THOMAS NOWOTNY
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instance, at market prices would cost several times the amount spent for
military defense.
In
theory at least, the "autonomous sector" has two
advantages over the public and the private one: closeness to the persons
most concerned and lower costs. At present, for example, toddlers are
cared for either at home at parents' expense or at a day care center at
government's expense. A mother who stays at home now might decide
to care not only for her own but also for two more small children.
Were she to be paid, the costs incurred by the public are much lower
than if the two small children were being sent to a public day care cen–
ter.
European social democracies must develop such concepts for the
public sector.
In
doing so they would demonstrate their emancipation
from the pressure groups they have been prey to and that stand for feudal
ossification and narrow self-interest. Without such perspectives, the public
sector is bound to stagnate, and European societies along with it. If these
suggestions are heeded, the emerging societies would be less hierarchical,
more egalitarian, freer, and at the same time more communal. A larger
share of wealth would be distributed not according to economic but
according to political principles. What to call such societies is an open
question. They certainly no longer would be purely"capitalistic."
