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Bad News Vaclav Klaus
By Amitai Etzioni / January 9, 2009
Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, is taking the helm of the EU. He will serve as EU President for next six months, starting January 1, 2009. This is not necessarily good news for Europeans, Americans, or any one else, given that my encounters with his oversized ego are rather typical for him. The following is excerpted from My Brother’s Keeper (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003):
The hostile reception new communitarianism encountered from some of the Czech leaders mirrored concerns initially raised by leaders and intellectuals in other former communist countries when they were first exposed to our message. It also reflected the particular position of its prime minister, Václav Klaus. Klaus has been credited with the quick transition of the Czech Republic from a communist to a capitalist economy. He defines himself accurately as an extreme Milton Friedmanite and has taken great personal umbrage to my book The Moral Dimension, which challenges libertarian assumptions of Friedmanite economics. When Klaus ran into me during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1997, he grabbed my lapel, waved his index finger in my face, and announced in a booming voice, “You are crippling my republic! You are undermining what we are trying to do! You do not understand that egoism and the profit motive are the best part of human nature. You work for those who want to return my country to communism!”
Fortunately, I was aware before this encounter that understatements and mincing words were not Klaus’ trademark. Rather than punching back, I tried to calmly defend the communitarian position. My main argument was that by providing people with a strong but community-based social fabric, they would not react to rough and tumble capitalism by running back into the arms of a communist-ordered social life. After the translation of my first communitarian book, The Spirit of Community, into German, Klaus joined a seminar I was conducting in Alpbach, Austria, for the European Forum in 1998. For a short while, he listened, but then he pulled out a prepared statement and read in a voice that vibrated down the corridors, and up the Alps.
Communitarianism… in its aversion to individualism and its advocacy of coercive means of fostering human association, is another form of collectivism.
Klaus next voiced concern alluded to by other leaders of previously communist countries:
Communitarianism wants to socialize us by forcing us into artificial, not genuine, not spontaneously formed–groups or groupings. Communitarianism cannot win through preaching only…. they try to reach the legislators and to legislate the world according to their dreams.
By this time the seminar was familiar with our viewpoint. It seemed that most present considered Klaus’s barrage to be way off the mark. It made it easier for me to respond gently one more time. After the seminar Klaus and I went for a long stroll and then joined a few others for a lunch that lasted nearly three hours. It soon became obvious that Klaus’s bluster was skin deep. He rushed to emphasize that “there was nothing personal in my statements” and that “I just enjoy debating.” During lunch he regaled us with stories about his boxing days, about testing a new racing car and other daredevil acts he was involved in. When others chimed in with their anecdotes, Klaus would soon work to recapture the center of attention. It did not take a psychologist to figure him out. Moderation, whether as a brand of communitarianism or lifestyle, did not suit Klaus’s personality any more than a society could be based on his extreme libertarian principles. The fact that his government fell apart, despite his very considerable economic achievements, suggested that there might be more room for communitarianism in the Czech Republic than Klaus favored. (It would not take much.) The best evidence to that effect was the leadership of Václav Havel. When Klaus heard that Havel had invited me to participate in his Forum 2000, Klaus simply said, “He is not my kind of a guy!” and for once Klaus was very much on the money. Every bone in Havel’s body–and more importantly, the depths of his soul–is dedicated to the civic society and, through it, to his version of communitarianism. Havel carried his vision not merely to his people but to large parts of the world, through speeches that have won him great acclaim and following. I was very much looking forward to exchanging ideas with him. On arrival in the pompously elegant, baroque Prague Castle in which the Forum took place, I found that Havel was surrounded by VIPs, including Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Adam Michnik (a flamboyant, well-known Polish dissident), Wei Jingsheng (a leading Chinese dissident), a bishop, a chief rabbi, and an Indian poet-philosopher who kept reciting the same poem about the inner beauty of lotus flowers. Moreover, Havel was absent from a good part of the proceedings; his staff explained that his health required that he rest frequently. When I finally found myself alone with Havel, I found that his command of English was not much better than mine of Czech, in which I could not so much as buy a Pilsner Urquell. I did, though, not leave Prague completely empty-handed. I brought with me the text of a new address by Havel that we published in our quarterly The Responsive Community. In it, Havel predicted that in the next century the nation-state would cease to evoke the kind of emotional and irrational commitments it had in the past. Loyalty to the state would instead be divided among families, communities, and organizations of which we are members. Above all, he called for a commitment to principles higher than the particular interest of this or that nation, especially to human rights, freedom and human dignity, which Havel suggested are a reflection of an “infinite” and “eternal” force. I have no firsthand evidence to support my hunch that the Czech people’s views lie somewhere between Klaus’ hostility and Havel’s natural communitarianism. Possibly, as the distance from the communist days increases, Czechs will find it less onerous to acknowledge their own communitarian bases and expand on them. One thing I can conclude with much confidence: citizens of all former communist societies cannot go long without some new, shared moral understanding. Those in older capitalist nations need them too, but their absence is merely more glaring in the vacuum left by collapse of communism. Communitarianism has a lot to suggest to these people–especially if we are better able to show to that it has no affinity whatsoever to communism.  Â
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Actually, I was more bemused reading your apocalyptic sounding scenario, so much the mirror image of the kind of speculative “sky-is-falling” models you apparently hold in derision. I’ve read nothing from you so far that’s addressed the actual global warming question itself, only your opinion that it’s a left wing fad; that Klaus is just the man to oppose it because he’s an individualist who’s lived under communism (when it comes to answering a scientific question, I could care less); and then that vision of worldwide economic catastrophe you propose will result from giving it any consideration. I threw out a few choice tidbits like melting polar ice and drowning polar bears, and I didn’t see any factual counter from your end. I figure you have drawn your conclusion, assume every rational person has read all the counter-arguments and now accepts the truth as you see it, and you see no further need to dwell on the actual evidence.
