At the beginnings of the Third Republic of Poland the internal contradiction of such combination was less striking than it is today: the political programmes of liberal-conservatists as well as conservative liberals were basically aiming at creating what is called “a normal country” – without radical ideologies in politics, but with efficient free market economy, organized administration democratic government and numerous middle class. All of the above were not elements of positive political project, but they were rather a negation of PRL (People’s Republic of Poland) with its central economy, permanent deficiencies, overgrown bureaucracy, highly ideological and lacking of social support authorities and an odd social hierarchy created artificially in dialectical clinch of technocratic ambitions and Marxist dogmas.

Even though the conservative-liberal program of leaving the communism was realized and therefore lost almost all its attractiveness– Poland has become a member of NATO and EU, which before 1989 were identified with the West – for the last five years its domination among Polish political elites has become established. No matter how great importance will be ascribed to every clash of “Prawo i Sprawiedliwość” (PIS) and “Platforma Obywatelska” (PO), the differences between those two parties concern the style rather than the program – the successive governments are invariably conservative in the filed of values and lead moderately liberal economic policy. The conservative-liberal cluster is however unavoidable. Liberalism, in its essence, has at least as much in common with left-wing thought as with conservative one and it is not impossible that, on the consistently conservative ground an opposition to the ruling right-wing will grow. It is worth mentioning that before socialist have emerged liberals were called “left-wing” in relation to the spatial definition coming from the deputies’ places in French revolutionary States-General.  The remnants of this linguistic convention are present nowadays in Denmark, where the liberal party has had a name Venstre – that is The Left – since the 19^th century.

The overview of the relationship between liberalism and leftism should start from the four philosophical assumptions that are common to the liberal and leftist thought (or more precisely they are the basis of liberalism and were adapted by the Left). These include: the rationalist (hence non-religious, and referring to the experience rather than revelation) perception of the world, belief in the moral and material progress of mankind, the belief that all men are created equal and the desire to broaden the scope of individual freedom (ie, the left-wing language, to emancipation).  These assumptions are mutually related and constitute a coherent outlook, different from the conservative or Christian-democratic ones.

Scientific liberalism

The importance of the first of these assumptions is clearly visible if you pay attention to the fact that liberalism was a philosophical and political consequence of the modern breakthrough in European natural sciences. The development of astronomy and physics, which were originally treated as utilitarian science (which were supposed to facilitate navigation and exploration of non-European lands and to achieve military superiority) led to challenging the earlier notions about the world, many of which – directly or by deduction – were associated with religious beliefs. As the science developed, the truths of faith proved to be in a growing conflict with the results of experiment, which had to have an influence on the political realm, where religious dogmas were used to legitimize monarchic-feudal order. What is equally important, the Europeans quickly realized that a person can be not only the subject but also the object of scientific cognition. That is why Machiavelli and Hobbes grandsociologists occupy a prominent place in the tradition of liberal thinking about politics, despite the fact that the conclusions drawn by them are difficult to consider as a sign of liberalism today.

Also the emerging of what we now call the Left from broadly understood liberalism and various derivatives of Marxist thought had an epistemological dimension. This part of Karl Marx’s analysis, which focused on the past history of humanity has been basically in line with the liberals’ intuitions. For example, value-added concept, introduced by Marx, proved to be crucial for all subsequent economics and its practical application in the form of value added tax (VAT) became the basis for modern fiscal system. However, using “historical rights” to predict the future was speculative in nature and conclusions drawn from these political predictions, with the call to organize the supposedly imminent revolution in the first place, had nothing to do with rationality. Contrary to the declared commitment to the scientific and materialistic outlook, Marxism and its subsequent political mutations – Socialism, Communism, Leninism, Maoism and the most moderate Social-Democracy – took a form similar to that of religion, distant from liberalism.

The Liberals rejected revolutionary method as not enough scientifically justified (and, above all, as too brutal), but progress, an important component of the scientific method, has not disappeared from their vision of the world. Empirical observation of the environment – especially conducted on a large scale – shows after all that the human condition is constantly changing for the better. It is obvious in the material sphere: we drive bigger and safer cars, we have access to more and more varied food and we live longer. In the moral sphere the conviction of the continuous progress is not as strong as it was before World War I (years 1914-1945 showed that in no way it is inevitable), but it has a fairly solid foundation: unlike 50 years ago the Western democracies admonish – calling them by name – Chinese dissidents, smoldering Middle East conflict, which is after all less bloody than it was in the 70s. Sensitivity to the suffering of animals has increased so much that the Polish courts have begun to impose prison terms without suspension for their abuse. For the Left, all these signs of improvement are insufficient, but both they and the liberals establish them with satisfaction, confident that they confirm the validity of their optimistic faith in humanity. Its credo comes down to the belief that aggregated happiness of mankind may continue to increase  through wise and responsible (and so – democratic) politics.

Conventional equality

As much as the adherence to the scientific method of perceiving and describing the world is firmly rooted in reality and believing in progress is the logical consequence of the empirical habit, the idea of universal human equality- another shared characteristics of liberalism and leftism – is a convention, not a statement of fact. This convention is so common in today’s world that it is usually not noticed. Its “transparency” is one of the foundations of democracy, but it remains nothing more than arbitrary moral judgment. In fact, the thesis that all men are equal and should have equal rights does not result from the empirical observation after all. It shows us that people differ in terms of age, sex, color, temperament, physical and intellectual abilities. There are – although less and less popular – opinions, according to which these differences determine inequality so fundemantal that it should be reflected in the sphere of law and policy. The visions of the good society related to them imply its hierarchical structure (as in the feudal monarchies), legitimize the enslavement of certain groups of people (as in the United States until the Civil War) or restrict their participation in public life (anywhere in the world until the introduction of universal suffrage: only 40 years have passed since the Swiss women received right to vote). Although the convention of universal equality is not openly challenged – even authoritarian regimes refer to it claiming that they exercise power in the public interest – it is clear that some political forces take it more seriously than others. According to the nationalists only members of the same nation may be equal and even this not always. Granting a metaphysical nature to the state is common for this formation and leads to elevating public office holders (some of the ministers of 2006-2007 government reportedly refused to participate in public debate, arguing that if they lose the authority of the RP will suffer, an even more blatant form of how this mechanism works can be observed in the currently created cult of Lech Kaczynski) and the belief that the nation is the most important – to challenging the rights of those who do not share this belief. Conservatives present a more open approach. They accept the Enlightenment standard according to which people are equal in the eyes of the law, but the state governed by them does not usually feel responsible for responding to any social inequalities and from the very nature of conservatism comes the reluctance to make any compensatory changes and reforms. Christian Democrats are more likely to talk about universal human dignity than the equality, which results in the practical consequences similar to conservative approach: in inspired by Catholic social teaching model of society different groups (women, youth, workers, scientists, clergy, etc.) have different and precisely defined roles.. These roles have indeed equal moral value (that is are equally worthy), but this equality does not follow the moral equality of rights. Consequently, the Christian Democrats do not see anything inappropriate in the fact that women are less likely to make a career than men, less capable children of rich parents go to university instead of going to vocational school and a number of professions are closed to people from outside the guild or corporation.

Liberals take the convention of universal equality more seriously, which to a large extent results from the fact that they perceive society as a collection of individuals (which in turn is connected with scientific rationalism discussed above and the fact that the existence of individuals is empirically evident, as opposed to the existence of the nation endowed with specific characteristics  or, for example, notaries as a group with a common role to play). Assumption of a unit of subjectivity leads to a broader understanding of equality than the one presented by the conservatives or the Christian Democrats: liberals are committed to the idea of ​​ensuring equal opportunities to implement individual projects in life for individuals. In practice it means a strong determination to create “an equal playing field”, ie. the conditions for fair competition, for example through supporting programs designed to ensure universal access to education at a decent level. However, having aligned the field and given rules of the game, the liberals do not intend to interfere with its course or affect the outcome. That is why they are declared supporters of the free market (which does have an important moral dimension, because it rewards the most hard-working, ingenious and reliable) and accept the fact that someone has to lose the competition and accept a social position that is below their own ambitions. This is what differentiates them from the Left. While liberals are aware of the conventional nature of the assumption that all men are equal, many leftists tend to take it literally. This leads them to a conclusion that, in the face of the inherent equality of individuals, equal opportunities should lead to equality of conditions. Thus in an ideal society not only class differences, but even professional specialization should disappear. The “rule of cooks” prophesied by the Bolsheviks is more than a promise of radical social upheaval. The full significance of the slogan can be understood through a fragment of the “German Ideology” by Marx, in which real freedom is presented as an opportunity to hunt in the morning, go fishing in the afternoon, graze cattle in the evening and devote to reflections after eating. This means that, in the communist utopia, all people will develop their capabilities so far that even a cook will be able to rule the state. The true equality of opportunities, as the Marxists claim, has to mean an equal position – and if it does not, it is certain sign that equality was a sham, a sly evasion of bourgeoisie who want to maintain their position by co-opting scanty proletarians. (By the way, the most striking is the range of possible activities made ​​by Marx – all are typical for primitive societies, suggesting that the regression of mankind from the path of civilization to the level of the noble Rousseau’s savage could be subconsciously accepted price for achieving the communism. Following the interpretation even deeper, this seemingly idyllic vision predicts the murderous inclinations of the Marxists – the extensive nature of economy based on hunting, fishing and cattle grazing means that communism would not be able to feed all).

However, if you ignore these ominous – but by no means clear – glimpses, this vision of a world in which people can freely choose and change occupation, and the boundary between work and self-serving pleasure is blurred, is not yet unattractive for liberals. Maximizing individual freedom is a major, even if seldom expressed explicitly, objective of liberalism.  Areligious and rationalistic orientation of both liberals and leftists leads them to similar axiological conclusions – since human being is the only certain being and a point of reference is, providing the best possible conditions to achieve self-defined happiness should be the overriding imperative of political action. The left-wing emancipation and liberal desire to ensure individual freedom are basically the same thing. The ways of achieving the goal have been the only differences so far.

Antiliberal revolution

Slow but consistent increase and protection of individual rights was the liberals’ method. At the beginning, strong post feudal state as well as the remnants of feudalism, in the form of privileges of state and religious dogmas, was opponents in this confrontation. The scope of individual freedom has grown along with the scope of democracy and decreased in countries that did not withstand the pressure of modernization (Russia, Italy, Germany and Spain). Slow and evolutionary nature of this process has made it almost imperceptible in the short time perspective.

The fact that the Left believed in the inevitability (and rightness) of the revolution has led it to adoption of such mode of action, which turned out to be the exact opposite of the liberal method. Having overthrown the existing structures of the state by the means of violence – or, since Bernsteinian “revision”, having won democratic elections – leftists used the political power to promote “freedom” actively, even among people who did not want it . The peculiar Marxist notion of “false consciousness” perfectly justified the need for forced emancipation and various projects such as creating a “new society” and the “new man”.  The most illiberal of these projects were, of course, totalitarian leftism varieties such as Bolshevism and Maoism, which assumed complete subordination of the individual to the state, which was an extreme contradiction of the ideal of individual (and individually defined) freedom. (Being in opposition to Soviet communism also called “real socialism” in its final stage, connected Polish liberals of the late twentieth century with the conservatives.) The conflict between liberals and socialists, who at least formally agreed with them on issues of political freedom, focused on economic issues: the free market was bad in its nature for socialists, while central planning was good.  The Social Democrats had the most common matters with the Liberals, but still for most of the twentieth century they ended up  on the opposite sides of the political scene, arguing with them, not so much about big ideas, but about practical issues: the scope of social assistance and free services provided by the state (and inevitably tax amount), the degree of regulation of the labor market and finally the shape of the educational system. The last twenty five years have brought a clear answer to a question which – liberal or leftist -  method of promoting the emancipation of the individual is more effective. With the exception of the former Soviet Union, where the Communists, who were forming the power apparatus suddenly became nationalists, discrediting left-wing (enforced emancipation) pushed its former supporters to fundamentally liberal positions. The transformation could be of a unitary character (and then the change in the formal self-determination was also more likely), but there are examples, where it concerned large formations. Bronislaw Geremek, who in the last years of his life was one of the leading figures of European liberalism, began his political activity in the communist Polish United Workers’ Party. Chinese Communists, after three decades of disastrous extravagances like Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward decided to return to the tried and tested way of organic growth and bottom-up emancipation, slowly dispensing civil liberties to their citizens. At the other end of the world, Tony Blair has made ​​a minor adjustment to Thatcher’s revolution instead of dismantling it. In Poland, the post-communist Leszek Miller’s government lowered the income taxes for entrepreneurs, while the Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrats in Germany were occupied with consolidating the budget and increasing the competitiveness of the economy  A decade later the socialists in Greece faced the same task – and it has been performed with commendable consistency so far.

Useless non-Left

The above examples are of course enumerated by left-wing commentators as evidence of leaders’ treachery and the need to return to the traditional ideals. (In the simplest and increasingly common approach these ideals amount to “protecting and supporting the weak”). Yet, there are no concrete ideas. In the face of the recent financial crisis, which quite seriously raised the question of the ability of capitalism to survive, the Left has not proposed any solutions that would not suit the liberal canon of better regulation of the free market mechanisms. Even the utopian and thus the leftist flagship idea of ​​universal “civic rent” (i.e. fixed monthly stipend paid by the state to all citizens) is in fact a liberal solution: if everyone, not just the “needy”, is supposed to get it it can be considered to be an instrument of creating equal opportunities and its introduction in place of the existing benefits can be seen as improving the system of redistribution. The Left is in serious trouble in the moral sphere when it comes to the creation of a program that is coherent and distinct from the liberal at the same time. Slogans of ensuring genuine equality between women and men (eg. on the labor market) and equality of sexual minorities are left-wing and liberal to the same extent. Step further-reaching ideas of “positive discrimination” of ethnic minorities (in developed countries it usually concerns immigrants) or affirmation of multiculturalism apparently realizing leftist demand of “supporting the weak”, in fact often lead to the legitimatization of oppression of vulnerable individuals within those groups.  President Sarkozy’s recent proposals of depriving people performing the circumcision of girls of the French citizenship (the traditional practice of many African and Middle Eastern communities deprives victims of sexual pleasure) met with condemnation of the Left as a racist one, which is hardly an attitude compatible with the ideal of emancipation.

Nevertheless, social democratic and socialist parties and are an important institutional element of policy in Western Europe and they can still play the natural role of the opposition for decades and if one of them will sometimes rise to power, their policy will be quite close to liberal proposals. The situation in Poland is a little more complicated. The public support for the existing Left is much lower than in the West. Unlike in France, Spain or Britain, where at least a part of the leftist emancipatory program has always been taken seriously, the credibility of the SLD was destroyed both in economic (Miller’s income tax) and moral dimensions (Kwasniewski’s ride in papa mobile). Intellectual impotence in creating the economic program and ostentatious caution in raising the issue of church-state relations (even the August appeal in defense of the Constitution referred to the positive role played by the church in Polish history!) are not beneficial for  rebuilding their credibility. But even if the credibility wa restored, convincing the young left-wing that economically disadvantaged groups are natural political backing for the moral emancipation indicates wishful thinking. In the presidential election, well-educated feminists and unskilled workers together could have voted against lordly and patriarchal Komorowski and stiffly lower-middle class Kaczynski (and thus for Napieralski), but the coalition does not have to last in the parliamentary elections. It will not last especially if SLD will promote “social justice” which comes down to increasing taxes for top earners and therefore, to cut the long story short, urban supporters of moral modernization. Moreover, SLD’s relationships with various interest groups – from the teachers to the railway men – discredit them as a reformist party that would be able to finance increased social spending, rationalizing the way of spending public money.

