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Third Way, No Way?

English Pages, 26. 1. 2000

Several weeks after the fall of communism, exactly ten years ago, when I was here, at the World Economic Forum, for the first time, I made my well-known and often quoted statement that “The Third Way is the fastest way to the Third World”. It summarized the unhappy experience of people like me, accumulated during our life under the communist regime. It seemed to me then that the third-way thinking was – together with communism – so discredited that no one would ever dare to defend it or to come with it again.

I was wrong. The collapse of communism created very strange vacuum which was rapidly filled with one, always available ideology. With ideology of those who did not like liberalism (in the European sense), who did not believe in freedom and free markets, who believed more in themselves and in their own privileged role and position in society, who considered themselves enlightened, “anointed” (as the word is used by Thomas Sowell in his well-known book), progressive and, above all, better than the rest of us. It was probably clever of them at that time to call their own ideology “the end of ideologies”. Later, they sought an alternative name and some started to call it the “Third Way”.

The disillusion with communism on the one hand and the popularity of Margaret Thatcher’s and Ronald Reagan’s policies on the other made it impossible to openly advocate obsolete socialist dreams, fallacies and old-fashioned remedies of contemporary economic and social problems. The situation called for a new product or, what is usually better and easier, for an old product in a new packing. In this respect, the Third Way of the 1990's is no more than a new attempt to save socialism, social-democratism and welfare state. There are only two “ways” in human society and I belong to those who are convinced that the so-called third way is an euphemistic and dangerously misleading name for the second way – for socialism.

The current version of “thirdwayism” does not give us any new, single "Big Idea", it is, in its synergy, dangerous collection of small and certainly old and notorious ideas. Therefore, all our old arguments against socialism, corporativism, technocratism, social engineering, elitism, etatism, interventionism, etc. have again become relevant.

The Third Way remains a very vague, fuzzy and unstable concept. It has no operational definition, as it has never been properly defined. Such a defect hinders any serious discussion but, unfortunately, it does not prevent its use and popularity, and it does not undermine the promises it contains.

The term was originally used in the economic field. Those who disliked – and still do – both central planning and free markets (and I would add: do not understand either central planning or free markets) preferred and prefer to promote unstructured and unviable mixtures of central planning, interventionism and markets.

The present-day exponents of third-way thinking have, in a way, succeeded in pursuading the public of their endorsing the liberal economic policies which, of course, is not true. We should not be misled by their rhetoric. (Thirdwayism is rhetoric only, but as a politician I know that in politics rhetoric does matter.) They never discuss details, they never reveal what they have in mind when they talk about regulation of the markets and they never give suggestion on how to solve serious financial problems connected with their social welfare programs.

This way of thinking represents a very fashionable approach to politics and policy making as well. It is based on a strong disbelief in classical liberal democracy, in political parties, in representative democracy and, on the contrary, on a strong belief in direct democracy, in the leading role of intellectual elites and in their ability to establish “a civilization of peace and love” without complications connected with standard mechanisms so typical for the twentieth century “age of politics” which they want to overcome.

The phenomen exists in international politics as well. The non-genuine, non-spontaneous, non-evolutionary, and therefore artificial unification of Europe, the enormous growth of various international institutions (with dubious competences), the attempts to introduce universal jurisdiction, the intervention in sovereign countries from outside – these are the most important examples of the third way approaches to international politics.

Together with the birth of communitariarism (or civic society as it is called in some countries) we witness the third way as a moralistic attitude. Its protagonists propose a new ethical system of thinking but do not see that morality and culture can be neither designed, nor created by law, decree or good advice. They want to impose their own view of morality and culture upon us whether we want it or not.

What is the origin (or source) of all that? I am convinced that its roots are connected with the faith in socialism, with the aprioristic disbelief in liberalism and individualism, with the inherent collectivism and etatism, with the neglect of the tragic experiences with the totalitarian systems of the 20th century, with non-reading of Hayek, with non-listening to those who try to warn against well-known, widely discussed and sufficiently documented ills of this strange century.

The third way advocates never discuss methods which would have to be used in order to realize their goals or promises. They do not explicitly describe the substance and logic of the vertical relations in society they propose. And this is their fatal error (or maybe a clever omission) because any discussion that talks about society and does not deal fully with the state is wrong. The propagandists of thirdwayism have suggested no new methods of governing and commanding society, no new methods of overcoming the problem of dispersion of knowledge, no new methods of solving the Public-Choice school arguments concerning motivation of individuals who represent the government, etc.

The relevant question is about the future, about the potential inner dynamics of society based on third way ideas or at least influenced by them? Where will it lead Western society if accepted? Will it make a fundamental change as compared to the current state? I am not fully pessimistic, as the threat is nothing new. The socialist and social democratic ideas have been with us for a long time and Anthony Giddens - with the title of his recent book "The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy" - puts these two things honestly together. (By the way, I do not understand when he says: "Yes, to the market economy, no, to the market society". I do not know anyone who would advocate the concept of "the market society"? Isn't it a fictitious target, created intentionally by the third-way propagandists?)

To summarize, the Third Way represents rather a new justification for old ideas and practices than anything else. For those of us who fear various “creeping” phenomena and tendencies – where I include welfare state, expanding government, bureaucratization of society, growing attempts of various interest groups to better themselves at the expense of others by means of the state, hostile and irrational distrust of free markets and their protagonists, etc. - we must presume that the new wave of “third-wayism” may complicate our efforts to defend free markets (and freedom in general) as it may divert some people who have been their original supporters. As we all know, ideas have consequences. Do not underestimate them.

Václav Klaus, Notes for the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 26, 2000.