Capitalism 1-A to Join Marx U’s ’90 Curriculum : Chamber of Commerce to Back Budapest Course

That bastion of capitalism, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will sponsor a course in free enterprise at Karl Marx University in Budapest next year, chamber officials announced.

“It can only make you raise your eyebrows--the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Marx University,” commented Rozanne L. Ridgway, former assistant secretary of state for European affairs and president of the Atlantic Council.

The course is one of three new programs the chamber’s Center for International Private Enterprise is starting in Hungary and Poland to foster the virtues of the free-market economy in the two East Bloc nations that have deviated most from Communist economic orthodoxy.

$150,000 in Grants

These programs, the first the center is running in Eastern Europe, will be paid for with $150,000 in grants.

The center represents business interests in the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives money from the federal government. Its aim is to strengthen the private enterprise system abroad.

“Until now, we have not supported projects in Eastern Europe because of the lack of viable private sector-business organizations that could carry them out,” said William T. Archey, international vice president of the chamber.

“But the changing economic climate in the Communist world has allowed us to take another look at the situation.

“The collapse of Marxism as an ideology and the bankruptcy of Soviet-type economies have opened the way for a flowering of organizations devoted to building free-enterprise systems in their nations, with Poland and Hungary leading the way,” he said.

The course at Karl Marx University, where President Bush spoke during his visit to Budapest in July, is designed to revitalize entrepreneurial spirit in Hungary after 40 years of communism. The money, about $30,000, is going to the Assns. for Hungarian Entrepreneurs.

Free-Enterprise Education

In addition, that group will get another $60,000 grant from the center to help educate its country about the free-enterprise system.

In true capitalistic fashion, the business group will use public-service messages on state-controlled radio and TV.