These weaknesses of the Polish left-wing show that there is space for development of a new, consistently liberal group on the right from SLD and on the left from PO. Such group would demand increasing the scope of individual freedom, both in the economic sphere (mainly by simplifying administrative procedures) and in moral sense (mainly by reducing the normative influence of Catholic ideology). It would stand up against unjust privileges of farmers, miners, police, military and church, whose defense has become and aim for the existing parties, as well as against defying common sense expressing martyr beliefs without respect to others.

Translation Jakub Kossowski (qba211@poczta.fm)

It is difficult to write about freedom for a person that does not believe in the existence of this noble idea. Thus, enslavement appears as a more appropriate issue to discuss than freedom. Enslavement may exist on various levels and manifest itself in different ways. The history of slavery, persecution and tyranny of power seem to be the most dramatic ones. Fortunately, we live in a world in which these problems are fading out. However, we do not notice that equally serious phenomena, though not so spectacular, prey upon human free will and thus pose a threat. Even on this little patch of freedom we still have.

More and more often, we leave the remains of freedom to such phenomena as ideology, materialism, political system or religion. The two latter are particularly striking. Politics defended human rights many times, fought for civil liberties, security and morality. Religion, in turn (especially in Poland the Catholic religion) appeared when noble politics failed. The idea of the church community added courage and confidence in the validity of the undertaken goals. Over the course of time, religion, which was meant to constitute a counterbalance for politics, has become politics itself – full of rights and duties, offering a defined set of rules and procedures. Simultaneously, it is losing its unique character by missing its essence – spirituality. Due to the frequency of certain customs and rituals, we stop performing them consciously. Automatism replaces thinking. Would any God wish to have machinery as believers?

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God”. This “word”, with God and God itself, has lost its power and the original sense in the contemporary world. Metaphysics, Truth and the full power of the word have gone. Mass rituals are full of words – prayers – repeated without attention, concentration and assimilation. How many followers of Jesus read His words? How many abide by them? How many try to understand and how many recognize the interpretation of the church as their own? Do we really believe in the literalness of the words “On the seventh day God rested from all His work”? If yes, the fact that the mystery of the world has long been discovered and comprehended should be announced. The problem is that no human words can describe the heart of the matter (divine and natural). Statements – there is one God in three persons, or – Buddha announced right after his birth that it was his last coming – have no sense if we want to understand them literally. It is not words that built the world, so it cannot be comprehended on the basis of words.

A word only symbolizes a thing it refers our consciousness to. It is not the thing itself. We should not hence expect that the word means something it is supposed to. It means something as long as we understand this meaning. If we do not understand and do not attempt to comprehend the essence of soul, love or God, the words “soul”, “love” or “god” are only empty vibrations of the air.

We surround ourselves with words, symbols, truths, clichés, rituals and… money as conditions essential to obtain salvation. We willingly belong to a church we do not understand or feel, the one that irritates us and does not teach love, but only shows how to speak about it.

Agnieszka was brought up in a Catholic family. Her mother and father respected church holidays and attended mass every Sunday. On one autumn evening at supper, her mother told a tragic story of a neighbour, whose daughter “married a Black, as if she couldn’t find a normal boy”. Agnieszka, not to disappoint her mother like her peer from neighbourhood, found a “normal” boy and married him at the age of 23. The wedding took place in a cathedral, in presence of the whole big family. Uncles and aunts from all over Poland arrived to take part in the traditional Polish-style ceremony. Some relatives from abroad appeared, too. It was not a wedding the newly-weds had dreamt of, but over twenty years of upbringing effort of parents deserve a proper wedding and marriage. Newly-weds were young enough to highly value having fun, young enough to work as a barman in a club, young enough to measure love with sex and beauty with well-shaped body. Over the time, marriage ceased to be passionate – quarrels, disappointments and conflicts of interests started. Both decided to part. The divorce went easily, some formalities were completed and required signatures were given. A problem appeared when they decided to invalidate the church wedding. It turned out that God-bureaucrat requires a long investigative procedure. His earthy assistants listen to the reasons why a woman and a man come to the conclusion that Almighty God  did not mean them to be together. Then, they determine whether they can invalidate wedding vows.

“What God has joined together, let not man separate”, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” According to these presuppositions, Agnieszka and her former husband are obliged to keep the wedding vow. They will be bound forever, against their will, unless they are allowed to part by the priests. Thus, in future they will not obtain a blessing if they meet the love of their lives that will make them truly feel God in their hearts. Would the God of love wish people to share eternity with an unsuitable person? Without bonds, and often with mutual hatred and aversion?

Janina was a deeply-believing person. She never considered presence at church on Sundays an obligation. Her prayer did not consist of mere repeating the same phrases without concentration and understanding. It was a fully conscious participation in the service, an attempt to comprehend holy mysteries and to find the warmth of the spirit of Jesus in her. She cared about the institution of the church – she contributed generously to a collection, decorated the altar with flowers, donated to the poor and homeless. When she reached the age of 80, the Lord called Janine to Himself. Although she devoted all her heart to the church, it caused inconvenience organizing her last journey.

The family of Janina is poor. She died without any savings (she gave current money to the church institutions). 600 złotys were necessary to obtain a place at the town cemetery, 200 złotys to transport the corpse to a mortuary, another 200 złotys to preserve the corpse in a cold store, 260 złotys to prepare the body for the funeral, 1000 złotys to erect a temporary gravestone and 570 złotys to celebrate the mass. It turns out that the eternal rest is not priceless. Just the opposite – it has a very concrete price. It costs 2830.00 złotys.

The etymology of the word “religion” refers to Latin “religio”, which probably meant cementing, joining. However, history and the present day show that religion is becoming rather a reason for divisions (interreligious and internal). Crusades, holy wars, “fights for the crosses”, fights “for…”, fights “against…”, fights “in the name of…” are dramatic and at the same time meaningful examples of limiting freedom by religion. They cast doubt on the purpose for which religious dogmas are formulated. Wolter once said that if there was no God, one should be invented. What for? Because the idea of an Absolute Being that watches over the fate of the universe gives a feel of safety, confidence and stability. It turns out that holiness can function also on more practical levels – as an excuse for starting a war, creating reality and society according to specific rules. Orthodoxy and doctrinarism are the reasons why followers do not feel obliged to analyse and reflect on these matters. After all, everything has been already determined and recoded. Arousing terror in followers also supports this passive attitude. An average believer is ready to acknowledge a moment of hesitation, an attempt of undermining the fundamentals of a religious community as a sin against God himself, which may mean excommunication or eternal damnation. Would all-knowing God create man (in His own image), whose way of thinking He would condemn? And whose every attempt to find the Truth would meet His anger?

Such attempts are connected with considerable emotional and intellectual effort. Thus, it is often easier to devote our lives to “the only right idea”, die for our faith in the name of Allah or live according to our parents’ will, which is supported by Confucianism. We resign from the burden of freedom of our own will.

What is called “religion” seems to impose a ready-made value system, an ethos of behaviour and an explanation for the structure of the world. Rational thinking brings the question whether any idea can describe the essence of the world definitely and correctly. The beliefs of the Far East are the most remote from so riskily indisputable statements. It is hard to understand why Zen Buddhism, for example, is perceived as a religion, while its character is far from religious. It is not a collection of rules of behaviour that must be accepted. It is not a dogma explaining the structure of the world, either. Bearing in mind the contemporary understanding of such words as “religion” or “philosophy”, Zeh cannot be assigned to any of these fields. If we dared to reach for the primary meanings of these words and their associations with mentioned “religio” as a bond, Zen would seem appropriate to be called a religion.

There are many varieties of Zeh Buddhism. We can find also those which propose a ready-made system of ideology, support observing rituals, saying specific sutras and mantras (of course, there is nothing wrong in rituals as long as we know their purposes and we observe them consciously). I am particularly interested in Zen described by Suzuki, Fromm or Martino. One who resigns from ritual observances for the sake of internal quests, cleaning oneself from automatism and obviousness which approach the self-evident and common matters sceptically, undermines the validity of systems with the linguistic one above all. They try to learn and recognize the world again by getting rid of cultural, social and political experiences as well as breaking all boundaries. Would absence of these boundaries be the most perfect form of freedom?

It is the right place for the question – does man really want freedom? Is freedom a privilege or a problem that requires effort and responsibility? The answer comes immediately – freedom is troublesome. Hence, accepting internal truths and becoming part of a religious or political society makes life easier by providing the “only right” idea. Although many united societies will declare openness and will to hold a dialogue, in fact they consider such a dialogue impossible. After all, a need of showing identity and uniqueness would not exist without faith in the rightness of the fundaments that are present in any society. The second reason for which we join a group is a fear of solitude and death. Religion copes with both these problems perfectly. But can operations based on fear be right and constructive? No, they cannot. This is why religion often has destructive effects. It names God as “God”, and kills him in this way. It says “we have found the truth”, and loses it in this way. It threatens with punishment for undermining faith, and in this way kills the natural, childlike curiosity, will and courage to pose the question “why”. Jesus himself taught: “Whoever does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will certainly not enter it…”

Translation: Marcin Pyka

http://www.flickr.com/photos/henrycrun/2462048852/sizes/m/

It seems that the political scene of  Poland has gone through two decades of which the latter is still in progress. The first phase was characterized by a major instability of political parties which were established, disappeared and were replaced with the new ones. We have experienced a greater stability after 2005 if we do not take into account the elimination of two extreme populist parties (these, however, appear also in grounded political systems as transient and short-lasting phenomena). The current system is assessed as dysfunctional because in the long run it is not able, in such composition and line-up to represent the interests and values of the Polish society. It is, therefore, unfinished and a major revolution is awaiting it, which will make our political scene similar to those of Western Europe. Especially because consolidation of today’s system is artificial and largely stems from act construction about financing political parties.

Liberal parties – lack of roots

In the current state there is no place for an independent liberal party understood as one which is both pro market in the area of economics and progressive in life matters. Such parties exist in most of the Western European countries, especially where democracy has a long history and great traditions. What is interesting, there are analogus problems with the establishment of a liberal party in Spain, Portugal, Greece, so those countries in which democratic changes are quite recent. This is where the key to understanding the problems lies.

Liberal parties refer to their long history of political movement, which was fully formed even in the 19th century. Today’s parties in other Western European countries refer to this rich legacy openly. Therefore their electorates have a permanent character, clearly defined in political and social terms. The tradition of voting for liberals is long in some social environments. Those parties have a pretty stable position on the political scene. In Poland, however, with regard to our historical experience, the phenomenon of “permanent electorate” of parties does not actually exist. There are no family political traditions transferred from generation to generation because the horizon of our democracy is still very short.

The problem of contemporary Polish liberals to establish a genuine party is historically determined.  The short existence of the Third Republic of Poland is a serious obstacle here. First of all, it is the weakness of previous liberal traditions in Poland. The cause of this state is the non-existence of the Polish state just at the time when liberalism was developing and formed a ground for political actions. Through liquidation of the Polish state from 1795 to 1918, Poland found itself on the sideline of happening at that time political processes and beyond the main stream of events. When liberalism was blossoming the main subject in Poland was regaining independence. So during the period of its greatest political force in Europe there was no liberalism in Poland.

In the meantime the premises for shaping a strong liberal movement in Poland were quite promising. Just before Poland fell prey to its neighbors there seemed to emerge a political beginning of liberal thinking about the state. We can observe a big time correlation with other countries. Before Poland was liquidated it functioned in the main streams of the logic of political philosophy revolution which took place in Europe, and as far as liberal ideas are concerned, it was even its leader.

Of course the Constitution of May, 3 is the strongest argument here. The document which introduced a modern constitutional monarchy based on classic liberal recipe had also philosophical background in the number of interesting, liberal magazines by Polish authors from the 18^th century. The adoption of the constitution coincides with the American one and the first declaration of French Revolution which in contrast to Jacobin’s declaration was also a liberal text. Great Britain was of course a step ahead, as they had introduced frameworks of constitutional monarchy with a strong position of parliament almost a century earlier. Additionally, “anarchistic” tradition in Poland was strong, in the sense of open aversion towards excessive  concentration of power in the hands of a monarch.

Liberum veto, the version of gentry lawlessness, was not a liberal mechanism, but what it had in common with philosophy of classic liberalism  was the fear and objection towards monarchal absolutism.  On the grounds of such  attitude spread in Poland as well as the tendency of decentralization and self-governance, liberalism had excellent conditions to be successful if Poland existed in the 19^th century. Religious tolerance had also great tradition in our country, while some European countries still waged political war of preference and privilege of “official religion”. With regard to it, there was also an optimal foundation for the development of liberalism.

National and not individual freedom

However, the liquidation of the Polish country stopped these political processes which were gaining on strength due to the adoption of the Constitution. Instead, our elites had to focus for more than a century  on various actions aimed at regaining independence. Liberalism had ready-made prescriptions for many aspects of state organization but it was  not useful for the nation that  had to yet fight for its country.

All the groundbreaking, great socio-political debates which took place in the 19th century throughout Europe and thanks to which liberalism was so politically successful had no chance to play any important role in Poland so they could not form the consciousness of the elites let alone social masses. Liberalism could not develop in such condition also because every ideology inevitably has to separate from other thought streams and define itself in opposition to them so that it introduces divisions across the country.

In Polish conditions people craved for the unity for realization of the common national aims. Therefore in the times of annexation due to a series of failed uprisings generating martyrdom just the nationalistic and independent idea had the grounds for full development. The political history of the Second Republic of Poland shows how it dominated in the political consciousness of the nation which, eventually, freed itself from occupation. Next to it, there was only the idea of peasant movement and socialist idea having in its Polish version strong national character which were the form of protection of financial interests of social strata.  Other ideas, including liberalism, after 1918 could only be instilled from outside as a foreign factor. It happened because this genuine Polish liberalism did not stand a chance of development. And it still pays for it.

During annexation Poles fought for independence. What system it was to adopt was a minor concern. Because of that the idea of classic liberalism which fired up people’s emotions across Europe, calling for replacing absolute monarchy with the arbitrary power of people, constitutional monarchy with the rule of law did not arouse significant interest in Poland. The question which system would the Polish country adopt if it was established again in 1831 still remains unanswered.

