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Problems of Reestablishing Freedom and Democracy in the EUropean Context

English Pages, 20. 10. 2004

It is a great honour, and pleasure, to be here to speak to you today and to receive such an important and valuable award from your University. I say that not as a conventional courtesy, it reflects my actual feelings. This is not my first honorary doctorate degree but I appreciate it to get it here, at Brunel University, in London, in Great Britain.

I take it as a personal award, but I take it, as well, as a recognition of my country, the Czech Republic, which is again – after decades of communism – a free and democratic country and a country with extraordinarily good and friendly relations with your great country.

The topic I selected for my today’s speech – “Problems of Reestablishing Freedom and Democracy in the EUropean Context” (and the letters EU written as capital letters) – reveals my serious concerns about the state of affairs in the European Union, my concerns about freedom and democracy. I know that to raise such an issue means “blowing against the wind”, asks for being labelled nationalistic, reactionary, short sighted, sceptical and first of all politically incorrect. I am, however, convinced that we should not capitulate to the political and intellectual trends of the time and I do insist that we should make such topics legitimate and respectable. Ideas have consequences and we should study their evolution, their direction, their inner dynamics.

I agree with Friedrich von Hayek that „freedom cannot endure unless every generation restates and reemphasizes its value“. Similarly, Ronald Reagan said in a speech in November, 1977: “Freedom is something that can not be passed on genetically. It is never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it”. I would extend this argument by saying that such a restatement should be done just now by those of us who had lived for decades in a non-free communist world. We were not only impoverished. We were, paradoxically, also enriched by our life in such a regime. Due to it we do not take freedom for granted. We are sensitive to all kinds of creeping, for other people almost invisible changes, which signal to us the future possibility of the weakening (and potential loss) of freedom in the nominally free (because formally non-totalitarian) world. We may be biased by our life in the communist society, we may underestimate some important things but we have a unique experience, which should not be forgotten. As a result of this some of us see in Europe symptoms of freedom weakening attitudes, initiatives and activities and are convinced they should be taken seriously.

Where are the Problems?

After decades spent in a collectivistic society, people like me believe more than those who were privileged not to go through this experience in the primacy of the individual and are, therefore, frustrated by a growing pressure to place individual rights and responsibilities below and behind group rights and entitlements. This is considered to be modern, progressive and politically correct even if it directly endangers both the individual freedom and human liberty.

We believe in democracy but we do not agree with the proponents of Third Ways who – as Anthony Giddens – fight for “the democratization of democracy” which is a radically different concept and project. Redefinition of basic terms of classical liberalism is unnecessary because the original - which means uninnovated - concepts of freedom, liberty, democracy and capitalism are sufficient.

The now fashionable ideology of human rights (not to speak about radical “humanrightism”) does not represent a neutral and innocent concept. I see in it an alternative with far-reaching consequences. The same problem is with attempts to reinterpret markets. I believe in free markets, not in fair markets, not in regulated markets, not in the dreams about the convergence of economic systems.

Slogans like “Earth First” or the misleading concept of sustainable development put ahead neither nature nor the quality of environment but immodest constructivist ambitions of those who want to gain control of, and over, us. They use nature and environment as their “hostages”.

Discrimination is wrong but the currently popular principle of nondiscrimination is worse. It is - as history teaches us - an opposite to freedom. The people are “natural equals” and we know that formal equality of opportunity is far better than substantive equality of results. The idea of absolute equality, which is in many circles heralded as a new era of social progressiveness, is connected with the premise that government is a benevolent force, able to guarantee equal outcomes by redistributing benefits and privileges between individuals and groups. The people in my country know that such attempts established an enormous degree of inequality.

We see the importance of moral and morality for the functioning of human society but the rhetoric of moral righteousness on the side of various immodest public intellectuals is not part of it. It reveals their strong authoritarian temper. They want to impose their values on others and are convinced that they know better than the rest of us what we need, what we want, and what is good for us. They want to protect us from ourselves.

Another danger comes from judicial activism which leads to an usurpation by judges of powers rightly belonging, in a democracy, to the political branches of the government. Judicial activism, when it undermines parliamentary intent, is necessarily anti-democratic. It leads to the rule of lawyers instead of the rule of law.

We are witnesses of the crowding out of standard democratic methods by alternative political procedures based on communitarism, NGO´ism, corporativism. As a result of this the political power moves into the hands of rent-seeking coalitions, of various pressure groups and of vested interest institutions.

Another freedom weakening activity lies in attempts to suppress the role of nation-states and to internationalize public issues and public choice. It leads to the undermining of the democratic accountability, which exists in nation-states. To decide at what level to organize public goods and where to make “public choices” has brought about – and will bring about – a permanent dispute in a free society and the heralded but empty EU doctrine of subsidiarity gives us, in this respect no advice. For many decisions the nation-state is too big and, therefore, we have municipalities, regions, provinces. For many decisions the nation-state is too small and – as a result – we have international organizations or international treaties at regional, continental and global levels. But one thing cannot be disputed – for democracy the nation-state is just it, just right, just appropriate. The attempts to suppress the nation-state brings us to the brave new world of post-democracy, to the absence of democratic accountability, to the distortion of existing and “proved” checks and balances, to the substitution of technical and administrative thinking for politics. The old ways and mechanisms have passed the test of time and were the result of selective evolution. The new ones were created due to social engineering, due to unhumble constructivism. Their advocacy is based on what I call the ideology of Europeanism which has been creeping in without our explicit acceptance of it.

Why is it so?

I see three groups of causes – ideas, interests and fears.

As for ideas, the main impact has the growing belief in the inevitability of market failures accompanied by the presumption that politically organized correction for market failures works perfectly. This is what all kinds of socialists repeat again and again. Market failures are set against an idealized politics, which is an incorrect comparison. The romantic mythology of the state and of the motivations and capabilities of politicians and their bureaucrats has not been rejected. The public is probably more critical about politics and politicians, more cynical about the motivation of political action, and less naive in thinking that politicians have solutions to all problems than half a century ago, but the old dreams are still there.

Some people are personally motivated to be in favor of statism because they hope they will gain from it. They know that in such a world there will be a demand for their activities. Centrally organized, regulated and controlled society offers an enormous opportunity for some people to give ideas, advice, recommendations. By doing it they can reconstruct the world according to their own ideas and at the same time be paid for it. This is true and well-known in many societies and historical periods but the current most visible example is the European Union. Its formation and expansion is accompanied by a huge demand for ideas, advice, defence and justification (of its existence).

Finally, there is a fear. Fear of those who don’t believe in themselves, who are afraid of openness, of freedom, of markets, of competition, who hope that someone else will help them, will take care of them, will be responsible for them. I don’t speak about those who are really weak, ill, old, handicapped (they do need our help) but about those who are willing to substitute freedom and responsibility for the paternalistic state. Without those who are afraid of freedom the success of statists would not be possible.

It is our task to understand and explain the impact of this special coalition of ideas, interests and fears and to come with a clear, straightforward and feasible alternative. It must be based on the return to the classical liberalism.

Václav Klaus, Speech at the Brunel University at a ceremony of awarding the honorary doctorate degree, London, October 20, 2004