Sticky Floor, Sticky Ceiling

Ákos Huszár on the Closure of Hungarian Class Society – A Review

Abstract

This review discusses Ákos Huszár’s book Az osztály hosszú árnyéka. A mai magyar társadalom osztályszerkezete [The Long Shadow of Class: The Class Structure of Contemporary Hungarian Society]. The book’s main contribution lies in its systematic and empirically grounded rehabilitation of class analysis within Hungarian sociology. The review argues that Huszár does not treat class as an all-encompassing explanatory concept, but rather as a structuring factor of life chances, mobility opportunities, status boundaries and political preferences. One of the book’s major strengths is that it interprets the post-socialist history of Hungarian society not merely as a sequence of political or institutional changes, but as a reconfiguration of social spaces. At the same time, the review points to some limits of the book’s operational strategy. Occupational class schemes are useful, measurable and suitable for comparison, yet they cannot fully capture differences in market position (including inequalities in access to state resources), organisational context, and social embeddedness. Overall, the book represents an important step towards renewing class analysis in Hungary and makes visible the key mechanisms through which Hungarian society has become increasingly closed.