studies in east european thought volume 54 issue 3 2002 [doi 10.1023%2fa%3a1015993401680] james f....

8/9/2019 Studies in East European Thought Volume 54 Issue 3 2002 [Doi 10.1023%2Fa%3A1015993401680] James F. Pontus

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JAMES F. PONTUSO

TRANSFORMATION POLITICS: THE DEBATE BETWEENVCLAV HAVEL AND VCLAV KLAUS ON THE FREEMARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY

INTRODUCTION

In 1994 then-Prime Minister Vclav Klaus and playwright-PresidentVclav Havel engaged in a spirited debate over proposed changes

to the Czech constitution that would have decentralized powerand strengthened the authority of local governments. Althoughfew commentators at the time grasped the significance of theexchange, the dispute became the basis of a long-standing feudbetween the Czech leaders. Regionalism, as the controversy wascharacterized in the press, went to the heart of the difficulties thatpostcommunist countries have faced as they began establishing free-market economic systems and building the social structures neces-sary to support democracy. Even beyond the immediate politicaland economic issues involved in the Czech Republic, the discus-sion raised questions concerning the nature of human beings and the

most fitting way to organize social life in the post-Cold War era.1

KLAUS: ITS THE ECONOMY

When Vclav Klaus became Prime Minister in 1992, his firstconcern was to transform the cumbersome centrally-planned Czecheconomy. He argued that a free-market economic system wouldbe more efficient, competitive, and just. He rested his hopeson coupon privatization. This scheme transferred ownership ofstate-run industries into private hands. For a nominal fee, every

Czech could become a kind of stockholder in any number ofCzech industries. Klaus reasoned that private owners would insistthat companies show a profit, forcing businesses to adopt effi-cient management techniques. The government would no longer

Studies in East European Thought 54: 153177, 2002. 2002Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


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154 JAMES F. PONTUSO

be required to subsidize unwieldly communist-inspired industries,making it possible to reduce taxes or to spend tax revenues onmore worthy projects. Klaus also promoted opening Czech markets

to foreign firms. He calculated that once Czech companies werefaced with foreign competition they would have to produce moremarketable goods than had been the case under central planning.

InThe Ten Commandments of Systemic Reform, Klaus indicatedthat strictly political issues were secondary to economic reforms.2

For Klaus, political matters were important only in four areas. First,a postcommunist leader had to introduce a competitive politicalparty system. Second, a leader then had to use the party systemas a vehicle for building popular support during the euphoric orinitial stage of the transition in order to carry out economic reforms.Third, once the painful transition to the free-market had begun,

the leader had to oppose demands by vested interest groups tocontinue subsidies to large state-run programs and enterprises andhad to resist populist pressure to inflate the economy as a meansof alleviating economic hardships. Finally, the leader had to presenta clear and optimistic vision of the long-term benefits of a market-oriented system and use that vision as a permanent campaign tokeep the reform spirit alive.3

Klaus said little about the difficulties of establishing a democracy.He did not seem to think that democracy was difficult to create.Once a competitive party system was put in place, he believed,

democracy was established. He maintained that good citizenshipis founded on a rational calculation of self-interest. Homo polit-icus is a corollary ofHomo oeconomicus. Since the combinationof free-market economics and parliamentary democracy is in thelong run most likely to satisfy peoples interests, there is no need toworry about founding institutions to nurture a democratic character.Whatever the social arrangement, Klaus argued, quoting AdamSmith with approval, the strongest motive is the uniform, constant,and uninterrupted effort of every individual man to better his condi-tion. If human nature is constant, then a calculation of incomesand prices play a role in any economic (and noneconomic)

decisions.4

The key to creating and maintaining democratic govern-ment is to establish an economic system that offers the highestwages relative to the price of goods. For Klaus, not only the


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TRANSFORMATION POLITICS 155

economic system but also the political arrangement works accordingto Smiths invisible hand.

One final component must be added to complete Klaus view of

postcommunist reforms. He maintained that the transition to capital-ism, no matter how painful to particular groups or individuals, ismoral because it maximizes human freedom. Freedom, for Klaus,is not merely the absence of governmental control, although this iscertainly important. Rather, freedom is an integral part of living asatisfying human life. I believe, he asserted, that

capitalism, of course, democratic, is the only system that makes possible materialprosperity and political, economic, and human freedom. Capitalism encompassesthe economic, political, and moral and cultural . . . worlds. It is sometimessuggested that the three worlds. . .are divisible into compartments. I prefer . . .to speak about three dimensions of one system. The logic of human behavior inall of them is identical, and it would be a disaster to accept the accusations ofthe enemies of democratic capitalism who say that. . .economic transactions andmorality are incompatible, that culture is noble and superior whereas financialmarkets are nasty and inferior.5

Freedom is moral because it helps the poor escape from povertybetter than any other system. Freedom unlocks the potential forhuman creativity and gives a chance to the human mind, to wit,invention, discovery, and enterprise, a system based on the ethic ofhard work and not envy.6

HAVEL: CIVIL S OCIETY AND DE MOCRACY

Havel did not oppose a rapid transition to the free market. By thetime the Klaus government fell in 1997, he alleged that economicreforms had not been implemented fully enough. However, Havelinsisted that economic liberty does not necessarly create goodcitizens or responsible human beings; civic virtue has to benurtured. Some people who strive exclusively for economic gainare selfish and care little about their fellow citizens. Evidence of

that selfishness was visible in the scandals associated with Czechcoupon privatization. Corruption is merely an indication of a deeperproblem, one caused both by the legacy of communism and by thenature of the modern technological world.7


