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drawn conclusions about capitalism, democracy, and the role of the United
States in international politics that parallel some of the thinking in Cracow, the
center of political and economic liberalism in Poland. The memories of
Auschwitz-Birkenau that have haunted us must haunt you as well, offering
yet another common ground on which a freer and more democratic Poland
can reach out to the United States, and to Israel. It is to this common ground,
to these glimmers of hope after so much catastrophe, that I will now turn.
Capitalism and Democracy
Discussion of dissidence in Eastern Europe in recent years has
understandably concentrated on the realization of human rights and political
freedom. If these rights continue to be realized, the issue of how politics and
economics are related to one another will move closer to center stage. You
are and will be faced with having to decide what you think about capitalism.
For the past century in the West, many intellectuals, both inside and outside
the Marxist tradition, assumed that capitalism was a barrier to the realization
of genuine democracy because political institutions merely reflected the
interests of dominant classes. For leftist intellectuals in the United States and
Western Europe one of the appeals of East European dissidence and
opposition, including Solidarity, was that such movements would bring into
being the long-hoped-for "third way" of blending socialism and democracy. If
by socialism we mean on ly "social democracy," as practiced in Western Eu–
rope or in the Democratic Party in the United States, then, of course, it is
perfectly compatible with parliamentary democracy. But we deradicalized
intellectuals concluded that if socialism meant state planned economies, then it
certainly was not compatible with democracy.
Max Weber, writing in 1919 with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in mind,
argued that expropriation of tile means of production by the state would give
it unparalleled power over society. The superstructure would come
to
domi–
nate the base. Elimination of independent centers of economic power and
decision-making in society would eliminate an indispensable source of coun–
tervailing power to the state. Weber insisted that either socialism would be
consistent, in which case it would end in dictatorship, or it would evolve into
social democracy. However, if it became social democracy, it would have to
come to terms with the central hate object of Western intellectuals: capital–
ISm.
Capitalism is not lovely. It does not generate a heroic ethos, at least
one that appeals to intellectuals.
It
can bring out the worst in human beings.
It
can be heartless. Its impact on culture has been a mixture of support and
corruption.
It
does generate inequality. A society totally organized around the
market is a destructive utopia, one which erodes a common set of principles
