these benefits as a way to support the pro-government trade unions in their struggle against the upstart workers councils which had effectively replaced the unions as political representatives of the workers during 1956 (See Grzegorz Ekiert, The State Against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe [Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1996], 92).
120. Zsuzsa Ferge, A Society in the Making (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1979). See also BBC, Internal affairs, Budapest home office, 18 February 1984.
121. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, July-Aug 1958, 26.
122. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, April 1957.
123. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, April 1957.
124. Reported in Free Hungarian Trade Unions March, April 1958, 12.
125. On the ongoing difficulties finding employment for girls, see Károly Fazekas and János Kõllõ, Munkaerõpiac Tõkepiac Nékül [Labor market without capital market] (Budapest: Közgazdági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1990), 95.
126. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 91.
127. János Kádár had been a semi-skilled industrial worker, not a professional revolutionary during the Depression before he entered prison. In a key move to garner legitimacy after 1956, Kádár brought on board György Marosán who had been a central figure in the left wing of the Social Democrats. After having been imprisoned since 1950, his release after Khrushchev's famous speech at the Soviet Union's Twentieth Party Congress was a signal of political changes away from hard-line Stalinism. He represented a break from the past and a symbol of working class unity. Marosán had been very active in merging the Social Democrats with the Communists in 1948. He was also a semi-skilled worker who had been a trade union activist with the bakers. Similar experiences can be drawn from the biographies of other important post-1956 party figures. Jeno Fock who became prime minister from 1967 to 1975, had also been a trade unionist and held double membership in the Social Democrats. In the post-1956 Politburo, key figures such as Antal Apro, Gyula Kállai, and Sándor Gáspár had all been among the organized working class during the 1930s. Kállai, who was briefly prime minister during the mid-1960s, had worked with the Popular Front and Gáspár had been a general secretary of the trade unions. Rezso Nyers, who was finance minister from 1958 to 1962 and became secretary of the Central Committee in 1962 was a Social Democrat in the 1940s and a member of parliament during the post-war coalition government of the Communists and Social Democrats.
128. Ivan Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms, 31.
129. Hungarian Trade Union News, January 1958, 6. In a speech in January 1957, Sándor Gáspár, secretary of Hungarian Trade Unions explained clearly, "The fundamental error of our economic policy of recent years has been our failure to consider the improvement of the working people's living and working conditions as the starting-point when drawing up our plans, instead, this main objective was subordinated to the development of the productive forces of national economy, and especially, to an extravagant industrialization program. As a result, the working class was made to shoulder a greater burden than was necessary, and the improvement of its living conditions did not keep pace with the rise in the national income" (March 1957, 2).
130. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise.
131. Adam, Employment and Wage, 234.
132. There is an extensive literature on legitimacy and social contracts in Soviet-style regimes. For a review of the literature on the communist social contract, see Linda J. Cook, The Soviet Social Contract and Why it Failed: Welfare Policy and Workers' Politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). The notion of a social contract has its limits as an explanatory metaphor. State-socialist regimes were not governed by the principles of rule by law or democratic consent. Moreover, the notion of "contract" typically evokes a formal agreement, whereas under communism legitimacy was secured by informal social norms (although social contracts are purely historical fictions even in cases where there is a strong rule of law and democratic governance). The relationship is one of contingent consent on the part of society and conceded conventions on the part of the regime. This relationship is also well-described in terms of "moral economy." See Jeffrey Kopstein, "Chipping away at the state: Workers' resistance and the demise of East Germany." World Politics 48:3 (1996): 391-423.
133. There is an extensive literature on legitimacy and social contracts in Soviet-style regimes. For a review of the literature on the communist social contract, see Linda J. Cook, The Soviet Social Contract and Why it Failed: Welfare Policy and Workers' Politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). The notion of a social contract has its limits as an explanatory metaphor. State-socialist regimes were not governed by the principles of rule by law or democratic consent. Moreover, the notion of "contract" typically evokes a formal agreement, whereas under communism legitimacy was secured by informal social norms (although social contracts are purely historical fictions even in cases where there is a strong rule of law and democratic governance). The relationship is one of contingent consent on the part of society and conceded conventions on the part of the regime. This relationship is also well-described in terms of "moral economy." See Jeffrey Kopstein, "Chipping away at the state: Workers' resistance and the demise of East Germany." World Politics 48:3 (1996): 391-423.
