ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that privatization in Hungary to a great extent continues or reproduces the previous social and cultural patterns of communist and precommunist Hungary. It reviews the historical antecedents of ownership in contemporary Hungary, followed by a relatively detailed presentation of the legal structure of privatization. The chapter offers a sociolegal analysis of the emerging legal system. It indicates that incomplete privatization is both a source and symptom of the emerging legal system. Prewar traditions of ownership and market economy set the stage for the postcommunist privatization. From a strictly legal point of view, the communist reforms transformed many state-owned enterprises into limited liability companies. Hungarian judicial attitudes are ill suited to a market economy, rooted as they are in the socialist tradition of the primacy of public interest. Unfortunately, the government often invokes direct control of the agency to satisfy the considerations of partisan politics.
