Last year, I wrote “good riddance” columns for Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau.

Today, let’s bid a not-so-fond farewell to Viktor Orbán, the long-serving (2010-2026) but just-rejected Prime Minister of Hungary.

My main gripe with Orbán is that he moved his country in the wrong direction. Economic Freedom declined during his time in office.

Indeed, I wrote last year that Hungary had the lowest living standards among all members of the European Union.

And the country’s backward status is not just because it was repressed for decades by Soviet socialism. Other nations in Eastern Europe also suffered under communism, yet they’ve grown faster and have become richer by becoming market-oriented at a faster rate.

To be fair, Orbán was not a leftist. But he also was not a libertarian/classical liberal.

Let’s take a look at his track record, and we’ll start with a look at his campaign message. Does this sounds more like Ronald Reagan or more like Bernie Sanders?

John Fund of National Review summarized what went wrong in Hungary.

Here are some excerpts.

Hungary’s economy…has been stagnant since the 2022 election. The Orbán-friendly Heritage Foundation reports that the average growth rate over the last three years has been 0.1 percent. Since late 2019, inflation has gone up more than 57 percent, more than double U.S. inflation. All three major bond rating agencies — Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch Ratings — project a negative outlook for the Hungarian economy. …Orbán…told advisers: “I don’t like economists, because they always tell me what I shouldn’t do. I was elected to do things.” What Orbán increasingly settled on was a series of jury-rigged policies that would have probably won approval from Franklin Roosevelt, who most economists now say prolonged the Great Depression with his endless tinkering and interference in the economy. …by 2014, Orbán had nationalized those private pensions, effectively depriving almost 3 million Hungarians of their personal savings without compensation. The move mirrored a similar asset grab made by Peronist leader Cristina Kirchner in Argentina six years earlier. …The government took control of between 300 and 400 companies in areas ranging from energy to broadcasting to garbage collection, and even restaurants. …There was an 11 percent increase in the minimum wage, an extra annual month of pension benefits, expanded tax exemptions for mothers, increases in teacher salaries, and price caps on a range of products. Gasoline prices were capped along with those of basic food items.

John listed lots of sins. The worst is how he destroyed the system of personal retirement accounts by stealing the funds.

On the other hand, Orbán resisted European centralization, which is to his credit.

So a mix of good and bad, as captured by this tweet from Dominic Pino.

A mix of good and bad, but more of the latter, which is why I’m happy he is gone. Especially since the winning party is largely conservative (whether my kind of conservatism remains to be seen).

In a column for the Washington Post, Johan Norberg indicted Orbán’s economic policies.

Here are some key passages.

…he has spoken proudly of his ambition to build an “illiberal state,” pointing to countries such as Russia and China as models for the future. …The free-market economy…turned into a system of political favoritism. Through expropriation and selective taxes and regulations, independent businesses were pushed out. Private pension savings were seized, and foreign landowners lost key property rights. The government, meanwhile, steered public procurement, contracts and credit to a group of aligned oligarchs. …Despite receiving more E.U. funds per capita than almost any other country, Hungary’s economic growth rate has been slightly below several regional peers.

Let’s also look a couple of Johan’s recent tweets.

We discussed above how Hungary has not done as well as other post-communist nations in Eastern Europe.

Here’s a visual depiction showing the country’s under-performance under Orbán.

Also, I wrote above about economic freedom declining in Hungary.

Overall human freedom has declined even more.

I’ll close with two brief diversions from economics.

• First, a point about foreign policy. I don’t know enough to have firm views on the degree to which other nations should intervene to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion. But I do know that every decent and moral person should be cheering for Ukraine to prevail in the fight. Orbán was not.
• Second, a point about politics. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were very strong supporters of Orbán and tried to interfere on his behalf. Given the magnitude of the anti-Orbán landslide, it’s safe to say that international right-wing big-government populism is no more popular than the U.S. version.

What Hungary needs (and what America and other nations need) is not right-wing populism or left-wing populism. Instead, what’s needed is libertarian populism.

In other words, be in the right part of this circle.