134. Dismissals tended to be of the less "core" communist workers. The heightened salience of this employment covenant with miners and heavy industrial workers is consistent with the fact that it was among these workers that there was the greatest armed resistance in 1956 (See Bill Lomax, Magyarország 1956 [Budapest: Aura Kiadó, 1989], 149).
135. Magyar Nemzet, December 10, 1961; quoted in Juhász, Hungarian Social Science Reader, 275-79, italics added.
136. Magyar Nemzet, December 10, 1961; quoted in Juhász, Hungarian Social Science Reader, 275-79, italics added.
137. L. Gyurkó, "Introductory Biography," in János Kádár, Selected Speeches and interviews (Budapest: Akadémai Kiadó, 1985), 121.
138. Free Hungarian Trade Unions, March-April, 1960, 11-12.
139. This might occur because of demographic shifts or because the rise in employment might be overcompensated by new entrants into the labor force. Because labor markets are segmented by skill, gender, and geography, labor shortages for some kinds of workers can occur simultaneously with unemployment for others.
140. Bill Lomax, "Hungary - The Quest for Legitimacy," in Paul G. Lewis, ed., Eastern Europe: Political Crisis and Legitimation (New York, St. Martin's Press 1984)
141. Ibid., New York: 87.
142. Gyurkó, "Introductory Biography," 119.
143. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 4.
144. The excellent account of this political logic by Róna-Tas does not, however, draw implications about what changes in the politically determined prototype of employment meant for the politics of unemployment.
145. The Soviet Union instituted the practice of a work book for all employees.
146. Róna-Tas, The Great Surprise, 84.
147. Distinct but similar processes of de-Stalinization took place throughout Eastern Europe, and in each the employment relationship was critical to the social contract. Other have pointed this out, but without extending the argument to examine how the post-Stalinist meaning of unemployment differed from the Stalinist era. In addition to Róna-Tas's account of Hungary, Heynes has made a similar case about the role of state employment in enforcing political stability in Poland; "Except for independent farmers, which was something of a Polish anomaly, belonging to the labor force was the very meaning of citizenship under socialism, as both a responsibility and a source of rewards." See Barbara Heynes, "Meaning and Measurement in the Postcommunist Labor Market: Employment and Unemployment in Poland, 1992-1996," Social Research [1997]: 2. See also Piirainen, who argues that "It was first and foremost through the workplace and the 'work collective' that the Soviet state exerted control on its subordinates. Employment . . . [was] the main locus of social integration in the Soviet Union, and the terms of the tacit social contract were realized through the institution of employment. The other contract party, the working people, was obliged to submit itself to the control and discipline required by the social order and to abstain from open dissent" (Timo Piirainen, Towards a New Social Order in Russia: New Transforming Structures and Everyday Life [Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1997], 89-90).
148. Distinct but similar processes of de-Stalinization took place throughout Eastern Europe, and in each the employment relationship was critical to the social contract. Other have pointed this out, but without extending the argument to examine how the post-Stalinist meaning of unemployment differed from the Stalinist era. In addition to Róna-Tas's account of Hungary, Heynes has made a similar case about the role of state employment in enforcing political stability in Poland; "Except for independent farmers, which was something of a Polish anomaly, belonging to the labor force was the very meaning of citizenship under socialism, as both a responsibility and a source of rewards." See Barbara Heynes, "Meaning and Measurement in the Postcommunist Labor Market: Employment and Unemployment in Poland, 1992-1996," Social Research [1997]: 2. See also Piirainen, who argues that "It was first and foremost through the workplace and the 'work collective' that the Soviet state exerted control on its subordinates. Employment . . . [was] the main locus of social integration in the Soviet Union, and the terms of the tacit social contract were realized through the institution of employment. The other contract party, the working people, was obliged to submit itself to the control and discipline required by the social order and to abstain from open dissent" (Timo Piirainen, Towards a New Social Order in Russia: New Transforming Structures and Everyday Life [Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1997], 89-90).