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Havel implies that no matter how well-constructed the govern-mental structure or how efficient the economy, the fate of a nationultimately rests on the character of its people. Generally, human

beings do not act for the good of the community or accept the ruleof law unless they feel some loyalty to the system under which theylive. The interconnecting activity through which citizens partici-pate in and learn to feel allegiance toward the laws is defined ascivil society. Although the term civil society was first coined in1767 by Adam Ferguson, it was Alexis de Tocqueville who broughtthe concept to life.8 Tocqueville visited the United States in the1820s to learn how a backward, half-civilized, unsophisticated, andsemi-literate people without so much as a single opera house (Amer-icans) could make democracy work, while the most intellectuallyand culturally advanced nation on earth (France) had failed at the

endeavor.9 What Tocqueville discovered was that Americans had acivil society and the French did not.

Havel uses the term civil society the way Tocqueville did. Heexplains:

What, in fact, is a civil society? In the most general terms, we could perhapsdescribe it as a society in which citizens participate. . .in public life and in publicdecisions. The extent, the manner and the institutional form of this participationdepend predominantly on the participants, on their initiative and imagination,even though these are naturally exercised within a certain legal framework . . . Thefunctions of the state. . .in such a society are limited only to that which cannot beperformed by anyone else, such as legislation, national defense and security, the

enforcement of justice.10

The activity associated with a civil society was the targetof the most brutal attack on the part of communist regimes.11

Communism was a genuinely totalitarian system; that is, it pene-trated every aspect of life and deformed everything it touched,including all the natural ways people had developed of livingtogether. It profoundly affected all forms of human behavior.12

Under communism Czech society lost the art of politics. Commu-nists maintained power by keeping a watchful eye on almosteveryone. The fear of being observed and the anxiety of not

knowing who was engaged in spying caused distrust and interferedwith ordinary social interactions. People learned not to believe inanything, to ignore one another, to care only about [them]selves.A sense of apathy developed, a feeling that ordinary people could


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not control events or even their own destinies. This was especiallytrue in Czechoslovakia when hopes raised by the Prague Springdissolved into the rigid period of normalization.13

To implement the idea of a universal classless society, thecommunist system stressed uniformity and worked to makeeverything the same. From Berlin to Vladivostok, Havel explains,the streets and buildings were decorated with the same red stars.Everywhere the same kind of celebratory parades were staged.Analogical state administrations were set up, along with a wholesystem of central direction of social and economic life. Partycontrol destroyed the web of social interactions that make up non-ideologically-based societies. It covered nations with a shroud ofuniformity, suffocating all national, intellectual, spiritual, social,cultural or religious variety.14 Communists attempted to control

every social group and to guide all organizations right down toevery bee-keepers association.15 People volunteered for civicactivity, but since civic organizations were tools of state control,participation became a despised duty, or worse, a kind of collab-oration with the system.

The consequence of communist control, according to Havel,was to dissolve the social and cultural mechanisms through whichpre-communist people had learned to live together in harmony.In essence, civil society was all but destroyed and along withit politics itself as a field of practical human activity was

annihilated.

16

Traditional institutions and practices were replacedby the artificial conformity of socialist fraternity. It is easy,Havel writes of the post-communist era, to make everything thesame by force, to destroy the complex and fragile social, cultural andeconomic relationships and institutions built up over centuries, andto enforce a single, primitive model of central control in the spirit ofa proud utopianism. It is as easy to do that as it is to smash a pieceof antique, inlaid furniture with a single blow from a hammer. But itis infinitely more difficult to restore it, or to create it directly.17

According to Havel, local governments are the breeding groundsof democracy. At the local level, politics exists on a human scale;

people can understand both the issues facing them and the solu-tions available to them. Decentralized administration encouragesparticipation on a wider scale. Many citizens, not just politicians


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involved with the national government in the capital, can learn torecognize societal problems and formulate policies to solve them.Havel reasons that the anomie and apathy that the communist system

bred can be overcome if citizens take on responsibilities and worktogether for a common goal. Moreover, citizens would come to trusttheir elected officials, feel greater efficacy in their own actions, andbe more likely to obey the laws if they had a hand in making thelaws. The only way to relearn the art of self-government, Havelcontends, is by doing it.

Havel argues that local government can take on many tasksmore quickly and efficiently than a central administration becauselocal people know more about the issues.18 Localities adjust morereadily to new issues, adapt to changing situations, and encourage amore sensitive response to the multifarious needs of life, which can

scarcely be centrally monitored. Although Havel has often beendescribed as impractical, he observes that one of the surest waysto reduce the size of the bureaucracy and the cost of government one of Klaus key goals is to shift state-run programs into local orprivate hands.19

Localities also provide a kind of laboratory for innovation andexperimentation, Havel claims. They are more creative because theyrequire less standardization. The central rationality of the state be it ever so enlightened cannot continue to take the place ofthe pluralistic richness of ideas, the knowledge, the experience, and

the inventiveness of individuals and the great variety of associationsthey naturally create.20

There is a risk that local authorities will not behave as purpose-fully as the state or enact regulations as enlightened or as tech-nically competent as would the national government. But, Havelreasons, democracy is a system based on trust in the human senseof responsibility, which it ought to awaken and cultivate. The riskthat the localities will behave provincially is far outweighed Haveladvises, by the sense of civic solidarity and an interest in publicaffairs that is nourished when people taken an active role in shapingtheir own futures. In small societies, obedience to the law is based

on friendship with ones fellow citizens and the reputation one haswithin the community, not on the enforcement power of the state.The experience of participating imbues citizens with a feeling of