The creation of liberal parties in Europe

Political problems which became the reason for engaging significant social group into liberal movement in the Western countries remained meaningless in Poland. In Great Britain, where constitutional monarchy existed, the Liberal Party was established as a coalition of a few groups of interests which combined objection towards the arbitrary interference of the state into the freedom of citizens. The first political club in the liberal coalition were of course people who continued the long tradition of aristocratic Wigs, who defined their political aim in the categories of classic liberalism as a protection of traditional, English citizen freedoms against the threat from the arbitrary actions of the royal authorities.

This aristocratic part of coalition was completed by a number of liberal Tories who decided to break up with their first party due to numerous conflicts inside it in the twenties of the 19th century which mainly touched upon the subjects of religious freedom limitation. Wigs were in favor for a process of gradual, slow system, political and social changes and they favored keeping by aristocracy the control over the country. The second element of the liberal coalition with a major meaning to its ideological clarity, were radicals making up the most progressive wing of the Liberal Party.

They were mostly focused on the critics of the conservative approach to socio-political reality and put their Wig partners under constant pressure to conduct deeper reforms, concerning  the vote or social politics and education, also after taking over by the Wigs responsibility for their governance. Radicals were in favor of limiting the expenditure of the budget and it is their group that gave rise to a  movement for the free trade and duty free corn and Manchester school of economics.

The group which joined Wigs with radicals were religious nonconformists, who were activists demanding religious freedom and equality for the great range of Protestant beliefs and churches in the country where Anglicanism was a religion preferred by the crown and Tories. The fourth and the most loosely connected with others power in liberal coalition was the Irish liberation movement aiming at abolishing the union between Great Britain and Ireland and also fighting with some other religious discrimination that aimed at Catholics. In the end, as a result of schism caused by the conflict around duty free corn the coalition was joined by the fifth group called “Peel Tories”,  in favor of protectionism in foreign trade and constituting the conservative wing.

The liberal movement was really powerful in Germany due to building of the united, national German state which was to adopt a liberal system of constitutional monarchy. For decades the liberal movement was synonymous with the national unity movement because many people became proponents of it. German liberals were successful in joining the matter or unity, i.e. national and patriotic response with classic ideas of liberalism, i.e. freedom response. Theoretically such an attempt could have been made in Poland as well.

The key difference, however, was that in German conditions the fight for a new statehood was against the resistance of the conservative citizens and proponents of fragmentation – liberalism could reach for a patriotic argument to define itself in one nation as one party. Whereas in Poland, the fight for statehood was against the strangers, so the national division was the most important here.

In Italy, the liberal movement managed to unite the country – this fact decided about liberal domination on the political scene until the First World War. There were favorable circumstances for the liberals. Because the main opponent of Italy was the Papal State and anticlerical movement that raised as a result enabled the liberals to realize the program of building the Laic state despite a great Italian attachment  to the traditional place of the Church in the public life. Other dominant subjects of Italian debates helped a few fractions of the liberal movement to take over the whole political scene for several years.

In France through the whole 19th century there was a debate about the form of the system of the country which guaranteed liberals a strong political position. Their first success which was the construction of the constitutional monarchy (1830-1848) was marked by a simultaneous objection of the liberals against three regimes, none of which fulfilled citizens’ aspirations; neither egalitarian and quasi-socialistic, based on terror, regime of revolutionary Jacobins, nor plebiscite-populist and nationalistic Napoleon dictatorship, nor conservative and clerical Bourbon restoration.

The liberal movement in France was divided into several fractions: liberal legitimists, Orlean doctrinaires, left centre, republicans and smaller groups such as dynastic left or Tiers party. Lack of compromise between them led to the collapse of the July monarchy and quick defeat of the following republic.

Yet, the experience of anti-liberal governance of the Second Empire led to the success of the system vision in the form of the Third Republic. Actions in the social sphere provided sympathies and support for the liberals. The fight against the clerical influence were also a driving force of liberalism in Belgium and Spain.

During last years of the 19th century liberal parties transformed themselves into parties with massive membership. Beside the program of social reforms on secularization of education and supporting it on purely scientific base, or the elimination of signs of actual inequality being the remains of the feudal society, such postulates of liberal politicians like free trade and abolishing duties (very often responsible for hunger), the regulation of the relationship of land property and improving housing conditions, fundamental peace approach to international politics, and first of all reforms connected with the appearance of the democratic trend in liberalism (the reform of the vote, enabling lower strata people to take official positions) and social trend (regulations on work time, minimal wages, work security, trade unions, security for the old age and availability of the healthcare) were supported.

Liberal backwardness

It is important to enumerate those problems because it will enable us to understand what was the source of the success of liberalism and how far from Polish political elites troubles during annexation were those problems. When Poland regained independence subjects dominating in the world politics changed. The interwar times were the period of the deepest crisis of liberalism. It was not the time when authentic Polish liberalism could develop. When this idea started to regain strength after the World War II Poland was again moved outside the major evolutionary trend of normal politics.

We entered the phase of real socialism without our own liberalism or at best with rickety liberalism, opposition to people’s governance very rarely reached for pure liberal ideas, however, they were perfect to criticize and resist communism as they were completely contradictory  to Communism. Only in the 80’s liberal ideas were injected into the Polish ground from abroad.

It was a reaction to a worsening state of the Polish economy in the  People’s Republic of Poland. But as a work of just a few fiends it did not have any support in authentic mass movement because it lacked tradition and premises. Moreover, they reached only for economic liberalism completely ignoring or passing over other elements of this ideology. The reason for this state of matters was the great importance of the catholic church in the antisocialist resistance of the late People’s Republic of Poland which has always treated the elements of this liberal credo with hostility. After the next regaining of independence in 1989 an authentic liberal party had no chance of being formed in the Polish reality. Several parties reached for liberalism only fragmentarily, inconsequently, often quietly and with shame. Former attempts to form a Polish liberal party of the 21^st century such as the Freedom Union under the leadership of Władysław Frasyniuk between 2002 and 2005 were unsuccessful. The next few years are yet to show what will the fate of Paweł Piskorski’s Democratic Party if it at all try to represent a genuine liberal program.

This article is an attempt to diagnose historical causes of liberal tradition weakness in Poland. As usual we put blame on our backwardness even if in this case it is difficult to blame us for this state of matters. We were deprived of our own country several times in the modern history. So Polish elites must not be blamed that in such circumstances they focused on the most important fact – independence. Not having our own country we were deprived of the possibility to develop normally, both as individuals and as a national unity of fate in many aspects. It heavily and negatively influenced the development of the liberal idea in our country.

There is one conclusion. It is rather impossible to copy a Western European model of a liberal party and transferring it onto the Polish grounds. We, as Polish liberals today, in favorable conditions of liberal democracy, rationalization and globalization of the 21^st century should do what Western liberals did in the 19^th century – find political debate which will genuinely concern Polish matters today and tomorrow just to present a liberal prescription for problems connected with it. We should build our own, domestic liberal program from scratch relying on the international intellectual achievements. Only in this way will we be able to build a stable structure and a stable support, deeply rooted in our Polish social reality.

Translation: Małgorzata Mrożewska; gosiamro@interia.pl

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwerfeldein/152402390/sizes/m/

Since time immemorial

Restrictive approach to the sexuality of young people has very long “traditions”. The intimate sphere was subject to tight control and restrictions in many tribes that evolved into the Western civilization. Countless and irrational rituals and superstitious beliefs arose around it. Mentality required treating the sexual potential of young women as a special sort of “good” that was guarded by the elders of the tribe, and directly by the father and brothers of a woman. They were obliged to protect her virginity and hand over the woman to the future husband intact. Hence, young women’s sexuality was treated as father’s private property and was at his disposal (except for incest taboo) until marriage. This meant subjecting these women to slavery, and although it did not involve their whole personality but one vital sphere of life, it has to be called this way. According to Christian ethics, young men’s sexuality was controlled in the same way, though not so rigorously. They were obliged to abstain from sex until marriage too. Society extended a compelling control over them too. It was weaker as a result of the pre-Christian cultural code and patriarchal social structure. “Close your eyes and think of England”, mocked today, used to be a widespread proverb in England that referred to women who were expected to give birth to male descendants of royal families. They were to think about England also during the intercourse so that, God forbid, a thought about potential ecstasy would not cross their minds. The above description of extremely repressive sexual ethics in some cultural circles remains valid even today. A lot has changed in the Latin civilization and the scope of restrictive ethics has decreased. However, the mentality, instinct and inclination to embrace control over young people and introduce prohibitions are still present. Sexual abstinence does not cease to be highly valued in many societies, also after marriage. It is perceived as a means of self-control, discipline, ability to oppose instincts that are considered “low”, “dirty” and “despicable”. Ideally, sex should serve exclusively procreative purposes and never utilitarian ones, since drawing pleasure from it is perceived as sinful.

After the Second World War, especially due to changes in social conventions and spreading oral contraceptives in the 1960’s, the significance and value of premarital sexual abstinence decreased drastically. Yet, the problem of controlling and restricting young people gained in social importance. Teenagers started to reach physical maturity earlier as a result of improving standard of living, particularly in terms of nutrition. In case of girls, it has changed from 17 years two centuries ago to even 12 years nowadays. On the other hand, the average age of marriage in the USA, which hardly exceeded 20 before the social revolution half a century ago, now amounts to 25 for women and 27 for men. If we define “the trial period” when a family has to impose restrictions and repressions on the sexuality of its young members as a period of time since reaching physical sexual maturity until getting married, which marks the socially accepted start of sexual activity, then it has extended from 3 to 13 years, that is over 400%. We have to add increasing awareness of sexual needs among young people. It is connected with an easier access to materials of erotic character and decreasing emotional maturity, which results from many factors, such as common cultural infantilization. Consequently, “the trial period” has become a much more difficult challenge and a complex problem for teachers, those who still support restrictive sexual ethics as well as those who notice real problems in adolescence and perceive them in a rational manner, free from superstitions of the archaic cultural code.

“Morality” and morality

Nowadays liberal sexual ethics dominates in Western countries. Restrictive ethics remains present in numerous social groups that are usually louder and more eager to present their stand in an exaggerated way, of course using religious arguments very frequently. Political elites of most countries are one of the groups that cling to restrictive ethics. A political leader, “a leader of a nation” should be rather prudish and generally more conservative than an average citizen in sexual issues according to a sort of social contract between the ruling and ruled, rituals connected with politics or even political correctness. People representing liberal views on it accepted this state of affairs and settle for legislative idleness of politicians and limiting their attachment to restrictive sexual ethics to declarations, gestures and poses. These images are regularly destroyed after showing sex “scandals” of politicians. It does not make any change and the successors again willingly devote themselves to creating conservative appearances. It seems to result from a tradition of the elders of tribes who perceived embracing young and inexperienced members with trusteeship as their duty. They strived to protect them from the consequences of yielding to temptations. The main reason for natural inclination to conservative attitudes in terms of sexuality is that restrictive sexual ethics is still perceived as more moral and responsible than liberal ethics. The question is whether this thesis is reasonable.

The traditional Christian hierarchy of values, where every form of premarital and extramarital sex is considered to be morally evil, is basic for the thesis that morality obliges us to choose the restrictive sexual ethics. If sexual abstinence until marriage and virginity as such are important values, then activities that effectively prevent their loss, strict imperatives and prohibitions during “the trial period” are reasonable. They gain moral superiority over the strategy of education which allows their loss. There is no point arguing with the matters of faith, of course. Attempts to prove little or a lack of value of virginity and sexual abstinence are worthless. But apart from that, there are still questions concerning the thesis about high moral value of the restrictive sexual ethics. There is no doubt that man will generate drives and sexual needs naturally and independently of their own. Punishing for drives is hence definitely immoral, since punishing an individual for circumstances independent from them is always unfair. Legitimacy of restraining drives and specific acts resulting from drives is disputable, however. Somebody who perceives the value of virginity and abstinence as absolute will of course admit this legitimacy. A person that will take into consideration other moral issues may answer in a different way. Firstly, the restrictive moral ethics is based on beliefs and views referring to permitted and prohibited sexual acts that are completely arbitrary. Thus, imposing them on another man raises moral objection from the liberal point of view. Secondly and more importantly, sexual needs constitute a great power. Restraining and penalizing them, making young people feel guilty, loading their conscience with such a burden and placing them in front of difficult dilemmas due to ideological convictions of arbitrary people raises doubts of ideological nature, actually. It is  sort of abuse.

In the end, there is a question whether those who absolutize virginity achieve moral goals they seek. Hypocrisy and Grundyism have accompanied the restrictive sexual ethics for ages. Typically used alternatives for a standard sexual intercourse that is banned are other sexual behaviours, especially oral sex which formally does not violate the absolute value of virginity. It is hard to reckon this social phenomenon, known as “technical virginity”, a moral success of the strategy based on prohibitions and sexual oppression.

“Responsibility” and responsibility

The fact that abstinence protects us from unwanted pregnancy and venereal diseases constitutes an indisputable argument in favour of sexual abstinence and the restrictive ethics in education, if we talk about responsibility. The problem lies somewhere else. The restrictive ethics involves the conviction that knowledge about sex, especially contraception, is an invitation and encouragement to sex. According to this view, such knowledge constitutes a threat for the ultimate task of protecting virginity. Hence, the objective in terms of young people’s education is to isolate them from this knowledge as far as possible. This is how the restrictive sexual ethics shows its extreme irresponsibility.

If human sexual drives were weak impulses, isolating young people from knowledge and keeping them in the darkness of ignorance would have some cynical sense, possibly. Since they are powerful forces that modify human behaviour to a large extent, however, ignorance is dangerous and increases the risk. Supporters of the restrictive ethics very unwillingly admit that their system based on prohibitions and control often turns out to be ineffective and ends in failure. Young people decide to ignore the ban in certain circumstances. Then, lack of knowledge exposes them to additional threats, diseases and unwanted pregnancy. Knowledge about sex and contraception is in fact an insignificant incentive to devote oneself to sexual acts compared to numerous impulses in media, culture and environment. Isolation from the whole contemporary world, peers brought up according to another kind of ethics, life in seclusion or in a religious community would be the only effective solution. If we do not choose one of these, knowledge must be delivered. Another solution is irresponsible.

It brings visible negative consequences. Teenagers suffer from ignorance and excessive embarrassment concerning the intimate sphere of life. They are not able to break the barriers rooted in their personality to find knowledge from other sources than the family home where they cannot obtain it. There are cases of girls convinced that they are dying on the day of the first menstruation because no one equipped them with knowledge of this matter. The widely described so called “surprised virgin syndrome” refers to girls that experienced the first sexual intercourse unaware of the fact that they were dealing with an actual sexual intercourse. There is sociological research concerning movements like “True Love Waits” in the United States, according to which young people swear to live in chastity until marriage. It has shown certain effectiveness that manifests in a statistically later time of sexual initiation than in the case of teenagers who did not take an oath. On the other hand, a great deal of those members who broke the oath did not use any form of contraception. Statistically they admit  more often than the average of whole population that they did not plan the intercourse, and school initiatives for the sake of abstinence even increase the number of pregnant teenagers. All this, of course, results from reluctance to provide young people with reliable knowledge due to completely absurd reasons. The culture of the Western civilization is still affected by the problem of inability to perceive teenagers as beings that have the sexual dimension. There is still a lack of a mature approach to their education, without taboos, stereotypes or harmful prudery. The responsible solution is a rational approach based on openness and intergeneration dialogue on sex issues.