149. On how particular policy approaches shape the kinds of political judgments and attribution of blame in that policy area, see Bo Rothstein, Just Institutions Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge, U.K. University Press, 1998).
150. On the ways that the political salience of unemployment depends upon certain kinds of employment, see John A. Garraty, Unemployment in History: Economic Thought And Public Policy (New York: Harper and Row, 1979); Michael J. Piore, "Historical Perspectives and the Interpretation of Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature 25:4 (1987): 1834-50; William Walters, "The Demise of Unemployment," Politics and Society 24:3 (1996): 197-219.
151. On the ways that the political salience of unemployment depends upon certain kinds of employment, see John A. Garraty, Unemployment in History: Economic Thought And Public Policy (New York: Harper and Row, 1979); Michael J. Piore, "Historical Perspectives and the Interpretation of Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature 25:4 (1987): 1834-50; William Walters, "The Demise of Unemployment," Politics and Society 24:3 (1996): 197-219.
152. On the ways that the political salience of unemployment depends upon certain kinds of employment, see John A. Garraty, Unemployment in History: Economic Thought And Public Policy (New York: Harper and Row, 1979); Michael J. Piore, "Historical Perspectives and the Interpretation of Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature 25:4 (1987): 1834-50; William Walters, "The Demise of Unemployment," Politics and Society 24:3 (1996): 197-219.
153. Yugoslavia is an even more dramatic example of socialist unemployment, having the highest unemployment rate in Europe for much of the 1980s. The breaking of taboos against unemployment in Yugoslavia was eased by the political rupture with the Soviet Union and encouraged by a system of worker managed profit-sharing that made employees reluctant to hire new workers because their own shares would be diminished (See Susan L. Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 [Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1995]; and John P. Bonin, Derek C. Jones, and Louis Putterman, "Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Producer Cooperatives: Will Ever the Twain Meet?" Journal of Economic Literature 31:3 [1993]: 1290-1320).
154. Yugoslavia is an even more dramatic example of socialist unemployment, having the highest unemployment rate in Europe for much of the 1980s. The breaking of taboos against unemployment in Yugoslavia was eased by the political rupture with the Soviet Union and encouraged by a system of worker managed profit-sharing that made employees reluctant to hire new workers because their own shares would be diminished (See Susan L. Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 [Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1995]; and John P. Bonin, Derek C. Jones, and Louis Putterman, "Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Producer Cooperatives: Will Ever the Twain Meet?" Journal of Economic Literature 31:3 [1993]: 1290-1320).
155. Sarah Ashwin, "Endless Patience: Explaining Soviet and Post-Soviet Social Stability," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31:2 (1998): 187-98.
156. Anticipating the major issues of postcommunist political cleavage, Evans and Whitfield predicted "Formative issues are likely to be - to name but a few - the experience of unemployment. (Geoffrey Evans and Stephan Whitfield, "Identifying the Bases of Party Competition in Eastern Europe," British Journal of Political Science 23 [1993]: 521-48, 532). Similarly, Przeworski proclaimed about Poland that "Fear of unemployment overwhelms the effects of all other economic variables combined, and it makes people turn against the reform program . . . [W]ithout a net of social protection and without income insurance, loss of employment means loss of livelihood. This is a cost no one can tolerate even in the short run" (Adam Przeworski, "Economic Reforms, Public Opinion, and Political Institutions: Poland in the Eastern European Perspective," in José María Maravall, Luiz Carlos Pereira, and Adam Przeworski, ed., Economic Reforms, Public Opinion, and Political Institution: Poland in the Eastern European Perspective [Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 165, 206).