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responsibility for the whole, and thus, indirectly, good relations withtheir own country. When people share in governing they are morecommitted to their region, but they also transfer that loyalty to the

nation as a whole.21

Havel states that general responsibility for ourfatherland and our pride is anchored by a tangible responsibility fora microcosm in which we live.22

Voluntary organizations are the second prop of civil society.They provide entry points into public service. Havel explains thatthese groups include: free association of people in different typesof organizations, ranging from clubs, community groups, civicinitiatives, foundations and publicly beneficial organizations up tochurches and political parties. People associate in these organiza-tions in order to accomplish things that a group can do better thanan individual.23

A vigorous civil society protects against both popular tides ofpassion and demagogic political leaders. It constitutes a true guar-antee of political stability, Havel states. The more a communitydevelops. . .instruments of a civil society, the more resistant it is tovarious political windstorms or upheavals.24 In Havels view, civilsociety is a more valuable safeguard of human liberty than is thefree-market.

In an age when mass communication dominates almost everyaspect of human life, people often become alienated from theirpoliticians and political system. Events seem to occur beyond the

control of most citizens, and policies are adopted with little or noreal consultation with the populace. It is little wonder, then, that thecontemporary era, although the most democratic in history, is alsoone in which many people are deeply distrustful and cynical aboutpolitics. What worries Havel

is the depersonalization and dehumanization of politics that has come about withthe progress of civilization. An ordinary human being. . .seems to be recedingfarther and farther from the realm of politics. Politicians seem to turn into puppetsthat only look human and move in a giant, rather inhuman theater; they appear tobecome merely cogs in a huge machine . . .Under these circumstances, manypeople hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is ashadow they watch on television . . .Citizens no longer perceive their politicianas a living human being.25

In order to combat this skepticism and mistrust, citizens must feel asif their voice matters. Havel makes the point in almost metaphysical


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terms; human beings are so constructed as to seek recognition of theself. The only way to gain their recognition is through communityaction. To live fully decent lives, people must take part with others

in shaping their own destiny.Civil society enables people to realize themselves truly and entirely as the beingsthat they potentially are, that is, as the species called zoon politikon, or socialanimal. Human beings are not only manufacturers, profit-makers or consumers.They are. . .creatures who want to be with others, who yearn for . . .cooperation,who want to participate in the life of a group. . .and who want to influence thatwhich happens around them . . .People desire to be appreciated for that whichthey give to the environment around them.26

Havens argument recalls that of Aristotle; man is a politicalanimal. Social life is necessary for human survival, since individuals

cannot survive in the wilderness. Social life requires that humansdeal with other people whose interests may conflict with their own.Living as part of a community presents both a challenge and anopportunity for human beings. People are forced into situationswhere conflicts with others are possible; yet, social life encouragespeople to resolve those conflicts. Only through political activity canhumans maintain peace and order. Politics requires that citizens givean account of the policies the community should adopt. Politicsdepends on the use of speech and reason. In political life individualcharacter can be developed fully, for only in a social setting cancitizens exercise their particularly human traits, speech and reason.

Political life affords people the opportunity to be recognized byothers for their humanness.

KLAUS RESPONSE TO THE CIVIL SOCIETY:ITS STILL THE ECONOMY

In an address before the Czech Parliament in December of 1997,dubbed the Ten Commandants Speech, Havel rekindled the debateover decentralization. Havel accused the recently-resigned Klausgovernment of an apathetic, or almost hostile, attitude toward

everything that bears even a distant resemblance to a civil society.Klaus responded by calling the speech confrontational, and inter-preted it as a challenge. He declared that The last eight years havebeen a battle between two world visions. Havels views pointed to


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a vision of the world that is diametrically opposed to right-wingthinking, and showed how deep is his ignorance of the workings ofthe market economy and a free society.27

Klaus opposed decentralization. He feared that local govern-ments would thwart his economic reforms since provincial electionsmight return former Communists to power. In some regions theywere the only people with administrative experience. Furthermore,the Czech Communist Party was the largest mass-based group inthe nation. Communists had little enthusiasm for Klaus free-marketprograms. If they were to gain local office they could create islandsof resistance to modernization, much in the same way that the localcouncils had opposed the reforms promoted in Britain by Klaushero Margaret Thatcher.

Even where Communists were not elected, Klaus believed that

workers in localities with antiquated industrial plants might use theirpolitical leverage to protect their jobs. But, subsidies of inefficientindustries had caused the collapse of Eastern Europes managedeconomies. The model Klaus seemed to have in mind, instead, wasTaiwan or Hong Kong where there was little democracy, but a greatdeal of economic growth. A free-market system had to allow ineffi-cient enterprises to fail, creating much personal suffering and socialupheaval. If the people hurt by the transition became too powerful,they might use their strength at the polls to limit and even reversemuch needed market reforms.28

Klaus attacked both the practicality and the merit of what hetermed Havels small is beautiful thinking. Decentralization wasnot feasible because in the Czech lands there has not been . . .astrong, genuine regional identity, and I doubt that the new fashion-able (among leftist intellectuals) regionalist idea, based on civilsociety . . . is strong enough to be taken seriously. In the CzechRepublic, Klaus concluded, attachment to the nation-state was muchstronger than to the regions, and therefore, was more authentic.