Of course the opposite of the restrictive sexual ethics, that is an encouragement for early sexual initiation, would be equally or even more irresponsible. In fact, there are good reasons for which delaying initiation makes sense and actions taken up for its sake are responsible. However, the arguments do not consist in irrational convictions or beliefs about the value of abstinence, inhibitions, combating needs and drives and finally the mythical purity. A good reason for consideration is the gap between the pace of physical and emotional maturation of people. It is not a good idea to devote oneself to actions we are physically prepared to but not emotionally, not to mention the economical ability to face the consequences like pregnancy. An individual should make use of freedom, including sexual, if one is ready to cope with potential and probable consequences responsibly. It is a reflection based on most rational premises, not a quasi-religious dogma.  It is a suggestion, to which young people ought to be encouraged by means of an honest introduction to the problem. They should be given full knowledge that is free from the ideological filter, confronted with arguments “for” and “against” as well as warning against a series of possible negative consequences that  objectively exist. In the end, however, there is no other solution than leaving a free choice. It is impossible to establish full control and effective repression anyway. Instead, we need to trust the reason of well-shaped young people and respect them. We have to assume that their choices concerning the time of sexual initiation will be the right choices for their individual cases.

Instead of responsibility

Lack of openness, rationalism and freedom from sexual inhibitions have many negative consequences we can observe. Even a fully adult person still cannot achieve emotional maturity in terms of the intimate sphere of life if they have been brought up in extreme oppression towards their sexuality. Serious behavioural disorders result from loading personality, conscience and a sense of guilt with a mixture of taboo, shame and impulsive reactions. Ignorance of sexual matters remains, because there is still opposition against possessing such knowledge. It has disastrous effects on the education of children and discomfort of  parents discourages children from asking any questions. Not only does it pass sexual oppressiveness down to next generations, but it also can hinder any dialogue within a family on all topics and weaken the trust between parents and children.

Marriages also suffer from the way premarital sexual abstinence is idealized. Strong polygamous inclinations of many people certainly lead to countless divorces around the world. Premarital experiences with a number of partners may restrict sexual needs that lead to unfaithfulness, though it is not a guarantee of course. A lack of such experiences and “discovering” the sexual sphere after marriage undoubtedly can constitute an impulse to make up for earlier abstinence and result in infidelity.

Thus, basing sexual education on promoting premarital abstinence may have disastrous consequences after marriage too. Currently we can observe growing opposition in terms of institutionalized sexual education on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Radically religious movements are very strong in the US in the political and social spheres. They agree to finance educational programmes provided abstinence is promoted in the first place. In Europe, on the other hand, more pragmatic premises weigh upon the profile of education. Rational analysis of reality requires resigning from the American approach as highly ineffective.

Unfortunately, Poland is much closer to the American model, which of course results from excessive influences religion exerts upon social life in our country. Sexual education as such is perceived as evil, depravation, demoralization and “spoiling” young people. Instead, a subject called euphemistically “education for family life” is taught at schools. In this case, however, euphemism incautiously exposes ideologically motivated inadequacy. The point in educating young people lies in preparing them to live before they found a family and not after its foundation.

Fear is a bad advisor

The restrictive sexual ethics is a product of ignorance, mistrust, lack of belief, arrogance, ideological obstinacy, religious dogmatism, and above all fear. Fear from the problems of unwanted pregnancy or diseases, such as AIDS, inclines people to use seemingly the easiest solution: prohibition, control, restriction and a threat of punishment. “Strong” response to the threat creates the best illusion of security. Time after time, we realise that people do not analyse problems rationally and prefer ostensible security or even its illusion over freedom. It works in a similar way as in the case of public security, where the criminal code is toughened up as a result of an increasing crime rate, civil liberties withdrawn due to terrorism, and secret services obtain extra rights because of corruption. Fear from losing a job or poverty acts analogically and results in stiffening of the labour code, increasing benefits and taxes. These reactions are always wrong, but closer to the human nature.

The liberal sexual ethics offers freedom that always involves some risk. However, it is based on respect for the autonomic character of a person. Man has the right to choose, but also the obligation to suffer the consequences. Man has the right to determine one’s own fate. If one has enough knowledge, they will probably make the right choice. The ability to make a responsible decision constitutes a basis of moral behaviour. Seeking pleasure in life is normal and does not deserve condemnation. That is why unnatural sexual actions are not automatically immoral. The only condition of morality is voluntary participation of all people engaged in a given sexual practice. Voluntariness gives rise to acceptability. Hence, the only inacceptable and absolutely immoral act by definition is the act of rape. Rape includes every act that involves people who are unable to express their will due to their age or for example mental disorders.

Irresponsible sex, in turn, is an act that involves people who are mentally immature for it. Actions that sustain this immaturity as well as ignoring it by refusing young people the access to knowledge and education in the atmosphere of taboo and banned topics are extremely irresponsible. Premarital sex as such, on the other hand, is neither immoral nor irresponsible, just like sexual experiments that should not be the subject of interest or evaluating by the outsiders and all the more socio-political organizations.

TŁUMACZENIE: MAREK PLINTA; marek.plinta@gmail.com

Patriotism is understood in many various ways not only in Poland but all around the world. Its definition is imprecise and it is frequently mistaken with chauvinism or nationalism. In our Polish tradition it generally has positive connotations, which is supported by setting the patriotic attitudes from Polish history as role models or by the strongly emphasised in public life symbolism of honouring our patriots who fought and died for Poland. Increasingly it is identified with the works in aid of community we live in, the worthy representation of the place and community we come from, the works in favour of fellowman, their rights and the organic work. Patriotism seems, at least in its principles, to be a category integrating the society and strengthening inter-human relations and giving us the possibility of self-realisation.

The Smolensk tragedy and the spontaneous reaction of Poles in the first days after the catastrophe seemed to be the manifestation of that patriotic solidarity – the bipartisan union in face of the loss of so many meritorious citizens. And for the politicians from the opposite sides, for the journalists from mutually fighting news desks, for the ruling and the ruled, for the whole pluralism of public and social life it was a chance, or rather a test for the skill of finding our collective values and for going beyond the divisions in the name of the human dimension of the loss. This hope, thought, turned out to be a naive illusion. For some part of the political arena, represented by certain right-wing publicists and journalists the Smolensk tragedy became an excuse to perform a symbolical rape of the semantics of the notion of patriotism, an excuse to ruthlessly abridge and deform it in the name of their political visions or interests.

The film presented on the public television, the articles in some newspapers were trying to shove down our throats that the genuine patriotism should rise from our mistrust towards our neighbours (Russians), the authorities (the government, the Civic Platform), particular media (Gazeta Wyborcza, TVN) and towards one another (those “dishonest” Poles). The core of the imitable patriotic attitudes was seen as the skill of defying the feeling of mischief and finding an external enemy responsible for the situation. If it represented a certain political option, media or foreign country – the better! The stigmatisation of the behaviours one could not agree with became a political act, and thereby the opponents were excluded from a fair debate. And that is how dramatic endeavours of securing the new definition of deformed patriotism emerged on our political and media arena, trying to divide Poles into the better and the worse – the “genuine” patriots and the “bland”, meaning worse, rest. Can we call such attitudes patriotic?

That ‘tool-like’ treatment of patriotism has nothing to do with the potentiation of Poles’ sense of entity, what the authors seem to suggest. They need to draw a clear line of the division between the fellows and enemies and then serve this “stuff” in a patriotic package for entirely different purpose: e.g. for certain groups to gain power, to authenticate their own proceedings and views, or to show the inferiority of views and proceedings of their opponents. I do not have to add what this has in common with the independent and reliable journalism.

The patriotism which perceives any enemy as its cornerstone is shallow, oafish and blown out of all proportion. It merely appears to be innocuous, not only externally – as its followers, who spread the fear ideology, would like it to be and have foreigners’ respect. Such patriotism is destructive above all internally, it divides its own nation by framing the individual groups into a conflict. It weans us off the dialogue with others and does not prepare us for the encounter with strangers. It pumps the mistrust and insecurity into us, makes us live under constant threat and the impression that everyone different than us is deceptive. There is nothing strange when some are ashamed of such patriotism or such understanding of Polishness.

The sense of national pride or the building up of the affirmation of being a Pole which creates a habit of working for one’s own community and society or the fatherland, cannot be based on strengthening the attitudes mentioned above, by restricting to filling our insecurities with some national fanfaronade or explaining them with conspiracy theories. We need a thorough consideration of Polish patriotism and getting rid of the traditional 19^th-century understanding of it. If we remain in the shackles of the not actual definitions from the past world, we will be a colourful European heritage park of mistrust and misunderstanding.

It is true that Polish patriotism is terribly wronged by our tragic history. The though fate of our nation, the fight to regain independence and sovereignty, the defiance towards the cruellest totalitarianisms for almost 200 years have left a mark on our psyche, on the way we perceive the world and how we approach fellowmen. However, in the same history we achieved our goals only when we managed to rise above our dislikes to – instead of dividing – communicate over the divisions. The first generation of Poles born in free, libertine, independent and democratic Poland is currently starting out their grownup life. We should not allow the ghosts of past to determine their attitude towards Poland and patriotism. Our fears of the past must not spoil their openness and the will to discover and improve the world around them.

Today we need the traditionally understood patriotism to much smaller extent. It was meant as a shield defending us from the outer threats, but nowadays we want its modern dimension, which should invite us to openness, to sacrificing for the fellowman, to promote the attitudes important for us, but also to understanding the diversity. Today all that is patriotic does not have to be restricted to Polish boundaries or to an eagle in identity card. The respect for the common values like human rights, democracy, the multicultural dialogue or a tolerant discussion of our worldview and religious ancestry are universal values and they do not exclude patriotism. Poles, though, for decades have not got the chance to nurture them.

We should be connected with one another by the activity in the third sector, by helping others, by being proud of our achievements instead of delight of a common defined or exposed enemy. Patriotism should be perceived as positive and open, not excluding because of a antithetic political outlook, religion of worldview. The genuine patriotism is not only about loving some ideal fatherland but about loving, ascertaining and working for the actual components of the homeland: land, society, people and their riches – as Bolesław Prus once wrote.

It is worth asking the key question of the debate: is patriotism an attitude that can be externally assessed? Or is it an individual element of one’s identity and cannot be a point of reference for others? The conflict over Polish patriotism is just a part of a wider worldview strife characterising contemporary Polish society. The latter exhibits in primeval dichotomies: the community versus the individuality, romanticism versus positivism, the fall of aristocratic culture versus the newborn bourgeois tradition, or perceiving the state as un ultimate commonweal versus seeing it as a (payable) administrative service for the inhabitants. The conflict over narrowing the notion of patriotism is just an example of them, just another battleground for foisting a certain pattern of behaviour on the society, for assigning a new hierarchy of attitudes and conducts.

“It is worth discussing” as one television programme says. But perhaps it is worth learning first what the dialogue and the respect for the interlocutor and their opinions is. The trouble with understanding the alternative attitudes, motivations or operations is mutual and only by openness for one another and a lot of good will we can break it. We should reject the attitude of inaccessibility. It is never too late. We can  – like nobody else – integrate up against a common enemy. But we rarely notice that it can lie in wait in ourselves…

Translated by A. Kumycz

Dahrendorf was that liberal who openly questioned the basic thesis put by Carl Marx, according to which all social conflicts are signs of class struggle for property. What Marxists considered to be a fundamental flywheel of the history of the mankind, Dahrendorf perceived as an unacceptable simplification. In fact social conflicts have the nature of fight for (differently understood) power and they do not necessarily have to run along the mythical line of demarcation, separating possessors from hired workers. They overlap each other in a variety of ways. Depending on the context and the subject of a conflict, they create a countless mosaic of all sorts of motives, attitudes, impulses, not always material – what’s more, not always rational. Conflicts are an inevitable and constant phenomena, particularly within democratic conditions. The best way to avoid dangers which are caused by them is a well-established pluralistic society. A conflict of interests must have the ability to ‘occur’ within a social-political system. Otherwise it may become a source of challenging the system.

Entitlements versus the freedom of choice

Then, social conflicts usually correspond with the scheme ‘more entitlements’ versus ‘more freedom of choice’. They take place between two typical kinds of claims, whose logic pushes them into a mutual conflict. The former type of claim, more entitlements, is satisfied in contemporary practice by a social state that gives a new, required entitlement to the interested, most often at the expense of economic freedom or effectivness of economy. The driving force of the claim ‘more entitlements’ is the idea of equality (also financial), or rather a well-described by sociology phenomenon of discomfort resulting from the experienced or perceived relative inequality of social-economic status, oversimplifying – “neighbourly jealousy”. This triggers an irrational feeling of unjustice, resulting from the conviction that the lack of financial equality is synonymous to questioning the equality of human beings as such. To demand a redistributive intervention appears to be identical with the restoration of equality before the law, hence it is a call for ‘more entitlements’. Satisfying the latter type of claim, ‘more freedom of choice’ is closely related with the economic growth, that is to say it can be satisfied only by economic efficiency, which is objectively higher when there is limited interventionism and reduction of social functions of the state. Its source are aspirations of the individuals who in their comprehension of ideal life go beyond the widespread standards or generally available options of choice.

The point is, the claim ‘more entitlements’ is generated by a comparative feeling of inferiority, that is to say, it can also be manifested by fairly affluent people. It is a limitation of a high level, while the claims refer to even a higher level. On the other hand, aspirations which cause the claim ‘more freedom of choice’ might occur independently of the financial situation of the person. Thus, the conflict between those typical kinds of claims does not necessarily have to be based on economic factors. It is not a conflict: the poor against the wealthy. This doesn’t mean, however, that it can never adopt such a basic formula. Nevertheless, it means that Marx and his followers are mistaken when they believe that the conflict always adopts such a formula.

Here, we deal with a conflict between a requirement of economic performance on the one hand and a need of the sense of justice (which determines the real social cohesion) on the other hand. Settling the dispute depends greatly on the influence exerted by advocates of both sides, this means on their political freedom which is the third crucial category here.

Ralf Derendorf postulates that the aim of liberalism should be providing at the same time political freedom, economic performance and social coherence. This task doesn’t seem to be easy.

The three deficient models

1. Adopting a literally neoliberal recipe is certainly a good means of increasing economic performance. Low immediate taxes and costs of work not connected with earnings, high flexibility of job market, deregulation and privatisation, that is to say the state’s withdrawal from economic sphere, makes it easy for the private enterpreneurs to achieve success and gives rise impulses to the economy. This rise, however, doesn’t bring about the improvement of the situation of the individual people from all social classes. The link is particularly indiscernible on a short term basis. Greater competitivness of the economy and financial potential of comanies are not reflected by domestic budgets of the majority of citizens. The newly created vacancies are less paid than those which were reduced. Big social groups become actually excluded, which additionally leads to – sometimes quite violent – outbreaks of social discontent. The respect towards law decreases. The state starts to be perceived as an institution both weak and unfriendly. There is a growing sense of public order being at risk. These phenomena, together with the liquidation of welfare benefits, result in a remarkable decline of financial situation of many people and lead to popularisation of the opinions about unjust distribution of the ‘growth fruit’ and to the crisis of social cohession. Dahrendorf argues that a society, which truly aspires to realisation of liberal values, cannot agree to such a course of events on moral basis. Non-economic field of life requires then separate legal regulations.