157. Anticipating the major issues of postcommunist political cleavage, Evans and Whitfield predicted "Formative issues are likely to be - to name but a few - the experience of unemployment. (Geoffrey Evans and Stephan Whitfield, "Identifying the Bases of Party Competition in Eastern Europe," British Journal of Political Science 23 [1993]: 521-48, 532). Similarly, Przeworski proclaimed about Poland that "Fear of unemployment overwhelms the effects of all other economic variables combined, and it makes people turn against the reform program . . . [W]ithout a net of social protection and without income insurance, loss of employment means loss of livelihood. This is a cost no one can tolerate even in the short run" (Adam Przeworski, "Economic Reforms, Public Opinion, and Political Institutions: Poland in the Eastern European Perspective," in José María Maravall, Luiz Carlos Pereira, and Adam Przeworski, ed., Economic Reforms, Public Opinion, and Political Institution: Poland in the Eastern European Perspective [Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 165, 206).
158. David Bartlett, The Political Economy of Dual Transformations: Market Reform and Democratization in Hungary (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 229.
159. On party platform positions, see Mária Frey, "The Role of the State in Employment Policy and Labour Market Programmes: The Hungarian Case in International Comparison," working paper (Budapest: ILO / Japan Project on Employment Policies YEAR). On public opinion, note that as late as the end of 1993, 84 percent of Hungarians agreed that the state should be mainly responsible for employment. Almost half (47 percent) of Hungarians held that "unemployment is unacceptable" and only 8 percent agreed that "unemployment is necessary" (William L. Miller, Stephen White, and Paul M. Heywood, Values and Political Change in Post-Communist Europe [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998], 114, 117).
160. On party platform positions, see Mária Frey, "The Role of the State in Employment Policy and Labour Market Programmes: The Hungarian Case in International Comparison," working paper (Budapest: ILO / Japan Project on Employment Policies YEAR). On public opinion, note that as late as the end of 1993, 84 percent of Hungarians agreed that the state should be mainly responsible for employment. Almost half (47 percent) of Hungarians held that "unemployment is unacceptable" and only 8 percent agreed that "unemployment is necessary" (William L. Miller, Stephen White, and Paul M. Heywood, Values and Political Change in Post-Communist Europe [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998], 114, 117).
161. Frey, "The Role of the State," 16.
162. Five major dailies were coded. The three latest years contained no protest events that cited involvement by the unemployed, despite the fact that these were the years of highest unemployment. Protest by the unemployed per se may be a highly imperfect measure because the largest political costs of unemployment on government support result from employed workers' fears of unemployment (Gilles Saint-Paul, "Exploring the political economy of labour market institutions," Economic Policy 23 [1996]: 263-306).
163. "In the late seventies," Seleny reports, "the State Wage and Labor Office (ABMH) began to emphasize that employment was not properly only the business of the state-firm and state-cooperative sectors, but of 'the entire economy' - which was already understood as including the small formal private sector in existence before 1982 -and that it was the job of the government to create the conditions which would allow the economy as a whole to supply employment opportunities" (Anna Seleny, "Constructing the Discourse of Transformation: Hungary 1979-82," East European Politics and Societies 8:3 [1994]: 439-66). By the beginning of the eighties the understanding has changed to, "all those employed in 'socially useful' activities, including [those] in the second economy, in households, etc." (446).
164. See "Munkanélküliség és kisvállálkozás" [Unemployment and small business] in Népszabadság, 22 September 1988. This approach was evident in the large amounts of money that were first spent giving unemployed workers start-up loans for their own businesses.
165. Magda Kosa Kovács, minister of labor. Interviewed Budapest, 22 January 1997. Employment in Ózd resembled the old communist prototype and carried with it the earlier expectations and state commitments. The plant closures in Ózd therefore left workers more starkly without other opportunities, and made the town a poor place for entrepreneurship. Unlike other places the workers in Ózd protested repeatedly and even staged highly visual demonstrations in the capital, Budapest (On the particular situation in Ózd see Gábor Bajka, Imre Kormos, and János Kutas, "Ózd és környéke forglalkoztatási gondjainkak enyhítési lehetoségi [Ózd and its environs' possibilities for alleviating employment struggles]," Munkaügyi Szemle 40:11 [1996]: 29-34; Figyelö, Mar. 23; Imre Kormos and Ference Munkácsy, Foglalkotatáspolitika válságos helyzetben (Ózdi tanulságok) [Employment politics in critical areas (lessons from Ózd)] (Budapest: Közgazdásagi és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1989); György Szirácki, "Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd,"'in C.M. Hann, ed., Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd [London: Frank Cass, 1990], 125-39).