Klaus thought that regionalism was little more than a short-term political strategy fostered by left-wing parties who wereunhappy with the results of the general elections that had brought

Klaus party to power. The opposition wants . . .

a new polit-ical arena, Klaus stated while still Prime Minister, so that if itdoes not succeed in general elections, it still can thrive in fourteen


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smaller parliaments. But a decentralized political system would bedangerous blow to the unity of the country and most disastrousfor this country, because, in Klaus view it would make imple-

menting government policies impossible and eventually result in thedisintegration of the nation.Klaus maintained that decentralization schemes were little more

than wishful thinking. Havel could offer no objective evidenceto support the supposition that decentralization was necessary fordemocracy. Havel simply assumed a priori that smaller govern-ment was beneficial. All social actions must be judged, accordingto Klaus, by strict measures of cost and benefit. If a political asso-ciation leads to greater well-being or happiness of the individualmembers of that collectivity, it should be deemed good. No associ-ation ought to be granted special status, for the individual has the

primary position; any collectivitys position is, therefore, secondarybecause all collectivities are only derivates.29

Klaus held that inaugurating a free-market system would result inthe creation of a civil society. A civil society rests on a strong middleclass independent of the state and not made up of bureaucrats whoselivelihood relies on state-sponsored programs. Market transactionswould induce the middle class to become rational actors. Not onlywould they learn to manage their own economic affairs, but alsothere would be a slipover to political life. While regionalism couldmake people provincial, the free-market would open society up to

competition from around the world and have the effect of makingpeople sophisticated, cosmopolitan and tolerant. People directed byconsumer sovereignty would see an interest in acceptance of the ruleof law, the need for high levels of information about public affairs,the necessity of active participation in the political process, the valueof an independent press and a free intellectual and cultural realm,and the benefits of religious, cultural, and ethnic tolerance. In effect,Klaus reasoned that voluntary economic transactions would teachpeople to become good citizens. In that sense, Klaus and Havel seekthe same goal. They both desire that people be free to chose theirown fates and control their own futures in a complex and diverse

society.


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HAVEL: CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE POSTMODERN WORLD

Havel rejects the notion that human behavior can be reduced to

a single cause, the rational pursuit of material well being. Sucha proposition ignores the testimony of everyday experience. Afterall, in a free society where the force of the state is negligible,citizens voluntarily undertake all sorts of actions that run counterto personal self-interest. If people did not feel some attachment tothe community, they would not pay their taxes, serve in the army,or obey the law. Yet it is universally true that citizens assume thesetasks, more out of a sense of duty than from a fear of punishment.There is abundant evidence, Havel claims, that human beings wantto be anchored . . . to the world that surrounds us. Our family,our friends, the spiritual and social environment we are associated

with, the community, town or region where we grew up and . . .our country. . .are integral components of our identity. . .We have

taken roots in our home, and our home has taken roots in us.30

If human beings have motives other than material gain, haventwe committed a colossal error, Havel asks, by viewing man asa mere profit-maker and expecting that private initiative will auto-matically lead to public benefit? According to Havel, people aremore complex than the rational-choice model would suggest, bothfor better and worse. Some people would willingly exchange threeprivatization funds for one kindly smile or loving touch, whileothers would flout all standards, directives and rules . . .pursuingno other aim but to cheat and rob.31

Perhaps, a truly consumer society has already been created,one that is free of the normal obligations of citizenship and dedi-cated solely to the satisfaction of material interests. This is theglobal civilization composed of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, blue jeans,multinational corporations,Baywatch, CNN, and MTV. While massculture is alluring, especially to the young, it is little more thana thin and recent veneer. Havel observes that underneath theconformity of the universal society we find multiple layers ofdiverse cultural, social, and political traditions formed in different

areas in the thousands of years when those different worlds livedseparately. There are really two tendencies in the world. The homo-genizing effect of mass consumerism and the awakening of nationsand whole regions that have begun to assert often quite aggres-


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sively. . .their unique identity.32 For Havel, a universal civilizationis neither possible nor desirable. It is not engaging because a worldwith one culture would be a dull place; all the colors mixed together

would turn into a gray mass. It is not possible because human beingsneed to attach themselves to something in order to makes themselvesfeel needed, valued, and distinctive.33

People are interested in more than material well being becausethere is a human longing for distinction. At The Future of HopeConference in Hiroshima, Japan, Havel reflected on meaning ofdeath. With a little exaggeration, he said, we might say that . . .the awareness of death is the most extraordinary dimension of mansstay on this Earth, one that inspires dread, fear and awe, and is at thesame time a key to the fulfillment of human life in the best sense ofthe word. Because we are aware of death, we need something that

transcends mere existence, something that gives us meaning. Therational actor view of human beings cannot be wholly true becausewe cannot live forever. No matter how much we accumulate inorder to live comfortably, we cannot escape our fate. Thus, we needmore than material possessions to give us purpose. The traditionalexplanation of Being was supplied by religion. According to Havel,another method of justifying existence is the act of committingourselves to a cause, principle, or group that we believe is greaterthan ourselves.34