2. Prosperity is not determined by an economic factor, but also by a social one. Companies aware of this fact on their own initiative pursue providing their employees with the best possible work conditions, increasing the number or work places, they don’t maximize profits at the expense of the level of payment. This is considered a positive contribution to strenghtening of social cohesion. However, this is true that in most cases such actions are imposed by social laws of the state and the pressure exerted by public opinion. A big number of comparatively high welfare benefits forces the Parliament to pass high taxes. Maintaining high standards of employment denotes the necessity of imposing a number of duties on employers, including paying costly contributions. The state guarantees that a part of them will be assigned for high pensions of the people who no longer have the manufacturing capacity. ertainly, the sense of social security and justcewill be great in the case of such an economic model. Plus, the risk for social cohesion will be low. Especially because most citizens opt for entitlements, not for the possibility of choice. Prosperous countries, in the presence of constantly growing claims, in the long run do not bear well the burden of allocated benefits. Their economic performance turns out to be too low to cover the costs of social cohesion. The economic growth doesn’t keep the pace with the rise of expenses, particularly because limiting the economic freedom make it impossible to take full advantage of existing potential. Inefficiency of this solution renders it useless from the liberal point of view.

3. Efforts to maintin a certain model of balance between cohesion and efficiency lead to the necessity of reaching out for authoritarian solutions, that is to say – to limiting political freedom. It happens especially when the preferred model inclines to efficiency, whereas most citizens would choose entitlements, that is they would prefer the model leaning to cohesion. Hence, in the opposite direction. In the face of exclusion and growing frustration of the impoverished social masses, the only way to preserve strictly market-orienteered economic system turns out to be depriving them of the right to voice during the process of making political decisions. Otherwise, the political forces which are opting for the policy of cohesion and welfare protection would gain the majority of voices and resign from neoliberal solutions. A similar problem is caused by the resistance against efforts to limit social protection benefits in a state which carried out a coherent policy until then, but at some point faced serious problems and is now forced to swing the balance in favour of policy of efficiency. There are many examples of authoritarian countries that, thanks to sacrificing political freedom, are able to succesfully meet the requirements of of efficiency as well as cohesion through submitting all areas of political life to a strict controll and through making authoritary decisions once for the sake of efficiency, at other times for the sake of cohesion. They make such decisions considering each case independently. This way, such countries maintain the appropriate balance, which is not disrupted by any criticism, strike or political opposition’s activity. These are not, by any means, solutions compatible with liberal values.

Coexistence of freedom, efficiency and cohesion

Ralf Dahrendorf believes that the only solution compatible with liberal ideas is coexistence of freedom, efficiency and cohesion. The state must unconditionally leave political freedom in the hands of a citizen It must be flawlessly democratic. It cannot respond to difficulties and dangers with limiting individual rights. The state must keep such economic policy which will facilitate taking the maximum advantage of social-economic potential and satisfying requirements of efficiency, without which the other two values will always be at risk. Moreover, the state ought to secure decent living conditions to every citizen as it is its moral duty. The taks of maintaing cohesion should rest on the shoulders of the active civic society, the society taking up a number of various initiatives and able to provide help without engaging the state financially, i.e. without a harm to the efficiency. Civil initiative should be able to count on the institutional and legal support of the state. Voluntary locating each individual in a thick net of social interconnections is likely to help to successfully identify and solve social problems. Obviously, cohesion doesn’t mean that there won’t be absolutely any social tensions. Nor does it mean the uniformization of individuals. However, as Dahrendorf wrote, “interconnections within civic society bring along the values of trust and cooperation, they include others to the community. A civic society is a society of citizens who have rights and take on duties (…) It is a society trying to prove that nobody has been excluded and offering their members a sense of belonging, as well as the constitution of freedom”.

Translation: Magdalena Jermacz

The author owns “Liberte” readers an explanation. As I took part, from the very first days of the transformation (or even much earlier), in various liberal program trials and errors, I created, sometimes alone, sometimes with others, numerous proposals concerning such a program. At first they were obviously proposals concerning systemic changes, but from the second part of the 90’s, after democracy and market economy in Poland settled down for good, they became just reform proposals, that is changes within the existing, yet imperfect, system. Changes which were not infrequently very radical. So I decided, in the moment liberal discourse was revived on the pages of a this new monthly, to recall some of the proposals. Those, who are universal in nature and should be kept in mind at all times, treating them like the meter from Sevres near Paris – checking the compatibility of current rules of the game and changes proposed by politicians with this liberal meter. But also those, which are far from being fulfilled on the scale necessary on our Polish arena.

ECONOMY SURROUNDINGS: STATE – LAW – POLITICS
Polish state, although highly interventionist, is in essence weak.

Such extensive interventionism is in fact one of of the main causes of its weakness. It is hard, however, to move away from such interventionism, as two trends overlap. One of them is a tendency, inherited from the totalitarian state, to engage in and regulate everything. Large part of the society is accustomed to the fact that the state thinks and makes decisions for them, and they believe this should carry on in the future. This in turn, is reinforced by another tendency characteristic to democratic welfare states. Such states are overloaded with the amount and variety of demands of numerous interest groups, which breeds tendency to expand the state apparatus (”an office is an answer to everything”, as a sign of interest of the government with the demands of a given group). This, however, intensifies the feeling of irresponsibility in the clients from these interest groups. “Overloaded democracy” functions less efficiently everywhere; in post-communist reality its functioning is even worse, because the tradition of seeking agreement with rival interest groups has been completely destroyed by the previous system, and new habits do not help achieving this agreement. Nothing showed better, how easy it is to slip from such a situation into an authoritarian state or, as a minimum, into ‘anti-liberal democracy”, hostile towards freedom (according to a definition of Fareed Zakaria), than two years of PiS rule.

A state, which tries to extend its regulation and immediate control over wider and wider spectrum of issues, must – due to overloading with too many problems – be fulfilling its role inefficiently. And while holding a lot, its grip becomes weak. As a result, it insufficiently fulfills its basic functions of ensuring law and order. The system of coercion and the judicial system are also overloaded with numerous duties and changing concepts of politicians on the efficiency of various means. Politicization of law turns the rule of law into rule with the help of law, that is the rule of politicians. The system uses the law like the drunkard from the joke uses the street lamp – for support, not for enlightenment.

We are also influenced by a line of thinking stemming from the evolution of Western civilization, which presumes a causative force of law-making as a cure for any social disease. Such wishful thinking, contrary to the tradition dating back to Roman times, drastically limits the reliability of law. The contemporary ideal state of law is limited to the certainty what law is in force today, in a given issue. It gives no guarantee that the same rules will be in force tomorrow, as the parliamentary majority can change a given regulation any given day. In a post-communist country such as Poland, a morbid amalgam is created, of complete disregard of legal norms, stemming from communism and a legislative diarrhea which, despite intentions, intensifies the legal insecurity.

On top of state and legal weaknesses, difficult to eradicate, as they stem both from our recent history and from the peculiar, deforming influence of the very civilization we are trying to return to, we suffer from a specific, post-communist tendency of political groups to appropriate the state. Political parties are not deeply rooted in the society; they rarely act in the clear interest of particular social groups. That is why they try to empower themselves even more, using the state as a spoil of the victorious party or coalition. Such appropriation is conducted most usually in two ways.

Firstly, through creating a new party nomenclature: appointments to various positions in public administration are only bestowed through the party, going down the administrative ladder (and appropriating lower positions). It lowers the efficiency of the administration, as the division of knowledge and skills rarely matches the division in the party. Administrative efficiency is also decreased through a chain of changes, brought up by the shifts in ruling coalitions.

Secondly, through a phenomenon called “political capitalism”. A still too large state sector and incomprehensible (often on purpose!) rules of the game, create the opportunities to apply the criteria of party membership (or a silent support for a given party) while selecting both specialists, as well as the executors of public procurements. Through this, the effectiveness of economic system suffers.

The above mentioned diagnosis of Polish democracy weaknesses leads to two conclusions of the most general nature, which can become the basis on which the direction of healing the Republic of Poland can be specified. The reaction to the perceived degenerations of civilization and peculiar Polish (and more broadly: post-communist) problems is the postulate of those who see themselves in the center of political scene, that is to limit the role of the state to minimum. If the state fails to deal with a growing list of problems, which various group of interests demand to be settled after their heart, it should limit itself only to those issues which cannot be resolved without the state. “Better less, but better” is becoming the main theme in the program of the supporters of minimum state.

The second element of the diagnosis, from which also particular conclusions can be made, is to recognize the fact that Polish capitalism suffers from a lot less degeneration than Polish democracy. Although the effectiveness of the economic system suffers as a result of various manifestations of “political capitalism”, fortunately it is still a minor part, compared to the value of transactions constituting global sales of goods and services in the private sector of Polish economy. As a consequence of this diagnosis, one must acknowledge the fact that in such circumstances allocation by the market should in most cases replace the allocation through political decisions. It should be noted that this conclusion was not based on any ideological preferences, but on pragmatic ones: relatively lower distortions of the market point to the necessity of relieving the state, which is more prone to distortions, of its allocative functions.

In the part devoted to economy, program proposals are presented, which bring the economic system closer to the minimum-state ideal and put more weight on the necessity of greater allocation through the market. They include tax proposals, proposals limiting redistribution, as well as privatization, regulation, anti-bribery and other proposals. All of these point to the need of limiting the activity of the state. Postulates leading to the minimum of state in the economy should be supplemented by proposals limiting the role of the state in relations with institutions of civic society and in relations with the citizens themselves. This issue will be expanded below.

Public expenditure is always less controlled with regard to its purposefulness and effectiveness than private expenses. For the same reason, it is particularly prone to bribery and corruption. That is why the diagnosis pertaining to the weaknesses of the party system, appropriating the state by the victorious parties and the prevalent phenomenon of “political capitalism” suggest yet another direction of action. Where the application of the postulate of limiting allocative role of the state is impossible – due to the nature of public expenses or even due to tradition difficult to change – the element of the strategy to improve the functioning of public authorities should be the movement of allocative decisions from the level of central power to the level of local government. Both central and local authorities, in their essence representing particular communities, are less effective than private owners. However, the level of control over local authorities by local communities is – due to greater visibility of achievements or negligence of local government – incomparably higher. For this reason the decentralizing strategy is at the same time a strategy of limiting the degeneration of Polish democracy.

Decentralizing strategy, however, should not be limited to extending the role of local government at the expense of less effective center. The rule of self-government, as a key element to civic society, should be understood far more broadly. Stepping out of the model imposed by the communism, of “nationalized society”, means regaining more and more areas of autonomy of individuals, families, professional groups and business circles, which should gain or regain their rights to decide about the areas of their activity, setting their aims and determining the means of their realization. We understand, however, rights in the historical context of balance of rights, including the right to make mistakes and the obligation to bear the responsibility for one’s actions.

LIBERAL ECONOMIC ORDER: DIRECTIONS OF CHANGES

1. No economic program can be started without expressing clear acceptance for the institutional determinants of economic order, almost universally seen as fundamental both for the economic efficiency (creating wealth), and for their relationship with basic values of Western democracy (relationships of economic freedoms with civic freedoms, morality as a foundation of economic order and civic duties, etc). Economic history, especially the experiences of the 20th century, clearly show which institutional determinants and the limits to intervention into creating and distributing wealth are favorable to economic efficiency.

2. Rules of economic freedom, competition and opening on the external world. After a few decades of fascination with economic planning, meticulous interventionism and the possibilities of actions administered or coordinated by the center, the 80’s and the 90’s of the previous century brought about an extensive change in thought and action. It was caused mainly by the failures of developing countries, which after World War 2 chose mainly the path of centralism, replacing private sector with the state, and far reaching isolation from the world market, by the collapse of the communist economic system, or, last but not least, by “over-regulation” and “over-socialization” of many Western economies (inducing the phenomenon of still not fully eradicated “Eurosclerosis”).
That is why today the principle of economic freedom is the irrefutable foundation even where it is more a directive regarding the future, than a current state. Economic freedom – for it to be an effective tool of creating wealth – should be accompanied by competition, together with all its useful, but sometimes painful characteristics (the principle of freedom to enter the market, but also the principle of the need to leave the market when the expenses, being higher than profit, do not allow for further presence on the market). Taking into consideration the fact, that in mass production, on a large scale, there are few manufacturers, the principle of competition means opening towards the global market. Without such opening, monopoly cartel is very likely to arise, harmful for the consumer and the economy as an effectively functioning whole.

3. Economic freedom and competition in the market economy are only warrants of effectiveness, when they are based on the dominant private ownership. The experiences from contemporary history prove, that never and nowhere in the world had the experiment of creating market economy without dominant private ownership (”capitalism without capitalists”) succeeded. Looking pragmatically, as a minimum aim we should consider Poland reaching the state present in Western countries with large public sector, i.e. maximum of 10-15% of the production in the company sector (in 2007 it was almost 30%!). There is therefore still a lot to do in this respect.
Avoiding economic woolgathering, we should clearly distance ourselves from the temptation of seeking a so called third way. We are aware that the notion, attractive for some, of “social market economy” formulated in Germany in the 40’s, was nothing else but a liberal market economy (presented by the ordo-liberal school) and even more liberal than anything introduced in Poland since 1989. Contemporary German problems (over 4,5 million unemployed, continuing flight of workplaces, among all, to Central and Eastern Europe (including Poland) and other weaknesses) are not the result of social market economy, but over-regulation of German economy and its overloading with welfare state services. These are not – for some- pleasant truths, but they certainly are necessary in understanding the real area of action in economic and social policy.

4. The most secure – and the only one in the long run – way of improving the economic situation of households is still fast economic growth. It relates also to the possibility of redistribution through budget: a “larger cake” to divide means more goods than in a larger piece of slowly growing or even shrinking “cake”. Apart from economic freedom and private ownership, the necessary condition for fast economic growth is another spoil of Polish transformation – a stable, exchangeable currency. It means both contemporary Zloty, as well as the Euro in the (hard to determine) future.
The experiences of countries which managed, over decades, to keep a steady, high rate of GDP growth, prove that it is the policy of monetary authority, preventing excessive emission of currency, and its consequence – low or even non-existent inflation – that encourages the society to save money, and low nominal interest rates and the expectation of the stability of currency, encourage businessmen to invest. It is stable currency, high savings and high investment rate that laid the foundation of Japanese success of the 50’s-70’s. (and not, as some think, “meddling” with the industry structure…).

