Ferenc Gyurcsány is also dealing with the problems of poverty and exploitation. He has a diagnosis, but there is some doubt over the effectiveness of the prescription. The traditional left-wing cures were rarely effective, as can be seen from the experiments of the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and attempts made in America. Over the past 40 years, America has spent some $9 trillion on the fight against poverty. And what did it get in return for this vast sum? Poverty did not decline. And the struggle against poverty is a losing battle in Europe, too. Look at social programmes in Germany, France or Italy, think of those 20m unemployed, growth rates barely above 0%, falling productivity, the failure of the Lisbon Agenda.

Hungary's Prime Minister sees all this. He understands the modern economy, the importance of money, competition and productivity. But as a left-wing politician, he also believes in solidarity. He knows that orthodox left-wing answers belong to the past. The future has to bring something new, in which solidarity and the promise of security commingles with capitalism and free competition. This is what Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder all believed in, and the Hungarian PM is thinking along similar lines. Many belief in the correctness of the Third Way. But despite all this, I continue to look to the market economy for the answers.

Look at all the Third Way experiments of the past 10 years. It's clear that it is extremely successful as an electoral ideology. But it's also clear that it does nothing to get rid of poverty and other social problems. It's far harder to harmonise left-wing and liberal political thought than the 'Third Way-ers' hoped. And even the PM's book has failed in this same attempt.

On the Way, Gyurcsány's book, is more left-wing than it would like to appear. One question is a recurring motif throughout the book: What is poverty? What is its cause? What should we do about it? And I believe these are typically bad questions, of the type that don't take us any further on.

You can ask completely different questions. The correct question, in the spirit of Adam Smith, is the following: What causes wealth? What makes a nation rich? This is a much more inspiring question, one that every statesman should pose. Any businessman, any man on the street asks himself this question all the time: How can I do well? And a liberal thinker asks the same questin: How can we be richer?

I believe that promoting solidarity and reducing poverty is the most important social task. But however noble the goal, it can only be achieved by raising productivity. How else can we earn the money to achieve our goals? We have to talk in terms of economic possibilities, not about poverty in isolation.