Civil Society Watch

It is evident that, among other factors, the functioning of the welfare state as well as the institutional richness and democratic reach of the civil society depends heavily on the economic efficiency of a given society. Now, the question is: what does economic efficiency depend on? There are several different answers, each of them depending on their theoretical background. Neoliberals or neoclassical economists stress the meaning of the "invisible hand" of a free-market system as the crucial prerequisite for achieving the best distribution of productive factors, of finding the best path of innovation and evolution, and for realizing the highest possible speed for economic growth, i.e., material welfare provision. Of course there are many doubts about this answer, even within the neoliberal discourse. But although there may be no best distribution, no best path and no highest possible speed of growth, deeply convinced liberals hold that there is no better solution than that produced by the anonymous market mechanism.

Bill Clinton's charge that "we are working harder for less" was repeated at campaign bus stops all the way to the White House. Echoing a decade of policy debate among Democrats, he talked of the need for America to seek a "high-wage" path through the new competitive global marketplace. With his election, "industrial policy" has crept back on to the national agenda: the question now is not whether the government should guide the private sector to become more competitive, but how.

It's still too early to judge Clinton's answers. But, although he is pointed in the right direction, political and ideological timidity seem to be restraining him from taking the steps needed to move the country along a high-wage path. If so, Americans in 1996 will be working even harder for even less. And the Democrats will have missed an opportunity to stimulate their own political recovery.

As a statement of principle, the Marxism and Leninism as applied by Lenin and Stalin have nothing to do with socialism. They are complete perversions of the great vision of socialism. And instead of creating a free society of equal chances and international solidarity, they established an especially crude form of capitalism and of national supremacy.

The former Soviet Union had become one of the few countries in the world where the partition between the classes, the ruling class of the Communist Party and the underprivileged class of the proletariat was extensively elaborated and shown openly to the outside world.

But the consequence of the bankruptcy of Marxism/Leninism is now a bias against socialism in general. Today, many more people are busy developing principles to convert socialist countries to capitalism than vice-versa. In fact, you can hardly find anyone nowadays in Europe to defend socialism at all. Socialism is considered as an ideal only for dreamers, bureaucrats, and lazy men. Capitalism has become, in the general impression in Europe, the leitmotif of our time.