5. High economic growth (around 7-10% a year), as the experiences of Ireland, closer to us than Japan, show, which solves or, as a minimum, reduces many of the social problems, is only possible in the long run in the conditions of limited budgetary redistribution. It should be clearly noted that motivation for saving, for working effectively, for entrepreneurship or for innovation is impossible to sustain where the state takes almost half of their income from the workers. Public budgets of Japan, South Korea and in Taiwan did not exceed 25% of gross domestic product (not to mention Hong Kong and Singapore where they were even lower!). Also in the Baltic states, and in Slovakia, which are the fastest developing countries in the 21st century, among the transformation countries – EU members, faster pace of GDP growth correlates with level of public expenditure lower than elsewhere.
Decades of nationalization of everything – including the mentality of many citizens – shaped the particular expectations towards the state. That is why a realistic directive for the economic policy should be a gradual but consequent, yearly lowering of the ratio of public budget (and the so called para-budgetary expenses) to the domestic product. Current government announced such a move on a very modest scale; we will be closely watching the consistency of actions in this respect.

6. The foundation of economic order consists also of effectively functioning labor and capital markets. Work relations should contribute to stabilization of expectations both on the part of employees and employers. There is a strong preference in Poland for the model of job market based on negotiations of mediating institutions (trade unions and employers associations). Strictly theoretically, such a model could – by stabilizing expectations – lead to increasing the effectiveness of the economy, as long as its remains flexible, taking into consideration, in group contracts, the necessary space for adjustments, stemming from current market state, industry situation or specific economic entity.
In Poland it is unfortunately a harmful model, as it reduces, instead of increasing, the flexibility of the job market and the economy as a whole. What is even worse, the power of trade unions – more outside the parliament, in the public sector and budgetary workplaces – strengthened by cheap populism of many politicians, drove the job market into the state of over-regulation, highly destructive to any business activity.
One must also add to this picture specific Polish pathologies of the trade union movement. A clearly higher tendency, than anywhere else, to go on strike is also a consequence of pathological institutional solutions, blowing the rights of trade unions out of proportion. Without the rights of unions to finance their actions by the employers, without the aberration of paying the wages for the days on strike, our social life would be calmer, and the activity of businesses (especially public ones), less costly. It is necessary to change the regulation in this respect, and introduce a principle applied everywhere else in the Western world – financing of trade unions by membership fees (including paying strike benefits out of these fees). It would greatly limit the tendency to go on strike, because it would be on their own cost. It would also decrease sponging on the companies, as the number of trade unions and their full-time activists will drastically decrease.
Effectively functioning financial institutions are the bloodstream of the economy. The best guarantee of such effectiveness is – as everywhere – healthy competition. It cannot be present where credit decisions are made largely based on personal connections and political calculations. These in turn are easily spotted in state banks. Not only Polish, but also Western (e.g. French) experiences prove this).
That is why privatization of the most part of banking sector, so criticized by the”meddlers”, was one of the few institutional successes of the last years. And the fact that those banks have mostly foreign owners, increases the certainty of rational actions. This means decisions made in the interest of the saver and the entrepreneur, expecting a low-interest credits, and not in the interest of politicians, looking for money for politically popular, but economically nonsensical undertakings.

CHANGING THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN THE ECONOMY

1. The inheritance of socialist economy in Poland is a still too large state participation as an owner, a central regulator and a distributor of public procurement in the economy. There is, however, definitely too low state participation as a institution creating conditions for economic development, entrepreneurship, innovation – and human initiative in general. The assessment of the state is even worse when it comes to fulfilling its basic duties in the economy, i.e. ensuring the security of trade through internally consistent system of law, where the interpretation of law and the decisions made by the public administration are based on it, through competent and fair courts and effective execution of court orders in economic cases.
Program directive should be changing the state role in the economy – and in two directions. In the field of strengthening the law and order in the economy, the authorities should be aiming at increasing the quality, transparency and inherent consistency of economic law, and strengthening the judicial and executive system. The state, which does not satisfactorily fulfill its role of the “night guard” in the economy, exposes itself to disregard of the very laws it makes, concerning this economy – to the detriment of the efficiency of business, as it increases the transactional costs of economic entities (not to mention the moral losses stemming from such disregard for the law). Furthermore, the low level of security in trading is – next to high taxes and arbitrariness of tax bureaucracy – an important factor in continuing existence of the gray zone in the economy. Companies staying within the gray zone do not see the benefits of a possible transfer to the registered economy, if they are still in large extent devoid of legal protection in conducting economic activity.

In the sense of creating conditions for higher efficiency of operation of economic entities, the state should be guided by a strategy based on what is often called the rules of theory of economics of supply. It spans over the set of undertakings releasing the economic activity, innovation, productivity and other desired economic characteristics, increasing the dynamics of creating wealth. All activities, from removing unnecessary or even harmful regulations to increasing the safety of trading, are increasing the dynamics of the economy.
On the other hand, the change of state role in the economy should be based obviously on resigning from the role of the owner of a multiplant company called national economy. The route leading to this destination should be the fastest possible privatization of what is in the hands of the state and constitutes the so called “black hole”, sucking in public money. Years of negligence caused a situation where a large part of state-owned companies has negative worth and will have to be liquidated, most desirably in the normal course of market economy.

Translation: Jadwiga Bogucka

Democracy rests on the authority of the people who are the sovereign, the ultimate disposition of the power. This is obvious that the reasonable chance of attaining the ideal consensus and the full consent of all citizens in any case is not possible. If the political system is truly democratic (and it is not “people’s democracy”), it entails a plurality of the political views, and that precludes a full consensus. As a result, democracy is not people’s rule, but its majority and here the problems begin.

Unlimited democracy, that is the unlimited majority’s rule, was practised in some of the Greek polis. Benjamin Constant, one of the most prominent liberal of all time, gave a critical and crushing judgment of their system. He did not mean at all what is now commonly perceived as the shortcomings of the Greek democracy, or exclusion from a group of people entitled to vote a number of men, women, foreigners and slaves. Constant saw the problem and the great threat to human freedom elsewhere. It was the ancient concept of the idea of individual freedom. That freedom consisted in a power of disposal of the right to take part in the discussion about public affairs, in voting and the elections. The citizen was free to the public sphere of his life, because he had political freedom, and was deriving from the benefits of democracy. However, at the same time he was completely enthralled in the private sphere of his life. It happened because the majority’s right to take any decision on the fate of all citizens, their life and death, tax burdens and responsibilities to the community, the lifestyle and moral injunctions and prohibitions, was fully unrestricted. The citizen was a slave to the congregation, which indeed he belonged to, and had a voice in it, but each time he had to submit to the arbitrary decisions of the majority. As a result, he was in the majority of the people’s rule good graces and he was not free.

Classical liberalism was born as a protest against the arbitrary power of man over man. Due to the circumstances in which it developed, a system of the absolute monarchy became its natural and first enemy. Liberals were terrified with the vision of one man, who is responsible only “to God and history”, which in a completely arbitrary way may dispose of the life and the property of his subjects. That is why liberalism has taken the challenge to present an alternative proposal for the system, based on the principle of rule, which concerned all, including the king, the law (as opposed to the rule and the whims of the ruling) and complemented with constitutionalism. It was namely the principle of strict limitation of the prerogatives of the power, so as to the king lost the opportunity to intervene legally in the private sphere of the subjects’ life. Constitutional barriers to the monarch took the form of the catalogue for the individual freedoms, which could not be affected by them.

Since the unlimited power of one man has not been acceptable, it is also not acceptable the unlimited power of people’s majority. Yet it causes the same adverse consequences and interference with the private life, makes rapes of freedom. So that victim had the right to cast his vote, since he was voted down and arbitrarily captivated? We are only dealing with the transfer of the same scope of the powers of a single tyrant, for the whole of the society. Not the arbitrary power’s administer is a problem and a threat to freedom, but its scope. A change the administer for the democratic one does not mean the better position of the individual. Constant warns: “If it is assumed that the sovereignty of the people is unlimited, a degree of the power – in human society – is created and left by chance, which is too high itself and which is evil, anywhere it will be put. (…) In a society based on national sovereignty, it is certain that any individual or class, has no right to subordinate the rest of the personal intention, but it is false that the whole of the society has the sovereignty without borders in relation to its members” Finally, “even the will of the whole nation cannot do just that is unjust.”

Constant had personal experience in the degeneration of the democracy idea in the direction of the people’s tyranny during the Jacobin revolution period. Therefore he presented an alternative vision of the individual liberty in the modern society. It was to enjoy inviolable legal safeguards for their freedom and individual liberty. At that time is no need to engage all citizens in the process of the emergence of the power, since majority of them is not interested in any way. The latter observation remains valid, while in Poland it is even confirmed by the turnout results.

The liberals of the classical period, as well as some liberals from the more conservative wing, still in the second half of the nineteenth century, pronounced against the common law of the election, or for a gradual and slow mitigation of the requirements. Two main arguments that had been put forward were related to lack of knowledge and lack of capital as factors, which disqualified a potential voter. In the first case, against the widespread illiteracy, the lack of many people skills was emphasised. Those skills were essential to understand the complex issues of the public affairs. That fear was not unfounded, which the problem of buying the votes from the lower classes and the manipulation of the results was related to. Today, it seems too many people that, thanks to the universal education and technological development and to the information world, that problem do not affect modern democracy that those concerns are passed along to the age of the nineteenth century. It is deviating from the truth Childish level of the public debate and the election campaigns, adapting to the lowest levels occurring among voters merits, is an obvious proof that there is an insufficient preparation of many of our fellow-citizens to take responsibility for political decisions.

The second problem raised by liberals 150 years ago was the issue of the assets’ lack, in other words the absence of the economic independence of many voters in the democratic conditions. Not only has it enhanced the vote buying phenomenon. First of all, the domination in numbers of voters, who suffer from a deficiency, is the way to popularise the common postulates of claim. The majority of the electorate does not think in terms of the good of the country and its future, but rather in terms of their wealth portfolio. The universal suffrage leads to properly constituted political parties, which use populist slogans, which are the supply side response to demand for the poorest electorate. Not without reason is the Thomas Babington Macaulay’s fear that universal suffrage is a tool to “plunder the rich” according to the quantitative preferences of the most voters. Both problems show clearly that the quantitative majority in the democratic conditions is not a majority of the qualitative and cannot be such one.

For this reason, ideas to get back to the principles of Greek in modern times and to introduce republican egalitarian democracies, would result in the worst dictatorships and tyranny in the human history. We would have learnt the lesson of totalitarianism a century earlier, if the concept of democracy Jean Jacques Rousseau had won. He was the one of the sworn enemies of the liberalism in history (as unreliable, in the scientific studies he was sometimes considered by the authors blinded with his beautifully sounding demands of political freedom for everyone, as one of the liberals.)

But it happened otherwise. Recent decades the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century ended with the tragic experience of World War II, this process of rapprochement between liberalism and democracy, to the point at which they merged into the one set of values and ideas. Today, when in the West we say “democracy”, we think of “liberal democracy”. The work of liberals from the various trends, so fairly conservative Alexis de Tocqueville, and inclining toward utilitarian social liberalism John Stuart Mill, was to develop the surface on which liberalism and democracy met. It happened, because that democracy was a democracy which was strongly modified and reduced in comparison with the egalitarian debauchery from the writings of Rousseau.

Strongly simplifying an interesting liberal ideological discourse in the 1840-1890, you can say that liberal democracy was the synthesis of an essential element of democracy, namely the method of the emergence of the power through the universal suffrage with the participation of all citizens and demands addressed to the monarch’s power, which were made by the classical liberalism 150 years earlier by Locke in the era of the Glorious Revolution and later by Montesquieu. An authority designated by the will of the majority of the people may be subjected to the same limitations of constitutionalism and the rule of the law, as it did in relation to the royal power. The exclusion of the arbitrariness in a democracy is a similar protection of individual liberties in the private sphere of the life. Moreover, liberal democracy broadens the scope of freedom in comparison with a constitutional monarchy, as it gives to all political freedom. Yes, but only the majority enjoys the full political freedom, because its representatives act in the line (at least in theory) with its will and according to its approved program. The minority has guaranteed the inviolability of freedom in their private lives, but also has a certain (smaller) the extent of freedom in public life as it is represented by their representatives in the form of the official opposition.

Next is a potential opportunity to reach for the fullness of the political freedom at the expense of the current majority in all subsequent elections. Mill emphasised the great importance of the presence of the opposition in the correct proportions (he considered the system of democracy with the majority acknowledged as a crooked system, slightly less democratic and libertarian than democracy applying to the proportional electoral law) and its position as a guarantor of preventing the expansion of the prerogatives of the rule. This opposition, armed with the constitutional provisions and the mechanism of the power’s separation, aims to uphold the freedom of the individual. Thus the liberal democracy is the majority rule positively limited by the rights of minorities. Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol added, liberal democracy, even better suited to defend against a breach of constitutional order than the liberal monarchy. In the second one the monarch’s ambitions will always tempt him to rescind restrictions on his power and do step towards despotism, only when he feels that there is an acquiescence. The mechanism of the universal suffrage and a lot less power in terms of democracy and increasing the chances of getting rid of the government, whose leaders exhibit similar inclinations.

Paradola’s idea is correct, and recently we had a proof in our public life. Unlike most commentators disposing an idea of “IV RP” as a cheap electoral catchphrase of the one political party or just a program to fight with the corruption in the country, I thought that it applied to the period of the Kaczynski party as relevant. Their concept of the exercise of democratic power in fact differs from that represented by the earlier teams, as well as the currently ruling team. You can highlight this time in the history of the Third Polish Republic and give it a name, because the meaning of the system was qualitative different. Do you remember even as the leaders of that government pushed on to question the role of the Constitutional Court, as they reluctant related to the idea of the rule sharing? In the end, do you remember the complaint of those politicians against the “legal impossibility”? This “impossibility” was just the system limits to their power. By these barriers they could not do anything they wanted, despite the parliamentary majority. Nineteenth-century debate on the essence of the liberal democracy has become the current importance on the Vistula River in 2005-2007! Kaczynski who claimed that since he gained the support of the majority, he should have had the right to “free rule” in a democracy.

To govern in an arbitrary manner, with the omission of the rule of law, and probably a further step to undermine freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. Besides, they wanted to change the constitution and this guarantee was not simply in the new project. A few years ago in Poland we could have observe an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the liberal democracy and its salutary “impossibility” for our freedom and to replace it by a republican democracy, not at all facade, but still a system in which our fate would depend on the goodwill of the Kaczynski government. This is precisely the kind of democracy which is the greatest threat to freedom, including economic, because there is no way to conduct business if one decision of the government can change the conditions, deprive of licences or manipulate the law. Any other democracy than liberal is the way to slavery. Extolling democracy in the 20th anniversary of its launch in Poland, we must remember that it has a dark side.

Translation: Justyna Kmiecik

I think the question itself about the „true” liberalism is not very interesting and the various disputes over the right to the name of true liberal- are not very serious. Since, the disputes that are really serious and interesting are the ones over the values, ideals and public goals and not over the labels. I know- more or less, leaving myself space for slight modifications, although a general conversion of ideals is quite unlikely to happen in my case- what ideals and values I affirm and what targets I find worth collective implementing. However analysing if they deserve to be called “liberal”- is not too fruitful and too interesting occupation.

