A magyar gazdasági elit cirkulációja a kilencvenes években: lassulás és bezáródás
The Circulation Of The Hungarian Economic Elite In The 90s: Slowing Down And Closure

Summary/Abstract: The replacement of the Hungarian economic elite began before the systemic change. By economic elite it is meant those who can effectively influence the reproductive processes of the national economy with their decisions and are incumbents of relevant institutional positions. Top leaders of great enterprises, banks, economic ministries, as well as members of the economic committees of the Parliament belong here. The empirical surveys about the economic elite are from 1990, 1993 and 1998, which are compared with cadre statistics from the 1980s. The fluctuation of the Hungarian economic elite considerably grew in the latter half of the 1980s. In early 1990, before the elections, the rate of economic leaders promoted to their posts within a year’s time was nearly two-fifths. In the first half of the eighties the rate of such leaders sank below one quarter. Fluctuation was especially large in the ministries and banks. The new elite had novel features as regards its social profile. It was a younger and more closed social formation of higher social prestige than its predecessor. Yet it also had features reminiscent of the preceding elite. It still predominantly consisted of male diploma holders and former party members, although most of them had already quitted the party. Inquiring into where the post of an elite member was previously, one finds that over three-quarters had worked with the same institution or company earlier, too. This is in harmony with the preponderance of the continuous administrative career pattern. In the early phases of the careers, however, inter- and intrasegmental mobility was considerable. To a far greater degree than the average population, the new economic elite was ready to positively evaluate market experience, growing income differences and the meritocratic elements in the selection of leaders. As for the pace and depth of the replacement of the elite, compared to the marked changes in the late 1980s, signs of deceleration and closing down were discerned in the latter half of the nineties.

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