Although we cannot conquer death, we can act as if death had no

hold on us. After all, a group lives on after us. Our willingness tosacrifice for the group, perhaps even risking our own lives, indicatesour contempt for deaths inevitability. This strange human capacityfor self-sacrifice reveals that, although there are selfish motives, notall motives can be reduced to the yearning for physical comfortand safety. This spiritedness, as it was called by the ClassicalGreeks, often motivates us to act in ways that seem counter toour interests. There is clearly something inconsistent about intensepublic-spiritedness. Why, after all, are people willing to fight andperhaps die in defense of their family, friends, nation, or property, ifthere is little hope of enjoying those things in the future? Yet, that is

the kind of self-sacrifice that the political passions can elicit.Love of ones own, as it might be called, is a key element inhuman behavior because it seems to evoke the political spirit. Thus


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it transforms itself into more than mere selfishness. In fact, it over-comes our egotism and draws us together into political communities.As such, it can be the source of good citizenship and devotion to

ones community or country. However, if we dedicate ourselves toour own group, we often exclude the other outside our group,since the range of human attachments is not boundless. Other peoplealso sacrifice for their communities, and because the interests orprinciples of these collectives are sometimes at odds, conflict seemsto be inevitable. Thus members of one group or country may bearoused by their public spirit to strike out against the other. Indeed,it is often the fear of a common enemy that is the most powerfulforce binding a group together.35

Havel explains that otherness is truly collective. And it is quiteunderstandable that the otherness of one group can make it seem,

to the group we belong to, surprising, alien, and even ridiculous.Outsiders can sometimes become objects of scorn and loathing.People who hate, Havel wrote, are never hollow . . . apatheticpeople. Their hatred always seems . . . expression of a large andunquenchable longing, a permanently unfulfilled and unfulfillabledesire. Hatred of others creates a strange brotherhood and asense of togetherness. Even further, collective hatred eliminatesloneliness [and] a sense of being ignored or abandoned. Hatred ofothers provides a project, a reason for existence, and a hope of over-coming the anxiety created by the awareness of our morality. In

hatred just as in unhappy love there is a desperate kind of transcen-dentalism. People who hate wish to attain the unattainable and areconsumed by the impossibility.36

The fundamental political problem, for Havel, is not related toeconomics. It arises because human beings are prompted by theirapprehension of death to join social groups that give them a senseof solidarity and completion. Their efforts on behalf of the groupoffer them the opportunity to be recognized by others who sharesimilar loyalties. The situation is made more complicated becausethe need for self-affirmation is not essentially reprehensible. It isintrinsically human, and I can hardly imagine a human being who

does not long for recognition, affirmation, and a visible manifes-tation of his own being.37 Recognition is gained through sacrificeon behalf of the common good. However, this dedication is often


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turned against outsiders who might threaten the groups safety orhonor. Thus, good citizenship arises from the very same source asdo hatred and violence, as the statues that nations erect to honor

soldiers attest. Havel reflects on the vexing problem as follows: Itis indeed tremendously difficult to discern the boundary betweena moving, uplifting, sympathetic and thoroughly natural solidaritywithin a certain community, such as a nation, and a pack mentalitywhich allows thousands, or millions, of cowardly and immatureindividuals to hide behind a we that automatically relieves themof any personal liability. Where does patriotism and nationalismand chauvinism being?38

Havel sees a struggle being waged between the global civilizationand the particular cultures. The technological and communicationrevolutions have thrown together societies that were once blissfully

unaware of each other. Mutual differences or of their own particularotherness have now become apparent. Havel compares the situ-ation to life in a prison cell, in which the inmates get on each othersnerves far more than if they saw each other only occasionally.39

While some cultures are fighting against each other, Havel arguesthat many are engaged in a struggle against the global civilization.He states:

Within a fairly brief period . . . a global civilization has come into being and spreadaround the whole planet. . .A great many of the conflicts . . .can be explainedas struggles of different cultural identities, not with this civilization, but within

themselves, for the survival or enhancement of what they are . . .

This desirefor independence is an understandable reaction to the pressure to integrate andunify exerted by our civilization. Cultural entities shaped by thousands of yearsof history are resisting this, for fear that within a few years they might dissolve insome global cultural neutrality.40

The crisis of our time is twofold, according in Havel. On the onehand, it is necessary to avoid the stultifying blandness of what hasbeen termed the universal homogeneous state.41 On the other, it isnecessary to avoid the clash of cultures that may result in new andeven more fearsome ethnic conflagrations.

Havels project is no less than to reform the characteristic natureof political life. He is attempting to work out the problem of thegeneral and particular. The general is either so bland as to be odiousto those with any spirit or ineffective in holding peoples loyalties


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because it does not satisfy their desire for distinctiveness and recog-nition. Yet, deeply held beliefs are dangerous because they oftenresult in self-righteousness and conflict. Havel hopes to make it

possible for the parts to live peacefully with the whole, for culturesto remain distinct and respect each others differences, and for thegood man also to be a good citizen. The playwright aims at nothingless than the transformation of human civilization.

What makes Havel believe that such a profound undertakingis possible? He sees a number of hopeful signs. First, there aremany organizations, such as the European Union, the InternationalMonetary Fund, The World Bank, and the United Nations, dedicatedto integrating nation-states into a global association. Second, theworld has begun to accept what Havel terms the post-modern modeof thought.42

Today, this state of mind or of the human world is called post-modernism. Forme, a symbol of that state is a Bedouin mounted on a camel and clad in traditionalrobes under which he is wearing jeans, with a transistor radio in his hands and anad for Coca-Cola on the camels back. I am not ridiculing this . . .I see it ratheras a typical expression of this multicultural era, a signal that an amalgamation ofcultures is taking place. I see it as proof that something is happening, somethingis being born, that we are in a phase when one age is succeeding another wheneverything is possible.43