All the more so because this will draw us away from the dispute over the values and will direct towards the disputes over the contemporary political ideals- and I don’t think this is what the venture undertook by Liberte!’s new editorial team is about. Therefore I am using the notion of „liberalism” referring to my own views, somewhat symbolically and solely for finding a brief label- but I will readily give it up to someone who will recognize that my views don’t deserve this label. As a matter of fact, even in the circles of eminent polish personages, who have declared their intention to support this venture, there are few people who, with certainty, would reject my views. Maybe I even acted as a usurper accepting a gift not due to me, when I accepted the invitation from the editing team of Liberte! to enter this good company. But this assessment doesn’t belong to me.

However I have to explain in what sense I feel like an outsider in the circle to which I was invited. I have an impression that most of my brilliant fellow travellers in this venture, find that the main priority is limiting the role of the state in the economy and cutting taxes- in a word, something called economic liberalization. I have to admit that in my own views I don’t attach too much significance to these targets. On the contrary: the issues of the state model, its economic role and tax system I find secondary to the chief values. “Secondary” does not mean “not important” but “secondary” in the sense: “derivative from these values”. Solutions concerning these matters are beneficial if they serve the values which I affirm and harmful if they interfere with them. I think that fe. the efforts towards the lowest taxes or towards flattening the tax system- reduction or elimination of the tax progression- most probably hinder the values which I affirm so they are- from my point of view- unjustified.

It is time then to lay out which values I find primary. My philosophy is based on three fundamental ideals, which are of the same significance for me and which should be (in ideal society which I dream of in my free time) carried out together. It is often difficult but this is what the dramatic social dilemmas are about, we have to harmonise and coordinate the values from which each one if carried out fully would be only harmful for others. There is nothing odd about this because we don’t live in an ideal society and we never will- if only because everyone has different ideals. However it is fundamental that I emphasize that my philosophy is not limited to the simple declaration of these three ideals- this would be easy but not so interesting- but they are accepted in a very specific interpretation which I will try to mark briefly, pointing out each of the three ideals. So someone who also finds these three ideals important but understands them differently, does not in fact share my system of values though they use similar words to characterise their own philosophy.

These three ideals, which together take chief position in my hierarchy of political values are:

1. Freedom. I understand freedom as a full freedom of action according to one’s own views, preferences and decisions- only under the condition that you hurt no one. No one (anyway no adult) should be forced or limited as far as the choice of a booklist, partners, job, education goes (I reiterate that it refers to adults), not to mention trivial matters, such as wear style as long as it doesn’t threaten the freedom and other justified interests of other people. Of course, this last clause, that freedom can be limited out of consideration for the interest of others (the rule of not harming others) is very general because if you define the interest of others broadly enough or what constitutes the loss for others, the freedom according to this definition will turn out to be extremely narrow. So “loss for others” should be narrowed to the maximum and it can’t include the feeling of indignation or irritation that others practise improper religion (or don’t practise any religion at all) that their sexual preferences are outrageous for others, that they read inappropriate books etc. I realise that this is only a sketch of the concept but there is no space to elaborate on it here- my comfort is that I have written a bit on this topic and whoever is interested can refer to the appropriate articles or books. Anyway the general rule is: No one should be told by the state what is better for them- and even if the state can say it in exceptional situations it shouldn’t be followed by actions which would force the man to act against his decisions although supposedly for his own good.

2. Equal opportunities. I understand it as follows: no one should be limited in their life opportunities (fe. receiving appropriate education, finding satisfying job) by the factors beyond their control and which are within social intervention and modification. This is of course very radical ideal and not possible to be realized fully but we should at least try to head towards it (which after all is a clause referring to the other two ideals). So the fact that someone was born in a village far away from educational centres or in a poor family without tradition of education shouldn’t determine negatively whole future of this man. The ideal equal opportunities means that position which a man achieved in a society (in realising the values desired socially) depends solely on himself and not on the determinants on which he has no influence. So if I drop out from the entry exam because I didn’t want to devote more time to learning or my intellectual predispositions aren’t sufficient- this isn’t contradiction of equal opportunities; if however my low position doesn’t result from my own decisions or poor abilities but only from the fact that I was born – so to say- in a wrong place, then I can assume that I wasn’t given equal opportunities.

3. Influence. All people (all adults with some exceptions, fe. except for those who have been rightly deprived of civil rights) should have equal influence on public decisions. They can of course resign from this right (fe. by refusing to vote) and then they can’t complain- but they have to have a possibility at least to play an equal role in shaping the public decisions, especially in deciding who will govern their country (and also a smaller territorial unit) in the nearest term. I assume that the possibility to influence public matters is ALSO good itself that people have justified right to: people not only have the right to specific public decisions realising their preferences but also to influence taking this public decisions. Of course definition of what belongs to the public sphere is an extremely complicated matter and it is hiding many traps (if the public sphere is defined very narrowly then the influence will turn out to be illusory) but then again it is not place to elaborate here. I assume however as an important and rightful ideal that the shape of public units is not something given from above, inaccessible to human cognition and intellect but it is and should be shaped by exactly these people who will be affected by the decisions.

This is in short my constellation of chief values. From the ideal no. 1 it appears that I am a liberal, from the ideal no. 2- that I am an egalitarian (moderate because my ideal equality is based on equal opportunities not conditions) and from ideal no. 3- that I am a democrat. My liberalism tells me to maximise freedom, my egalitarianism- to maximise equal opportunities and my democratism- to maximise equal influence of the citizens on public matters.

Contrary to appearances- this isn’t a cliché because there are many people in Poland expressing themselves publically who doesn’t accept at least one of the three values (and sometimes- all three) in the interpretation that I have given here so there is something to argue and fight about. There are people then who –firstly- reject the principle of freedom expressed by me (speaking briefly- shaped after John Stuart Mill) and think that hierarchy matters over personal freedom, the traditional set values and order from which many prohibitions in personal sphere result. There are- secondly- people who reject the principle of equal opportunities established here (modelled, in this interpretation, on John Rawls’s philosophy) and assume that if someone was born poorer or far from the centre- it can’t be helped, in a way it is their own fault, anyway the society doesn’t have any obligation because of this connected with the ideal of solidarity with the less privileged. “Life is not fair” wrote Milion Friedman once (seriously and with the approval of this maxim)- and it is these people’s motto. And thirdly- there are people who reject the ideal of democracy; they sometimes write the word itself with asterisks in the middle as if it was a vulgar word although- for reasons not known- they probably assume that in the undemocratic system they dream about, it would be them not their adversaries who would have a special influence on public matters.

And because towards each of the ideals I affirm, in the interpretation I laid out, there are objections, accusations and counter-ideals put forward, it’s worth to discuss them , defend them and specify them- without fear that one is talking about trivial matters. This is a discussion I find essential in today’s Poland- and this is why I am gladly joining the venture that was given a beautiful name “Liberté”. With the exclamation mark to emphasize that it is not about an academic discussion about words but about a motto the content of which has meaning for the life of millions of people.

Translation:
Marta Kurek: kurekmarta@op.pl

Meaning ‘the choice’ it is not the formal election of course but rather the common respect which is a kind of conscious choice. Does it imply the fears of the European and American conservative liberals (from Tocqueville and the American Founding Fathers to Weber and Ortega y Gasset), who were afraid that the democracy would lead to the “mob law?” Their fears turned out to be justified, yet precocious.

The mobocracy does not derive from democracy itself, but from its decline. At the end of 20th century democracy has little in common with its 19th-century form or even with this one at the beginning of the century. The successive revolutions and social upheavals won democratic system in 19th century. As limited to few countries, it was all in all the achievement of the elite. Nevertheless, in 20th century even the communist regime during its totalitarian and Stalinist period usurps the name of true democracy. However, at the end of this century a strong belief in a definite victory of democratic system and of market economy persuades Francis Fukuyama to proclaim the end of history. Of course not to the definite end as believed those who did not finish the Fukuyama’s bestseller. It would be the end through Hegelian logic postulating a predetermined succession of ages.

The history of democracy from its very beginning is actually the history of successive inclusion in its own system the variety of social groups: slaves, the poor, racial minorities, women. Democracy as political system had been brought to life through a series of violent rebellions, revolutions and wars and only in few countries. Moreover it was the elite to struggle for and on of behalf of masses. For those reasons it became an exclusive achievement. It was the elite who called for rights of excluded individuals, sometimes bearing indifference or even reluctance of the group that should be concerned the most. Although indifference and reluctance could have surfaced while extending to the minorities democratic powers that had previously been denied to them, the elite and the masses maintained a link.

Manifestation of the feelings of superiority or disdain over the masses did not belong to the ethics of an elite’s representative. It was the reason for exclusion from the Establishment. On the other hand, elite created standards (attitudes and behavior patterns) that were the point of reference for ordinary people and justified an unchallenged elite’s authority.

At present there are no groups that would be excluded from the participation in democracy, those whose rights should be called for. Instead of that we face the other phenomenon. Some groups exclude themselves from partaking in democracy as democracy ceased to have any value for them.

The fact that today there are no more social groups or collectivenesses excluded from democracy changes hitherto prevailing relation between elite and the masses. Elite is losing a sense of mission and obligation towards an ‘ordinary man’. It was superseded by a sense of distance and manifestation of superiority – the more ostentatious, the emptier. As if he did it in revenge, a straight man ceased to worshipped or even respect the elite’s representatives.

In anticipation of a demagogue

In Bunt motłochu, considering Polish social reality, I identified the mob with the electorate of Samoobrona (J.Chłopecki, 2003). Now [text was written in 2007] I believe, however, that with this term can be defined the majority of the electorate of Prawo i Sprrawiedliwość. The notion “mob” in terms of social background can explain the paradoxical phenomenon of this party that continues to be on the political scene because of the specific social reality.

The notion “mob” was introduced into the social science by Hannah Arendt. It was exactly the mob that constituted the social basis for fascism. Maybe that is way some intellectualists tend to describe the government of Kaczyńscy as “soft fascism”. Mob, believes Arendt, used to be the collectiveness where “the outcasts of all classes could find their political and social space” (H. Arendt, 1993). Mob does not identify itself with the society and it does not feel like the part of it. As the mob is isolated from the society and deprived of the political representation, it usually decides to take extra-parliamentary actions. Here it is necessary to clarify that Arendt uses the notion “mob” in terms of description and diagnosis, not of evaluation. The similar meaning had the expression “deviant type” used by Zaniecki in his work Ludzie teraźniejsi a cywilizacja przyszłości. Zanicki included to this type Piłsudzki what of course engendered protests.

If this mob was actually a group – as put it Arendt – it means that there must have existed a kind of link that would unite its members. Otherwise, we would observe a loose collectivity. But what could unite those “outcasts of all classes”? This binder was not composed of common values or even of awareness of common interest. It was nothing rational, what could be discussed, reconciled or compromised on. The binder was constituted by the mixture of negative emotions: frustration, xenophobia, irrational expectations, low instincts and feelings of helplessness. But above all it was constituted by hatred as it is next to fear one of the strongest emotions. Thus hatred and fear unite the mob in a group that can speak collectively. The mob gathered under the banner of negative emotions that by definition cannot be “agreed on”.

The mob is made of poorly educated people inhabiting rather provinces than urban agglomeration. According to the statistics that adduce Seymour M. Lipset German and Austrian fascism, French poujadism, lepenism and American maccartism had the biggest public support (apart from rural areas) among poorly educated, small traders from provincial communities.

“The acceptance of democratic norms depends on the level of personal confidence and sophistication. The less one is sophisticated and level-headed, the more probable that he will opt for simplified political vision. He will either understand the essentials of tolerance towards people who he disagrees with and he will have difficulties in understanding or tolerating the gradual political changes” (S. M. Lipset 1995: 121).

To the hard and soft fascisms mentioned by Lipset can be added the Polish kaczyzm [duck-ism], yet with some reservations.

The mob needs an enemy to hate somebody. The mob rejects also an acknowledged and legitimate authority cleaning the ground for a demagogue to appear.

According to popular belief, a demagogue is an actor who first of all manipulates the feelings of others and plays his part on the scene-rally. Demagogue appears in varied embodiments. Hitler was a master of winning the crowd during ecstatic mass meetings, whereas Stalin presented just another type of demagogy. I could venture to say that they are dramatically opposed types of demagogic leadership – rally or cabinet demagogy. However, one thing they have in common – they ‘simplify’ the world to the people who are not able to understand the complicated phenomena not characterized by the easy reason-result relationship. Those people cannot comprehend that this relationship can be very complicated or just stochastic, in the end unexplainable.

The most important role of a demagogue is then to explain the complexity of the world. It allows a demagogue to lead the masses, make them follow him. A demagogue gives a sense of purpose and security to the mob. He makes the world understandable and familiar. He is the one who knows.

What I said before can lead to the conclusion that I am willing to identify the government of Kaczyńscy (in this context there is no point in differentiating the brothers) with dictatorship or even fascism. Of course such statements would be difficult to justify. None of Kaczyńscy brothers meant to be a dictator, but as a matter of fact their social and political background is closer to dictatorship than to democracy.

The common frustration in the Weimar Republic was a dangerous explosive mix. The majority of society felt marginalized and impoverished. There was also a strong belief in historical injustice done to the whole nation. We faced a similar state of opinion in the first decade of 21th century in Poland, whereas frustration, hopelessness, feelings of being rejected and marginalized appeared practically among all social groups. Moreover, it was accompanied by deficiency in national satisfaction resulting from religion and symbolic values had been destroyed. Those values could and did provide satisfaction.

The myth of the August and Solidarity fell into oblivion. The historical value of Polish Round Table Agreement was destroyed by varied types of political and psychical deviants. Europe did not acknowledge the role played by Poland in destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain. It is not surprising as we could not do it ourselves. Kaczyńscy brothers began to present the most successful period that is to say the 3rd Polish Republic as the Times of Troubles which would be dominated by political scandals, steeling away national heritage and selling out Polish interest. Moreover, the eastern neighbor recovered relatively quickly from the imperial dissolution. Consequently, those historical events that supposed to be the source of satisfaction instead brought about disappointment and frustration. Kaczyńscy distorted the truth about the 3rd Polish Republic influencing the historical collective consciousness of the part of the Polish society. The similar mechanism was applied by communists during Polish People’s Republic while distorting the facts about the 2nd Polish Republic. Kaczyńscy brothers falsified history on purpose and knowingly, so did communists. It was all about provoking people’s anger, mob’s anger. Eventually, it succeeded.

Only in the light of these social issues we can analyze and evaluate the problem of leadership.

Kwaśniewski, Wałęsa and Kaczyńscy

The choice of the leadership is the social process in democracy. It would be worth examining who and by who has being elected since the moment when opportunity for choice became the substance of political system. However, the most interesting elections were of mid 90s. In 1995 during the presidential run-off elections I printed a text published in Gazeta Wyborcza. It analyzed figures of both candidates – Kwaśniewski and Wałęsa. These are the excerpts from the text written 12 years ago.

