Let's carry on learning from each other

Abstract

I wish to express my gratitude to István Csillag and Péter Mihályi for their quick reply to my review about their book as well as their positive tone. I also wish to thank that the Public Finance Quarterly wastes no time in publishing the authors' reply and my response to them. This quickness is rather rare, albeit very useful, in the Hungarian professional press, because it is essential to help the debate move forward quickly, particularly, in such a topical issue. As an introductory note, I also wish to add that even in the review I totally agreed with the authors' first underlying principle that this country is managing its economy to the detriment of the generations to come and is consuming the future, and this is intolerable. At the same time, I considered the second basic principle unfounded or, in fact, a hasty judgement that the cause of our troubles is the excessive size of general government and the solution is to reduce redistribution and to radically cut back the welfare state. This fundamental agreement and this fundamental disagreement continue to exist, but the debate has contributed to clarify the points of agreement and disagreement. That is why it appears the most appropriate approach for me to provide an overview in this reply of the points in which we agree and in which we disagree. It would be hardly possible to aspire for more within this framework, but if the debate produces such an overview it will be a significant achievement.