166. Magda Kosa Kovács, minister of labor. Interviewed Budapest, 22 January 1997. Employment in Ózd resembled the old communist prototype and carried with it the earlier expectations and state commitments. The plant closures in Ózd therefore left workers more starkly without other opportunities, and made the town a poor place for entrepreneurship. Unlike other places the workers in Ózd protested repeatedly and even staged highly visual demonstrations in the capital, Budapest (On the particular situation in Ózd see Gábor Bajka, Imre Kormos, and János Kutas, "Ózd és környéke forglalkoztatási gondjainkak enyhítési lehetoségi [Ózd and its environs' possibilities for alleviating employment struggles]," Munkaügyi Szemle 40:11 [1996]: 29-34; Figyelö, Mar. 23; Imre Kormos and Ference Munkácsy, Foglalkotatáspolitika válságos helyzetben (Ózdi tanulságok) [Employment politics in critical areas (lessons from Ózd)] (Budapest: Közgazdásagi és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1989); György Szirácki, "Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd,"'in C.M. Hann, ed., Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd [London: Frank Cass, 1990], 125-39).
167. Magda Kosa Kovács, minister of labor. Interviewed Budapest, 22 January 1997. Employment in Ózd resembled the old communist prototype and carried with it the earlier expectations and state commitments. The plant closures in Ózd therefore left workers more starkly without other opportunities, and made the town a poor place for entrepreneurship. Unlike other places the workers in Ózd protested repeatedly and even staged highly visual demonstrations in the capital, Budapest (On the particular situation in Ózd see Gábor Bajka, Imre Kormos, and János Kutas, "Ózd és környéke forglalkoztatási gondjainkak enyhítési lehetoségi [Ózd and its environs' possibilities for alleviating employment struggles]," Munkaügyi Szemle 40:11 [1996]: 29-34; Figyelö, Mar. 23; Imre Kormos and Ference Munkácsy, Foglalkotatáspolitika válságos helyzetben (Ózdi tanulságok) [Employment politics in critical areas (lessons from Ózd)] (Budapest: Közgazdásagi és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1989); György Szirácki, "Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd,"'in C.M. Hann, ed., Redundancy and Regional Unemployment: A Case Study in Ózd [London: Frank Cass, 1990], 125-39).
168. During the 1980s amidst a stagnant economy, the political imperative for rising living standards was largely met by increasing the opportunities for earnings outside of standard state employment: overtime, second jobs, and informal economic activity. Hungarians who had a primary job as well as those who were officially out of the labor force tended to moonlight at secondary jobs, grow and often sell vegetables from small plot farming, and trade unpaid labor between colleagues and neighbors. When a 1992 poll asked, "Do you get enough money from your regular job to buy what you really need?" only a quarter of Hungarians said they received even barely enough, compared to almost three times that amount in neighboring Austria. Only 22 percent of Hungarians relied solely on activities officially recognized as employment (See Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer, "Adapting to Transformation in Eastern Europe," University of Strathclide, Glasgow, Studies in Public Policy 212 [1993]).
169. Keszthelyiné's statistical analysis of household panel data (cited in Sík below) finds in the early 1990s no significant differences in the level of consumption of Hungarian households with unemployed members compared to those without. Sík similarly finds that once the statistical incidence of poverty is controlled for age, gypsy origin, education, and rural location, the independent effect of unemployment as a predictor of poverty becomes quite weak. Comparing similar data in Poland and former East Germany, he concludes that "Although the factors that cause poverty in Central Europe and Hungary are more or less the same, the role of unemployment in Hungary seems to be less significant than in other post-socialist countries of the region" (Endre Sík, "The Social Consequences of Unemployment in Hungary - A Household Perspective," Innovation 9:3 [1996]: 355-69, 367).