Treadmills
Sometimes, when I’m back in Budapest, I go to visit some old friends of mine. The tram takes me through Újpest, the northernmost suburb of the city. It’s a very representative slice of Budapest — quite a few big panel tower blocks, some older housing estates, a mix of young and old.
The tram trundles slowly along past this mix of urban and suburban. By the side of the road you can see the modern, but tatty, mix of mobile phone shops, bakeries, tanning salons, an increasing number of Chinese “general” stores. Quite conspicuous, though, is a gym, with two floors of cardio machines. All very open, transparent in fact. After work, it’s full of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings. At 5 in the evening, 6 in the evening, 7 in the evening. Even 10 in the evening. Row upon row of young-ish people, jogging away.
Of course, physical exercise is good in itself. But an underestimated part of exercise is that it keeps one mentally sharp. And the more intensive the exercise, the greater the bonus. It’ll help you remember things at work. Names, processes, methods. Stay sharp.
The gym is so notable because it is so brightly lit and everyone there is so harshly exposed. I see it is an expression of what we might have called “ambition” in previous times, but now, maybe, we would simply describe as “self-preservation”. And in terms of connections with wider society, this could be depicted as “survival” in what is an intensifying, jarringly competitive labour market — in the context of the hugely expensive living costs which now, more than ever, define the social realities of life in Hungary.
This treadmill is not only about being able to work in a job, as we used to joke, meeting the demands of capital. One would need to exceed them. Sometimes this might be expressed by having two, or three jobs. Sometimes this might just mean complete, 24-hour devotion to one’s employer.
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Next week there’s a general election in Hungary. If polls are to believed, a change of government is possible, maybe even likely. It seems as if this time, the opposition could win. In 2026, the opposition consists of conservative exiles from the outer sphere of Fidesz’ “NER” system of regime patronage, together with some others drawn from their previous roles in multinational corporations.
Post-communist Hungary has seen four changes of government. Each time this has, to a certain extent, felt like a change of regime. There have been systems of patronage before NER, which have been built, at least partially, on exclusion of those “unassociated” with the ruling party. None of these have been as exclusionary, or aggressive, as NER. As economic circumstances have worsened since the pandemic and Russia’s attempted invasion of Ukraine, this harsh system of patronage, which stinks not only of financial corruption, but also a cornucopia of other scandals, has for many people become increasingly hard to swallow.
This system permeates every part of the economy. If you go online, at some point you’ll hit a NER router. If you go to eat in a McDonalds, the franchisee is part of NER. If you’re visiting Hungary as a tourist, and stay in a hotel, it’s probably owned by someone within NER. Following demonstrations and consternation from liberal-controlled local government, Airbnb has now been largely excommunicated from serious competition.
If the opposition wins on April 12th, would this system of patronage adapt or unravel, especially given so much of these elements are, notionally, now in private ownership? Some of this will, no doubt, depend upon the nature of the victory. But I would suggest much of the eventual outcome depends on a macro-narrative, a narrative of the self which has quietly defined post-communist Hungary.
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When I worked on a film project back in 2018, one of the interviewees, a professor of Political Science at Central European University, surprised me by asking a blunt question: in relation to the transition from “state-owned” to “private” assets, how would one do this fairly? Would such a process ever be fair? Could it do anything other than seed the potential for conflict and resentment?
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We can ignore the changes of regimes, the constant, and intensifying noise of everyday politics in Hungary — which one might argue, if it were less aggressive and defamatory — might be indicative of a robust democracy. To reduce these to their essence, these have been disputes over access to the assets of the country: power stations, the huge farms of the 2020s, the radio stations that everyone listens to, the sports newspapers that everyone reads — and yes, who owns the popular fast food restaurant franchises. But especially, all-importantly, land.
Step back, for a second, from who is exactly owning and running these elements, this core infrastructure, and think of the intensity that has been unleashed here. Is this really still capitalism? And if so, what kind of capitalism?
Look at the socio-geographical development of Hungary since 1990. Surely, if your “grand design” were to re-establish a steeply hierarchical class system, you would not have done anything differently. Waves of privatisation, austerity, the degradation of the public sphere. But also, importantly, moving to complete what was already a bias towards land ownership, and making that the base position of constant pressure upon the non-propertied working classes and lower-middle classes.
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The combined impacts of Hungary’s economic malaise — not all of which is as a result of the actions of the Orbán government — combined with the oligarchical nature of NER, has intensified a class system that was already showing clear signs of brutality by 2010.
It is a mutation of the original attempts, by the Socialists as well as the first Orbán government, in the late 1990s, to create a solid Hungarian middle class. Attempts which stumbled and ultimately failed in the recession and financial crisis of the late 2000s.
In the 2010s, the ways of avoiding the implications of this — poverty-level incomes, a chronic lack of prospects and a deterioration in public services and social security — were all focused around the self. One could become self-employed via the KATA status with its low tax rate. Of course, this favoured the (almost entirely) male army of trade. The property boom, combined with the low income tax of KATA made it a great time to be a plumber, electrician or plasterer. Graduates, perhaps, made it into one of the “customer service centers” and multinational regional headquarters that Hungary, for a time, was able to attract.
This worked, partly. It helped if you believed there was no such thing as society. That if you fell over in the street, maybe your private health insurance would secure you a special, fast ambulance, to a well-equipped and staffed, but not too crowded hospital. And perhaps most critically, that you believed your minimal tax contributions might not affect your chances of being supported with a livable pension, and maybe even other forms of social assistance.
I talk about these questions with friends and acquaintances in Hungary, and sometimes I think I come across as a crank, as an idealist dreamer. But, for me, there is nothing more fantastical than the assumptions — the paleo-Thatcherite assumptions — that underpin the scenario above.
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The treadmills become a good metaphor, if perhaps a bit obvious. Escaping from the vampyric clutches of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, no matter what we think of the opposition figures, requires bravery and persistence. Unravelling the NER system of patronage, all of the contracts and documents which lead into the ether, scattered into offshore accounts and property - that represents another huge effort.
In the meantime, for the working classes, energy crises and stagflation ripples from the USA to the core EU and the semi-periphery, creating more hurdles, a continued, draining slog to simply break even. And that is before we consider what happens to people when they are ill or old.
I’ll be happy if the opposition wins. But then all I see, stretching into the distance, are the delayed and belated consequences of a mangled transition, entombed by the structural changes driven by Orbán. The current, more general crises of the capitalist system are being amplified and distorted into an unrelentingly harsh social stratification.
Sociology used to be quite popular in Hungary — perhaps less so now. But it turns out that you don’t have to believe Murray’s theory of the underclass to design a society which has so many of his assertions at the core. Winners in society represent a high-IQ elite and they deserve their victory, just as the losers deserve their defeat. As the global far-right say, look at Hungary.
In 2026, so many decisions have already been made. Everything is brightly lit. There’s no easy way out. That’s the thing with treadmills.
