Hungarian PM, Viktor Orban: World-regime changes in 20th century and 21st century so far
A few days ago I read an intriguing article in The Hindu, The battle of the regimes, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-battle-of-the-regimes/article6285330.ece. While the article touches various points what I would like to focus on is the reference to world regime changes in the article. Here's a small relevant extract from the article:
On July 26, for example, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary gave a morbidly fascinating speech in which he argued that liberal capitalism’s day is done. The 2008 financial crisis revealed that decentralised liberal democracy leads to inequality, oligarchy, corruption and moral decline. When individuals are given maximum freedom, the strong end up stepping on the weak.
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I could not recall hearing about Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary earlier (this reflects my limited reading rather than the Hungarian PM's fame). I did some browsing and got a youtube video of this speech with subtitles in English (you have to click on captions), Viktor Orbán’s Speech, Tusnádfürdo, 26 July 2014, German English Subtitles, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHxg3Aoir6w, 35 min. 23 secs. I found the parts of his speech related to world regime change to be very interesting. I later found a translated to English text transcript of the speech here: http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/. I have copy-pasted the relevant extract below:
The starting point when we think of the future, because – if I get it right – our task every year is to try to somehow understand mutually what is happening around us, to grab its essential movements, and maybe see what is going to happen to us in the future. So if this is our task, I would suggest to shortly remind ourselves that in the 20th Century there have been three major world-regime changes. At the end of World War I, at the end of World War II, and in 1990. The common points in these were – I might have mentioned this here once – that when the changes manifested it was clear for all of us that we are going to live in a different world overnight. Let’s say it was very clear here after Trianon, just as it was in Budapest after World War II as well. If the people looked around and saw the invading Soviet troops they knew that a new world was about to begin. In ’90 when we succeeded in breaking and displacing the communists, it was clear after the first parliamentary elections that a new world had arrived for us: the wall in Berlin collapsed, elections were held and this is another future.
The statement intended to be the basic point of my talk here is that the changes in the world nowadays have the similar value and weight. We can identify its manifestation – that point when it became clear – as the financial crisis of 2008 or rather the Western financial crisis. And the importance of this change is less obvious because people sense it in a different way as the previous three. It was unclear in 2008 during the huge Western financial collapse that we are going to live in a different world from now on. The shift is not that sharp as in the case of the three previous world regime changes and it somehow slowly resolved in our minds, as the fog sets on the land. If we look around and analyze the things happening around us, for six years this has been a different world from the one we lived in. And if we project the processes for the future – which always has a risk – it is a reasonable intellectual exercise, and we see well that the changes will only have a bigger impact.
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Ravi: I think his above analysis seems to be a good one, though some of the comments he makes later on in the speech may be debatable. In short, the world regime change events of the 20th century:
*) World War I
*) World War II
*) Dissolution of the Soviet Union (around 1990), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
The world regime change event of the 21st century:
*) Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%9308
Yes, they are saying that the 2007-08 global financial crisis was as big an event in terms of the impact on global power equations as the dissolution of the Soviet Union. G-7 and G-8 became far less relevant and G-20 was the new power grouping to reckon with, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-20_major_economies. And I think the guys who are saying the above have got it right!
On July 26, for example, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary gave a morbidly fascinating speech in which he argued that liberal capitalism’s day is done. The 2008 financial crisis revealed that decentralised liberal democracy leads to inequality, oligarchy, corruption and moral decline. When individuals are given maximum freedom, the strong end up stepping on the weak.
--- end extract ---
I could not recall hearing about Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary earlier (this reflects my limited reading rather than the Hungarian PM's fame). I did some browsing and got a youtube video of this speech with subtitles in English (you have to click on captions), Viktor Orbán’s Speech, Tusnádfürdo, 26 July 2014, German English Subtitles, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHxg3Aoir6w, 35 min. 23 secs. I found the parts of his speech related to world regime change to be very interesting. I later found a translated to English text transcript of the speech here: http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/. I have copy-pasted the relevant extract below:
The starting point when we think of the future, because – if I get it right – our task every year is to try to somehow understand mutually what is happening around us, to grab its essential movements, and maybe see what is going to happen to us in the future. So if this is our task, I would suggest to shortly remind ourselves that in the 20th Century there have been three major world-regime changes. At the end of World War I, at the end of World War II, and in 1990. The common points in these were – I might have mentioned this here once – that when the changes manifested it was clear for all of us that we are going to live in a different world overnight. Let’s say it was very clear here after Trianon, just as it was in Budapest after World War II as well. If the people looked around and saw the invading Soviet troops they knew that a new world was about to begin. In ’90 when we succeeded in breaking and displacing the communists, it was clear after the first parliamentary elections that a new world had arrived for us: the wall in Berlin collapsed, elections were held and this is another future.
The statement intended to be the basic point of my talk here is that the changes in the world nowadays have the similar value and weight. We can identify its manifestation – that point when it became clear – as the financial crisis of 2008 or rather the Western financial crisis. And the importance of this change is less obvious because people sense it in a different way as the previous three. It was unclear in 2008 during the huge Western financial collapse that we are going to live in a different world from now on. The shift is not that sharp as in the case of the three previous world regime changes and it somehow slowly resolved in our minds, as the fog sets on the land. If we look around and analyze the things happening around us, for six years this has been a different world from the one we lived in. And if we project the processes for the future – which always has a risk – it is a reasonable intellectual exercise, and we see well that the changes will only have a bigger impact.
--- end extract ---
Ravi: I think his above analysis seems to be a good one, though some of the comments he makes later on in the speech may be debatable. In short, the world regime change events of the 20th century:
*) World War I
*) World War II
*) Dissolution of the Soviet Union (around 1990), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
The world regime change event of the 21st century:
*) Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%9308
Yes, they are saying that the 2007-08 global financial crisis was as big an event in terms of the impact on global power equations as the dissolution of the Soviet Union. G-7 and G-8 became far less relevant and G-20 was the new power grouping to reckon with, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-20_major_economies. And I think the guys who are saying the above have got it right!
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