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PARTISAN REVIEW
because it arouses the totalitarian potential of all Utopias; it is also wrong in
practice. In constitutional terms, there are only two ways: we have to
choose between systems and the open society. In terms of normal politics
there are a hundred ways, and we can forever learn from one another in
framing our own - your own, my own, everybody's, or at least every
country's own - pattern of economic and social progress. None of these pat–
terns is a model for others, let alone a system. Reality is infinitely varied.
It
may be a nightmare for the conceptual purist, but this must not mislead us
into elevating it to a system.
As
long as the constitution of liberty is safe and
sound, real people thrive
in
a real world for which
all
tidy concepts are inap–
propriate.
One other point needs to be made, although it is painful. The Swiss au–
thor rightly warned against arrogance on the part of those of us who were
fortunate enough to live in conditions of liberty and prosperity while your
people were suffering the leaden hand of
nomenklatura
socialism. His laud–
able compassion led him, as it does many others, to demand that the
"achievements" of forty years of socialism be preserved even as its errors
are undone. But what are these achievements? In terms of constitutional
politics, I am afraid that I cannot see any. The much-quoted social rights
embodied in your constitutions are not worth the paper on which they are
written. No constitutional "right to work" can prevent unemployment; all it
does is to discredit the constitution because it promises something which no
judge can provide. A policy of full employment may rank high among the
priorities of normal politics, but an article
in
the constitution is no substitute for
it. (The right not to work is a more plausible candidate for constitutional
guarantee, because it protects people against forced labor.) Nor can I see
much in the field of normal politics that one would wish to preserve in the
formerly socialist countries.
Something else remains, on which you placed great emphasis in our
conversation. It has to do with the deep sense of loss felt by some in the
post-Communist world because it appears that a style of life is irretrievably
passing away which had much to recommend it. It was a less hectic style
than that of the "capitalist" West, more sociable, more concerned with cultural
values than the materialistic hedonism of the consumer society permits. You
were quite specific on this point. It was right, you said, to subsidize good films
rather than rent out video porn, indeed to make sure that inexpensive books
of value (you said "classical" books) are available to everybody. I appreciate
your intentions but cannot follow your conclusions. To some extent people's
predilection for culture in totalitarian regimes is a substitute for other desires,
whose fulfillment they are denied. Once the pressure
lifts,
they go for tabloids
and hamburgers and dishwashers and shiny motorcycles and holidays on the
Costa Brava.
It
would be nice if some of the less shallow values could be
preserved, but it is hard to see how this can be done. I suspect that even if