The same global culture that represent a threat to human dignitymay provide an opportunity for a fundamental change. Havel aspiresto achieve a post-modern state by decentralizing administration tolocalities throughout the world and by building up internationalorganizations that will hold the world peacefully together. Civilsociety will take on many of the tasks that are local by nature,and nation-states will relinquish functions to various regional, trans-national organizations. In the same way that the local citizens inthe Czech Republic will feel better about their country if theygain local control of their political lives, Havel is optimistic thatvarious societies will come to respect the other members of theinternational community once they feel they have control over their

own destinies. I believe, Havel explains, that in the comingcentury most states will begin to transform from cult-like objects,charged with emotional contents, into much simpler and more civiladministrative units, which will be less powerful.44


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Havel also believes that the principles on which the modern worldis based have reached their exhaustion point. The secular ideas ofour age hold that the only way to avoid religious conflicts once

common in Europe and elsewhere is to avoid any preference forspiritual principles. We live in the first atheistic civilization in thehistory of humankind, he contends.45 Rather than reflections onthe spiritual aspects of Being, the contemporary ethos is foundedon the supposition that the discoveries of science can provide uswith enough material possessions to make us happy and sufficientknowledge to make us wise. The modern era believes, Havelwrites,

that the world and Being as such is a wholly knowable system governed by afinite number of universal laws. . . This era, beginning in the Renaissance and

developing from the Enlightenment to socialism, from positivism to scientism,from the Industrial Revolution to the informationrevolution, was characterized byrapid advances in rational, cognitive thinking. This . . . gave rise to the proud beliefthat man, as the pinnacle of everything that exists, was capable of objectivelydescribing, explaining and controlling everything that exists, and of possessingthe one and only truth about the world. It was an era in which there was a cult ofdepersonalized objectivity, an era in which objective knowledge was accumulatedand technologically exploited, an era of belief in automatic progress brokered bythe scientific method. It was an era of ideologies, doctrines, interpretations ofreality, an era when the goal was to find a universal theory of the world, and thusa universal key to unlock its prosperity.46

Because modern man thinks of himself as the lord of creation,he does not accept the authority of any principle beyond himself. Butwithout some authority shared by people, private concerns becomedominant over dedication to the common good.47 The consequenceof the absence of a spiritual center is moral relativism, materialism,the denial of any kind of spiritually . . .a profound crisis of authorityand the resulting general decay, a frenzied consumerism . . . [a]. . .mentality that holds in contempt everything that . . .resists thedreary standardization and rationalism of technical civilization.48

Modern science has also produced a destabilizing effect onthe human psyche. Classical modern science described only the

surface of things, a single dimension of reality. And the moredogmatically science treated it as the only dimension, as the veryessence of reality, the more misleading it became. The more westudy the world, the less we know of ourselves. The greater our


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scientific objectivity, the less we understand our subjective selves.The more we place nature under our control, the less sure we areof what to do with this power and freedom. We find ourselves in

a paradoxical situation, Havel explains. We enjoy all the achieve-ments of modern civilization that have made our physical existenceon this earth easier in so many important ways. Yet we do not knowexactly what to do with ourselves.49

Humans are finite beings who can imagine the infinite. Theyare not content with any explanation of Being that does not reachbeyond their finitude. Since the modern scientific view of the humancondition is incomplete, there is an opportunity, Havel insists, thata new and more transcendent principle will take its place. For thefirst time in history, modern communications make it possible forvarious religions of the world to comprehend that they all take the

same stance toward Being. They all accept an authority higher thanthe human will and take the infinite and the eternal as the ultimatemeasures of human affairs.50 A truly global civil society is nowpossible.

CONCLUSION AND APPRAISAL

There is little question that Havels analysis of the political andspiritual condition of modern life is deeper and more penetratingthan Klaus. That, of course, does not make Havel correct. It isdifficult to test the principles of either man, since the Czechs haveinstituted neither a fully free-market economy nor a decentralizedpolitical system.

Klaus coupon privatization scheme failed to live up to itspromises. Investment firms purchased the privatization couponsbut were more interested in quick returns than in restruc-turing companies. With little supervision from stockholders, fundmanagers were free to tunnel companies, selling off lucrativeassets and pocketing the profits. After the initial euphoria associatedwith the Czech miracle, as the early years of the Klaus government

were called, investors lost faith in the reliability of Czech companiesand capital dried up.Klaus also failed to privatize the banks. When insufficient

companies came looking for loans, the government, fearing the


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political costs of high unemployment, allowed the banks to propup industries that could not produce goods competitive in the worldmarket. Burdened with mounting debt, the banks nearly collapsed

and the flaws of Klaus policies were revealed. The Czech Republicwas faced with the same painful reality of plant closings andunemployment that Poland and Hungry experienced earlier in thedecade.51

Although the Czech Parliament enacted a law creating newregional districts, there has been little effort made at building thekind of local governments that Havel proposes. As Klaus hadpredicted, the Czechs have little experience with regional govern-ment and there has been no popular ground-swell demanding thatauthority devolve to self-governing local entities. There are localelections, but the nation is far from instituting a participatory

democracy of the kind that shapes peoples characters.Which policy, if implemented, would be more likely to estab-

lish a civil society? That question too is difficult to answer. Iinitially became interested in of Czech regionalism when I usedthe issue as a means of explaining the Alexander Hamilton Thomas Jefferson debate to Charles University students enrolled inmy American Political Thought course. There are striking similari-ties between Klaus and Hamilton, as there are between Havel andJefferson.

