September 30, 2002
Post-communism: victory or lost illusions?
Democracy has succeeded communism – but so has the power of the state, says the key architect of post-1989 Czech politics. As liberal ideas retreat before various ‘new collectivisms’, has the unification of Europe itself become a process to strangle, rather than enlarge, freedom?
This past decade has been interesting, challenging, even rewarding for all of us. It has given us many important insights into what it means to build freedom, and free markets. We have learned some unforgettable lessons (especially regarding the organisation and sequencing of reform programmes); lessons that were not at all evident, clear, intuitively correct or indeed generally accepted, when we started dismantling communism.
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Many misunderstandings ensue. Some of us know, from our own personal experience, what it means to live in a closed, inward-looking society, where any form of contact with the outside world is prohibited (or at least made very difficult). We are unlikely to be against the opening up of societies, or the elimination of all those barriers to the free exchange of ideas, people, goods and services, or money – over the continent or the whole world. As a result, we have been dreaming of being part of a European open society for many years.
But the current European unification process is not only, or not primarily, about such an opening up. It is about introducing massive regulation and protectionism; about imposing uniformity, laws and policies; about weakening standard democratic procedures; about the increasing bureaucratisation of life; about the enhanced power of the judicial authorities. This is not what we wanted, is it?
Posted at September 30, 2002 02:25 PM | Perspective