So let me clarify my position. As far as I’m concerned the jury is still out. As I said, there is evidence and there are arguments on both sides. What I find amusing is the attitude I frequently encounter in countless blogs and endless comment threads, that every issue can be reduced to a black and white conclusion. So if one can show that something is not completely true, it must be completely false. Extreme positions are de rigueur, and in my opinion these frequently reflect an underlying world view that acts as a template for selection and interpretation of available evidence. I’ll be the first to admit that this is practiced by people of every political persuasion, “left”, “right”, whatever, and yes, scientists as well; in any case the great majority can’t tell science from woo, and often mistake scientific disagreements as proofs for their own foregone conclusions. So when I brought up Klaus’ position that global warming is an utter hoax – case closed – my incredulousness reflected my worldview, which is a bit more restrained. To me it looks like something is going on. Maybe there’s an anthropogenic effect, maybe there’s not, but a major loss of polar ice over a short time period is not a hoax, it’s a clearly observable phenomenon that deserves attention and study, not casually assumed dismissal (I’ve seen some carefully measured attempts at rebuttal, as well as blog posts and comments that are as borderline hysterical as the writers claim their opponents to be). So excuse me if I’m not ready yet to charge off with Klaus 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
I guess the global warming thing was getting to boring for you.
If that’s the picture in 30 years, I’ll call you from my retirement bunker in Alaska.
"…Hire back the thousands of workers who will lose their jobs due to international regulations for a non-existant threat…"
"…Pay back the trillions in lost reveneue…"
In the meantime, we can start hiring back the thousands of workers already out of jobs due to 8 years of Bushism and under-regulation of the financial markets, and pay back the hundreds of billions already lost to the war in Iraq and the latest bailouts of rampant capitalists who should know better. These are the people I should trust?
"…When it gets to be a trend, when the polar ice re-freezes, I will gladly bow to your superior wisdom…"
No need to bow in 30 years when people look at the hysterical Global Warming measures much like we look at school children in the 1950′s hiding under their desk to protect themselves from a atomic blast. Â
Just reverse the loss of sovrenity to international organizations and deconstruct the massive global burocratic machine dictating to business and individuals how to live their lives everyday.Â
Hire back the thousands of workers who will lose their jobs due to international regulations for a non-existant threat.
Feed the millions in the Third World who will remain in poverty because they will not be allowed to industrialize and advance their enconomy.
Pay back the trillions in lost reveneue in the United States and Europe while China, Russia and Iran become more powerful since they will be excused from signing on to Kyoto.
And with a weaker and declining United States, protect the free world from the next Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
It will be those figures you will have to bow down to.
Like I said, whatever fits in your worldview; the rest can melt away, like the polar ice cap. Look, there’s still plenty to argue about, on both sides of the question, but in my book, one cold winter isn’t the end of the story. When it gets to be a trend, when the polar ice re-freezes, I will gladly bow to your superior wisdom.
In the meantime, all self-respecting capitalists should be rejoicing at the windfall of business opportunities to exploit: new shipping lanes, oil fields, fisheries etc to fight over. What’s in it for the leftists besides a few drowning polar bears to cry about?
As Eastern Europe freezes as Russia turns off the gas, Klaus may wish global warming was a fact rather than the latest leftist fad which it is.
If this keeps up they may have to revert back to the Global Cooling argument which was vogue in the 1970′s. Anything will do as long as the answer is more world government control on private individuals.
I guess it takes a individualist Czech like Klaus who lived the best years of his life under communism to see that.
Sorry, I meant Vaclav Klaus. Thanks for pointing my incredibly stupid error.
This is the Vaclav Havel who says global warming is a hoax…?
Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus are two different people.
This is the Vaclav Havel who says global warming is a hoax…? Needless to say, he’s the darling of anti-GW blogheads, and a bĂŞte-noir of the other side (which I admit I find more convincing). It is convenient when one’s scientific viewpoint is in accord with one’s economic and political worldview, in this case a "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" attitude that limitless economic growth can be achieved at no cost to the environment (at least no cost worth worrying about).
Good luck finding a big time Euro-crat with an undersized ego.
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