Klaus/Hamilton argue that it is possible to combine personal

interest and civic responsibility. They maintain that their nationseither must employ the restless human spirit in the conquest of thematerial world or that passion might turn inward and be expendedon petty quarrels and internal discord. The key for both is to givethe commercial spirit free reign. Freedom allows people to pursuethose professions for which they are best suited, fulfilling theirambitions to the fullest. It encourages the talented to create andmanage productive businesses, adding to the wealth of the nationand providing more opportunity for all. When people are satisfiedwith their material conditions, they see an interest in supporting thegovernment and laws that afford the preconditions for their pursuit

of wealth. Finally, a commercial society gives rise to diversity byencouraging a multiplicity of human talents.


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For Havel/Jefferson the pursuit of wealth sometimes makespeople selfish, not high-minded. They maintain that the size andcomplexity of government be limited and that power be jealously

guarded by keeping government close to the people. Peoples loyal-ties are best secured through allegiance to their local communitiesand neighbors. Civic spirit must be rooted in the soil, so to speak.Both favor a decentralized government in which people cometo know and care about each other, voluntarily performing theirpublic duties and obviating the need for strong central govern-ment. Havel/Jefferson reason that the type of society favored byKlaus/Hamilton might eventually remove decision-making fromthe people altogether, placing in the hands of anonymous busi-ness executives and far-off government officials. With no publicresponsibilities, citizens would supinely accept the dictates of a well

organized and wealthy elite concentrated in the large commercialcenters; true democracy might be lost.52

Tocqueville reminds us that America created a civil society bycombining the strengths of a complex commercial society and thevirtues of a decentralized political system. Perhaps by chance,the principles of Hamilton and Jefferson were both adopted andthe resulting synthesis helped form an energetic and civic-mindedpeople.

The Czechs have been unable to implement either a truly free-market economy nor a strong sense of local responsibility. Little

wonder that a civil society, one in which people voluntarily obeythe law, has yet to be established. There are almost daily storiesin the media concerning corruption, misuse of government funds,and misappropriation of private assets. A significant segment ofthe population does not feel obliged to adhere to the kind of civicresponsibility that Havel extols. Anyone who has hired a cab inPrague or who has compared the prices on the English languagemenu to those written in Czech at a restaurant knows too that Klausprinciple of fair and open free market exchanges, what Tocquevillecalls self-interest properly understood, has not taken hold amongmany citizens.

In 1989, most commentators believed that the transition from acommand to a market-orientated economy and from CommunistParty rule to a liberal democracy would take no more than a


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decade. After all, the Eastern European nations were far from under-developed. Their populations were highly educated, technicallyadvanced, and culturally sophisticated. Despite these advantages,

progress has been slow. The legacy of communism looms largerthan most people had originally imagined. As Slavenka Drakulicargues, communism has crept into the way many Eastern Europeansthink, hindering them from becoming self-activated citizens orentrepreneurs.53 In order to overcome the impediments of the past,Czech policy makers might consider pursuing the goals that Havellays out in Summer Meditations, some combination of a marketeconomy and local self-government.54

Havel makes another criticism of industrial societies. Materi-alism does not lead to true diversity. It is true that a free-marketsystem fosters greater opportunity, but it also creates consumer-

based mass societies that gratify the most common (both in thesense of the broadly held and lowest) and, therefore, most profit-able tastes. If sought to the exclusion of other ends, the pursuitof wealth smothers more subtle spiritual requirements and homo-genizes the human race. Havel fears and counsels against a globalsociety constituted so as to gratify only the material desires inhumans.

Can we reconstitute communities the way that Havel advises?Will people reject materialism in favor of a kind of political arrange-ment that only has existed for brief periods? If political power

is decentralized, will those distinct communities be able to avoidviolent clashes amongst each other that are so much a part ofthe annals of history? If confrontation war can be overcome, willcitizens lose their political spirit?

It is difficult to agree with Havel that materialism has run itscourse. People seem as intent on enriching themselves as theydid at the beginning of the secular era. True, much lip serviceis given to spiritualism, but the march of the technological andscientific way of life is unabated. Many people say that they wanta simpler, more enriching life, but few actually pursue it. Sincethe fall of communism, the pace of the materialism has actually

quickened. Perhaps, the post-communist era proves that Klaus iscorrect after all, and that the strongest human motive is the uniform,


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constant, and uninterrupted effort of every individual man to betterhis condition.

If the past be a judge, Havel is overly optimistic about the fate of

small republics. As Alexander Hamilton noted small republics oftenbecome the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord.55 They haveeither destroyed themselves through domestic chaos or have beenswallowed by larger, more powerful political entities.

Societies are often keep together by differentiating themselvesfrom the other. The very political spirit that Havel sees as naturalto human beings is grounded in love of ones own and protectionof ones own from the threat of outsiders. Public spiritedness seemsinevitably linked to duty, honor, country, in other words, militaryprowess. Spiritedness is not entirely rational since it seeks to gainindividual honor through personal sacrifice. It is difficult to imagine

that a world made up of small, semi-independent societies couldtransform the combative element in the human soul into a sense ofuniversal social responsibility.56

