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Third Way or No Way?
Former Prime Minister Klaus charges Third Way movement is closet socialism that imposes moral, political values By Vaclav Klaus Several weeks after the fall of communism, exactly 10 years ago, when I was 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 "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 a very strange vacuum that was rapidly filled with one, always available ideology: the ideology of those who did not like liberalism (in the European sense), who did not believe in freedom and the free market, who believed more in themselves and their own privileged role and position in society, who considered themselves enlightened, "anointed," progressive and better than the rest of us. No 'Big Idea' 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 for contemporary economic and social problems. The situation called for a new product or for an old product in a new package. In this respect, the Third Way of the 1990s is no more than a new attempt to save socialism, social democracy and the 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 a euphemistic and dangerously misleading name for the second way -- socialism. The current version of "Third Way-ism" does not give us any single new "Big Idea." It is a dangerous collection of small, old and notorious ideas. Therefore, all our old arguments against socialism, corporativism, technocratism, social engineering, elitism, etatism and interventionism have again become relevant. The "Third Way" remains a very vague, fuzzy and unstable concept. The term was originally used in economics. Those who disliked central planning and free markets (and do not understand either central planning or a free market) preferred to promote an unstructured and hardly viable mixture of central planning, interventionism and markets. This represents a very fashionable approach to politics and policy making. It is based on a strong dislike for classical liberal democracy, political parties and representative democracy. It leans on direct democracy, on the leading role of intellectual elites, and on their ability to establish "a civilization of peace and love." The phenomenon exists in international politics as well. Witness the nongenuine, nonspontaneous, nonevolutionary and therefore artificial unification of Europe. Behold the enormous growth of various international institutions (with dubious responsibilities), the attempts to introduce universal jurisdiction, the intervention in sovereign countries from outside -- these are the key examples of "Third Way" approaches to international politics. Together with the birth of communitarianism (or civic society, as it is called in some countries) we see the Third Way as a moralistic attitude. Its protagonists propose a new ethical system of thinking but don't notice 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. Faith in socialism What's at the root of such thinking? I'm convinced it's connected to a faith in socialism. "Third Way" advocates never discuss methods. They do not explicitly describe the substance and logic of the relations in the society they propose. And this is their fatal error (or maybe a clever omission), because any notion that discusses society and does not deal fully with the state is wrong. What then about the future, about the potential inner dynamics of society based on Third Way ideas? Where will it lead Western society if accepted? Will it make fundamental changes to the current state? I am not wholly pessimistic, as the threat is nothing new. Social democratic ideas have been with us for a long time. To summarize, the Third Way represents a new justification for old ideas and practices. For those who fear various "creeping" phenomena and tendencies -- I include the welfare state, larger government, the bureaucratization of society, growing special interest groups -- we must presume that the new wave of "Third Way-ism" may complicate our efforts to defend free markets (and freedom in general). As we all know, ideas have consequences. Do not underestimate them. The writer is a former Czech prime minister. These remarks, made at the Davos Economic Forum, are excerpted from a longer speech. |
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