Kwaśniewski is perfect. Sunburnt, intelligent, smart, educated, he knows foreign languages and he raps superbly. He is eloquent and speaks fluently. He is provocatively modern. But it is necessary to listen in on what he is saying to notice the triumph of form over substance and to realize that what he is saying can be appealing, but does not make think. It does not bother, but either enraptures. Kwaśniewski is too soft-spoken. He is a professional but cold-hearted, calculating and maybe even cynic. These are not valuating terms. Kwaśniewski is a really remarkable manager in politics, a western-style or more precisely an American-style professional. However, he does not seem to be a great personality rather he looks like a model from a fashion magazine. A plastic person. He could advertise gilette sensor on TV, or better a new type of a mobile phone. Probably an American style of his campaign is not accidental. Kwaśniewski tries to be Polish Clinton. If he was elected, he would be a soft, amicable politician prone not only to the influence of his own formation.

The case of Wałęsa is far more complicated. He does not escape conflict. If there is no conflict, he will create it. Politics without conflicts must appear to him as uncreative and unconstructive and of this kind that he does not fit it. State of harmony and relative order do not allow him to play his favorite role of a “playmaker”. But why?

In politics it is problematic to constitute an order. As a matter of fact is for Wałęsa politics a personal matter – who, with whom, against whom. It is typical for poorly educated people to take the world of politics very personally. The poorer education, the stronger tendency to personificate the social and political events. Evil is being done by people who for some reason (mostly secret) are not willing to fix it, though the very fact they govern allows such a possibility.

The leader who does not change things for the better can be absolved for one and only one reason. He wants surely everything to be ok but other people just stand in the way. For a Galician farmer the Emperor was good and bad was the officials who deceived the Emperor. If the Emperor knew about injustice afflicting the farmer, the situation would change.

Wałęsa has perfect feeling for this aspect of plebeian mentality and he masterfully turns it to his advantage. Not only does he act upon this kind of mentality, but he shares it himself with one reservation: he does not have to believe in a good Emperor for he feels like him.

Many people in Poland especially from intelligentsia were socked observing a career from worker to president. Some believed that deficiency in education and savvy indeed disparages the authority of Poland in the World. However, the amazing biography of Wałęsa was acknowledged by the societies more democratic than ours what was beneficial for him and us as well.

A candidate for president can be an intellectual (who indeed was Carter) but he cannot manifest it as he would better present himself (following the same Carter) as a grower of peanuts. Then his career embodies values (and delusions) of Democracy. It makes the democratic promise that each of us (even bootblack) can succeed come true. However, it is clear and everybody knows that not each of us can win. The winner cannot be an uneducated, straight man. Though he does not have to be an all-knowing specialist, he needs advisers that would posses conceivably the highest qualifications, intellectual as well. Himself not being an expert, he has to understands experts and know how to talk to them.

Here comes another problem. It is commonly believed that president is not surrounded by people with high level qualifications. To stay by Wałęsa people who have been his advisers in Stocznia Gdańska would have to know how to stay in his shadow and not to threaten his position or even popularity. Is this only an expression of Wałesa’s vanity that was mentioned by so many of his ex-coworkers? In my opinion it is not.

Stylistically, Wałęsa’s language is rich, juicy and figurative but of narrow vocabulary. It strikes his limited vocabulary referring to realm of notions describing complex mechanisms and general problems. He manages cleverly and skillfully everything concrete, but he gets lost in the field where abstract thinking is needed. Probably, for this reason appears the part of Wałęsa’s problems he has with advisers. Both parties fail to understand each other. They get their wires crossed, they live in different words. It is not the only reason for Wałęsa’s problems with advisers.

Plebeian mentality is characterized by a specific understanding of loyalty. It identifies loyalty with subjugation. The traditional, folk family model is based upon hierarchical relations of subjugation joined by the principle of obedience. In this model there is no room for partnership which allows difference of opinions. Sun should not have different opinion than his father. It regards not only the relations within a family but all kinds of interpersonal relations. In the model mentioned above there is room but for loyal service in the shadow of the patron. There is no room in turn for loyal and efficient counseling. The majority of intellectuals (but there are some exceptions) do not tolerate the demand of undisputed loyalty. The plebeian patron in turn interprets each attempt to take up a discourse to be arrogance or betrayal.

Kwaśniewski presents himself as a model of a skillful public servant, a leader of the party which he does not count without. Modern and young (or rather youthful) Kwaśniewski does not enjoy respect to be listened to, he can be an idol to follow (or even to admire) at most. Young people vote for him not for (at least not only) they did not experience personally the whole history of socialist realism (PRL, PZPR, communism). In the first place for they are the generation not trusting leaders and reluctant towards authorities. The young generation of Poles being more “americanizated” than “europeizated” (the influence of popular culture) is prone to influence of idols that can be followed and leaders can be identified with.

Wałęsa anlike Kwaśniewski is a personality. Wałęsa cannot be followed. His astonishing qualities as well as his disturbing and embarrassing imperfections make him a unique person. As contrasted with malleable Kwaśniewski is Wałęsa probably unpliant. He is the leader making himself a savior, the “Father of the Nation”. He convinces those who want to trust and to believe that there is someone out there holding reins of the historical fate. Those who need to worship somebody.

The electorate composed of the young and the elder, the well or poorly educated from western and eastern regions of Poland – this stratification of election preferences proves happening in Poland revaluations on the profound level. It cannot be reduced to the simple division between the period of Polish People’s Republic and of 3rd Polish Republic, between post-communist system and post-Solidarity, between ex-apparatchik and a legend of that time.

These old divisions will be disappearing into the past dying away alongside with people whose biographies they had stigmatized and who cannot free themselves from them. The new generational and civilizational division makes its presence felt already. Soon it will be the dominating division (J.Chłopecki, 1995).

In 1995 the majority elected the idol, as for the rest, according to the rules of mass society which we were becoming in fast-track procedure. It proved correct assumption Kwaśniewski would be a soft, amicable and pliant president. He was neither a statesman nor a leader but a notable host. Wałęsa despite being sometimes ridiculous or imperfect had ambitious to become a leader. As for the rest, he was a real remarkable leader of a great social movement. Definitely, he did not fit the salon where he looked funny and anachronistic.

Jarosław Kaczyńscy (we can take no notice of Lech – he is a very important but only an attachment to his brother being prime minister to whom Jarosław reported after election have been won) is probably even a better socio-technician than Kwaśniewski at the same time he has perfect feeling for mob’s moods. Wałęsa cannot equal them, if we realize the difference between people and mob. Kaczyńscy are neither intellectuals as Kwaśniewski nor plebeian as Wałesa. They are petit-burgeois and half-educated people meaning “already not commons, not yet intelligentsia”. As we mentioned before Wałęsa did not quite fit salon, still Kaczyńscy fit it less.

The metaphor of salon has appeared recently. In principle it appeared after elections have been won by Kaczyńscy and their party. The term was coined by those who had not been let in to the salon. Reading such Ziemkiewicz (R. A. Ziemkiewicz, 2006) there is no doubt about it. The bitter and in fact ridiculous anty-Michnik obsession results from painfully hurt ambition of not very brilliant publicist who has not entered the salon. As for the rest, Kaczyńscy brothers either had admission to enter it. Their place was in a hall. Not only for their claim to fame was definitely smaller than people’s like Wałęsa, Geremek, Mazowiecki, Kuroń, Hall, Frasyniuk and the others from the leading opposition. There was also some specific cultural distance.

But let’s come back to the question of salon, as it is important against all appearances. The metaphor of salon is fitting. The 3rd Polish Republic indeed brought to life the salon along with all its “rules” – snobbery, glamour, including-excluding ritual and behavioral patterns respectively of professed opinions as well. The society frequented the salon – the term became popular during so-called Rywin Scandal being investigated. Salon entrances meaning a card proving societal membership constituted money, popularity in media, a prestigious position and an aristocratic surname. Not anybody could enter.

Salon is accused of dictating outlook, imposing views and of monopoly of style. It is true. However, present-day critics over salon seems forgetting or just does not know that it has been always like that being a kind of social norm. Each epoch created, produced a dominating culture. It was constituted by values that could not be disregarded (rejecting them would be a revolutionary act), norms that had to be followed (transcending them would be provocative), ethical and aesthetic criteria to obeyed out of discussion (to challenge them was to act in an extraordinarily bad way, or even to commit offence or crime).

In the pre-revolutionary epoch (before bourgeois revolution) we faced Aristocracy-Church alliance. In Democracy it was replaced by Elite-University alliance – where limits of mentioned monopoly were determined. The temple of mass society is the Salon-Media alliance determining what can be accepted and what not. In such mass society elite ceases to be important and is replaced by notable society people. The authorities cease to count and are superseded by idols.

Wałęsa was in the end an authority, even by virtue of his biography. Kwaśniewski was an idol at most and that is way he won in 1995. It would be unlikely that he would have won in 2005, whereas Wałęsa certainly would have no chances this year. They both belong to the past. Kaczyńscy appeared on the scene.

Kaczyńscy brothers present this kind of leadership that characterizes the epoch of mob. They surfaced on the wave of anger that they had engendered. Mob does not constitute salon but court. It is very interesting to analyze the journalist profession from this perspective.

Socially, journalists are situated on the border-line between aristocracy and service, between elite and courtiers. It is not an accident then that this part of the journalist profession not had been accepted in the salon of 3rd Polish Republic constituted the court of Kaczyńscy brothers.

Salon by nature is pluralistic – provided that some formal, aesthetic-social norms are maintained. Salon tolerates different orientations, acknowledges independence, unconventionality, being extraordinary. A courtier has to be obedient, loyal and dependent. In the court there is no room for independent thinking. The norms of behavior dictated by independent and impersonal sense of decency and aesthetics are superseded by alertness to intentions and ambitions of the ruler.

Psychopatology of hatred

The role and significance of anger tend to be underestimated by sociology as well as by politology. While it is true that the “scapegoat theory” mentions it, it puts emphasis on the integrating function of cultural ritual killing. The issue of anger is broader. Anger unites of course, but it also (or even in the first place) activates those groups that succumb to it. The social bonder of mob is anger engendered by a sense of grievance, injustice and flowing from it desire for revenge. Jarosław Kaczyński has an intrinsic talent for using this instrument.

Some participators and observers of political life drew their attention on that. A psychologist, Edward Necka, noticed in times of PiS ruling that: “politicians that currently hold two the most important offices in Poland have a paranoid attitude” (E.Nęcka). Though professor of psychology makes a reservation that it is not a mental disease but a trait of personality, it does not really matter. It matters that it is actually the psychoanalysis apparatus which is useful here.

Exactly at the same time, in another paper, Władysław Bartoszewski answering a question asked by a journalist: What is happening in Poland that the cooperation (meaning with president and his milieu) is not possible even in such a place like the chapter of the Order of the White Eagle, says: I don’t know. I can only direct you, madam, to eurodeputy of the Civil Platform party – Mr. Bogdan Klich, who as the only one is qualified to voice his opinion on this subject. As before he took office, he was a psychiatric practitioner in Krakow”.

It would be naivety to believe that the political scene is free from plots and social world from political set-up. Set-ups, caucuses, mafias, cabinet biddings, political conspiracies, plots – yes, it all exists. So does our black economy. We face also black social life therefore political. At the same time seeing social world through the net of plots and setups is one of the most important symptoms of paranoia portrayed in medical literature. “Views of a paranoiac concerning history are not worth mentioning for he believes in existence and significance of plots – in the end they happen and can have their meaning ‒ but for he considers them to be mover of history and a principle organizing the world of politics of any kind” — states the authors of the book that not without reason became a bestseller in Poland not before eight years ago since it was published and translated (R. S. Robins, J. M. Post; 53).

Historical conspiracy theory actually has its advocates among people from three groups. Some just believe that the world is the arena of warfare of good and evil. It happens among them there are people being very intelligent but ill. They live in a constant sense of danger. Any objection makes them feel attacked and any criticism is an assault to them. They are convinced others hate them so they connive against them in return. Half-shadows are absent to their Manichean world. We are on the right side whoever is not with us is evil. There can be no alliance between good and evil. “We stand where we stood then. They stand where the ZOMO stood”.

Historical conspiracy theory frequently tends to be a lifeline for people having problems with piecing the world’s image together. The less one is educated, the more one’s tendency of personificating all social and political phenomena both negative and positive.

Such thinking does not involve impersonal, objective, causative mechanisms. For everything wrong are always responsible some concrete people being guilty of our unhappiness. Longstanding characters of this story are Jews and masons – the third part of the triumvirate of forces of evil is historically changing. Once they were imperialists, other time communists or post-communists. Recently they have become liberals – needless to say, in the foreground with Balcerowicz has been a devil ever since appeared disproportion between the amount of items in our shops and of money in our wallets.

For some reasons, the compound words are very appealing to ears being eager for plots. Hence we have jewcommunism, jewmansonry, Polish-speaking media, the Catholeft or recently fibelite.

Perceiving world in terms of plots tends to be a personal inclination resulting sometimes from mental disease. There are though such politicians who use the scapegoat theory for their own political gain. They know presented world of plot convention has irresistible lure of the truth of Divine Revelation for sizeable portion of society.

Ignorant people will buy it as would say famous Jacek Kurski. “Paranoiac does not let seemingly innocent facts to distract him – he claims he knows what is beyond them. […] He does not acknowledge the most irrefusable evidence that challenge his convictions. He considers them as concocted to lull him into security”(R. S. Robins, J. M. Post; 18).

If there is no proof of guilt of Mr. So and So, just because he has to be guilty as evidence must have been destroyed. This type of thinking is typical for Kaczyńscy brothers. It is of less importance if this reasoning stems from their beliefs or is just a psycho-technical manipulation designed knowingly for mob’s mentality and its understanding of the world. If facts disapprove our views, they are ones in trouble.

„In its extreme form – saying cited above authors – paranoid style of performing politics cause more harm than any other style. Paranoiacs have no opponents, rivals or objectors but only enemies. It is not enough to defeat them and definitely it is not allowed to compromise with them or to try to gain them. Enemies are to be destroyed” (R. S. Robins, J. M. Post; 15).

Unfortunately, psychopatology of hatred hits today in Poland the fertile soil.

Bibliography:

Arendt H. 1993, Korzenie totalitaryzmu, Warszawa.

Bartoszewski W., Moja rola była fikcją, „Dziennik” z 12-13 maja 2007

Chłopecki J. 2003, Bunt motłochu [w:] Czas na sanację, Rzeszów.

Chłopecki J. 1995, „Gazeta Wyborcza” z 25 listopada 1995 r.

Lipset S.M. 1995, Homo politicus. Społeczne podstawy polityki, Warszawa.

Nęcka E., Inteligencka tęsknota za inteligentnym politykiem, „Polityka” z 12 maja 2007

Robins R. S., Post J. M.; 1999, Paranoja polityczna. Psychopatologia nienawiści. Warszawa

Ziemkiewicz, R.A.,2006, Michnikowszczyzna. Zapis choroby. Poznań.

Translation: Alicja Błaszkowska