If somehow it were possible to maintain peace and order in theworld, would that indicate that the political spirit had disappeared?Would not a world-wide harmony further unleash the materialmotives in people? Would not universal peace inevitably lead tothe homogenization of humankind? If the most ethnically diversenation on earth, the United States, is any indication, then toleranceand acceptance of the other leads to the breakdown of insular and

distinct groups and the amalgamation of differences.For all that can be said against his position, Havels vision ofa future in which the deadening conformity of mass culture is over-come by the celebration of true diversity and in which people controltheir own destinies through active participation in social life is surelyan attractive one. Havel is aware that prudence weighs against hisposition. He maintains that the human race is faced with a choice.Either it can establish a form of political association in whichindividuals gain some control over their lives or the centralizingtendencies of the mass technological society will rob everybody oftheir independence and dignity. The central political task of our

age, he writes, is the creation of a new model of coexistence amongthe various cultures, peoples, races and religious spheres within asingle interconnected civilization.57


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9 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence,Doubleday and Co. Inc., Anchor, Garden City, New York, 1968.10 Vclav Havel, Speech on the Occasion of Vclav Havels Civil SocietySymposium, Macalester College, Minneapoliss/St. Pual, U.S.A., 26 April 1999.11 Havel, Address Before the Members of Parliament, Prague, 9 December1997.12 Vclav Havel, Address at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.,22 April 1993.13 Vclav Havel, New Years Address to the Nation, Prague, 1 January 1990.14 Havel, Address at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 22April 1993.15 Havel, Speech on the Occasion of Vclav Havels Civil SocietySymposium, Macalester College, 26 April 1999.16 Vclav Havel, Address at Asahi Hall, Tokyo, 23 April 1992.17 Havel, Address at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 22April 1993.

18 Vclav Havel, Transcript of an Interview for the Czech Radio, 2 November1993, translated by Viktor Janis.19 Havel, Address before the Members of Parliament, Prague, 9 December1997.20 Vclav Havel, New Years Address to the Nation, 1 January 1994 in trans.,Paul Wilson (ed.),The Art of the Impossible, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1997,pp. 145146.21 Havel,The Art of the Impossible, p. 147.22 Vclav Havel, Substantial Extracts From a Speech to Mayors at the Occasionof the End of Their Mandate, 3 November 1994, translated by Viktor Janis.23 Havel, Speech on the Occasion of Vclav Havels Civil SocietySymposium, Macalester College, 26 April 1999.24 Havel, Address Before the Members of Parliament, Prague, 9 December1997.25 Vclav Havel, Speech Upon Receiving the Onassis Prize For Man andMankind, Athens, 24 May 1993.26 Havel, Speech on the Occasion of Vclav Havels Civil SocietySymposium, Macalester College, 26 April 1999.27 Greene, Havel, Klaus Come To Verbal Blows.28 Vclav Klaus, Interview on HTV, in Jana Klusakova,Nado raz(To the Hilt),November, 1997, translated by Viktor Janis.29 Klaus,Renaissance, pp. 101103.30 Vclav Havel, Speech on National Day of the Czech Republic, Prague 28October 1995.31 Vclav Havel, New Years Message of Greetings, Prague, 1 January 1997.

32 Vclav Havel, Speech to the Latin American Parliament, Sao Paulo, Brazil,19 September 1996.33 Vclav Havel, Speech to the National Press Club, Canberra, Australia, 29March 1995.


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34 Vclav Havel, Speech at the Future of Hope Conference, Hiroshima, 5December 1995.35 Catherine H. Zuckert,Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophic Investi-gations from Socrates to Nietzsche, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988,p. 4.36 Vclav Havel, Speech at the Oslo Conference on The Anatomy of Hate, Oslo, 28 August 1990.37 Vclav Havel, Speech Upon Receiving the Sonning Prize, Copenhagen, 28May 1991.38 Vclav Havel, Address in Acceptance of Open Society Prize, Budapest, 24June 1999.39 Vclav Havel, Speech Upon Receiving the Jackson H. Ralston Prize, Stan-ford University, 29 September 1994.40 Havel, Speech to the National Press Club, Canberra, Australia, 29 March1995.41 Alexandre Kojve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, assembled by

Raymond Queneau (ed.), Allan Bloom, trans. James H. Nichols, Jr., CornellUniversity Press, Ithaca, New York, 1980.42 Vclav Havel, Speech at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 12 February1994.43 Vclav Havel, Address to the Senate and the House of Commons of theParliament of Canada, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, 29 April 1999.44 Havel, Address to the Senate and the House of Commons of the Parliamentof Canada, 29 April 1999.45 Vclav Havel, Address to FORUM 2000 Conference, Prague Castle, 4September 1997.46 Vclav Havel, Address to World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, 4February 1992.47 Havel, Address at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 22April 1993.48 Havel, Speech Upon Receiving the Jackson H. Ralston Prize, StanfordUniversity, 29 September 1994.49 Vclav Havel, Speech Upon Receiving the Philadelphia Liberty Medal,Philadelphia, 4 July 1994.50 Havel, Speech at the Future of Hope Conference, Hiroshima, 5 December1995.51 Ondrej Benda, Privatization guru foresaw tunneling,Prague Post6 January1999, Online at http://www.praguepost.cz/index.html.52 James F. Pontuso, Political Passions and the Creation of the AmericanNational Community: The Case of Alexander Hamilton, Perspectives on Polit-ical Science22 (1993), pp. 7083.

53 Slavenka Drakulic,Caf Europa: Life After Communism, W. W. Norton, NewYork, 1997.54 Vclav Havel,Summer Meditations, trans. Paul Wilson, Vintage Books, NewYork, 1993.


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studies in east european thought volume 54 issue 3 2002 [doi 10.1023%2fa%3a1015993401680] james f....

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