Jenő Fock

Jenő Fock (Hungarian:

Career

Fock joined the

After the founding of the

On 14 April 1967, he became the successor of Gyula Kállai as prime minister. During his tenure, he unsuccessfully tried to introduce some market economy elements.

Formerly the Central Committee of the MSZMP announced János Kádár’s plans for the reform of the economy, known as the New Economic Mechanism (NEM).^[1] The reform is considered as "the most radical postwar change" of any Comecon country.^[2] The plan, which became official on 1 January 1968, was a major shift to decentralization in an attempt to overcome the inefficiencies of central planning. The NEM represented a move away from the Joseph Stalin economic system of compulsory plan indicators in favor of a policy that states profits as the enterprises main goal. The new economic policy was a "comprehensive reform of the economic system", creating market relationships among companies, using prices as allocative functions and companies responding to prices to maximize profits, and using profits to budget new investments.^[1]

These attempts failed, because of the resistance from the Comecom states and the Soviet Union. As a result, Fock finally withdrew in favor of György Lázár on 15 May 1975.

Between 1945–1947, 1958–1967 and 1971–1985 he was a deputy in the

Publications

• A szocializmus építésének gazdaságpolitikája. Kossuth, Budapest, 1973.

Death

Fock died in Budapest on 22 May 2001, five days after his 85th birthday.^[3]

References

Sources

• Akadémiai kislexikon I. (A–K). ed. Mihály Beck, Vilmos Peschka. Budapest. Akadémiai Kiadó. 1989.