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The Quest for a Liberal-Socialist Democracy and Development

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The Quest for a Liberal-Socialist Democracy and Development The Quest for a Liberal-Socialist Democracy and Development The Quest for a Liberal-Socialist Democracy and Development: Against the Behemoth By Vjeran Katunarić The Quest for a Liberal-Socialist Democracy and Development: Against the Behemoth By Vjeran Katunarić This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Vjeran Katunarić All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0907-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0907-8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................ ix Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Liberal Socialism Faced with the Behemoth Chapter Two ................................................................................................ 9 The Higher Immorality of the New Power Elites Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 16 The Impossible Self-Production Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 27 Endless Wars between the Madding Narcissuses? Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 39 Liberal Socialist Openness and Neoliberal Exclusiveness Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 44 Irrational Sources of the Mainstream Economy Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 54 The Intellectual Self-Closings Chapter Eight ............................................................................................. 66 The Alienated Workers in the Former Yugoslavia and Contemporary Venezuela Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 78 The Elective Affinities to Non-Democracy Chapter Ten ............................................................................................... 86 A Brawl in the Family or the Common Ruin? vi Table of Contents Chapter Eleven .......................................................................................... 91 A Liberal-Socialist Agenda for the 21st Century Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 102 Imaging Strategies of Liberal-Socialist Policies Designing / Performing / Protecting and Stimulating / Decision-Making / SWOTing / Conclusions with an Epilogue / Epilogue Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 156 Towards a Democratic World Government Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 166 Conclusions The Old and the New Behemoth / The Soviet Rejection of the New Behemoth / The Behemoth’s Experts and Intellectuals / The Irresistible Charm of the Nobility / The Self-Incurred Immaturity / A View to the Future References ............................................................................................... 180 Index ........................................................................................................ 191 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is my sixteenth book, with the first one published in 1978. Most of them were written in Croatian. Some parts of this book integrate various topics dealt with in the other books within a common framework that may be termed the dialectics of societal development. In the growth of knowledge about this process, I have mostly learned from my late professors Rudi Supek and Ivan Kuvačić, sociologists and colleagues at the famous journal Praxis, which gathered leading minds of socialist and liberal thought in the former Yugoslavia and the world at large. They were preoccupied with the issue how sociological theory might be adapted for the sake of building an idea of an advanced socialism. One of their central tenets, for which I am immensely grateful, is that socialism must be a form of society in which the individual is obliged to take part in various types of collective activity, but must also be free to get out of the collective for any reason, thus alternating between the social and personal aspects of life. The idea of a dialectical relationship between the individual and the collective is entrenched in most parts of this book, with a focus on liberal or democratic socialism as the most appropriate political and economic framework for the sustainable development of human society in the coming future. In the preparation of this book I am especially indebted to my colleagues and friends, in particular Dragan Lalović for many fruitful dialogues, including criticisms, on the topic of liberty as, what he maintains, a mission impossible for both liberal and socialist thought. Next, I am also grateful to Biserka Cvjetičanin for many years of our collaborative work on cultural policy research, which served as a platform for designing the policy of sustainability in this book. My special gratitude goes to John Jacobs. His extraordinary good work in editing of the manuscript made many places in the book clearer and much easier to read than beforehand. Last, but not least, I am deeply indebted to Blanka Katunarić for her encouragement to continue with writing the manuscript based on an idea that leads through an uncharted territory rather than routine pathways of a theory about society. Her genuine interest shown in my reading aloud of parts of the manuscript corresponded to her concerns about the future of viii Acknowledgments humanity, which she expressed in another way through her abstract paintings. Given that I have written so much about the opportunities and pitfalls of contemporary societies in their attempts to come up with a really bad habit—which is to purposely impose upon themselves and others schemes of development which their leading elites know very well cannot provide adequate answers to the main problems of development; but I am not sure that my arguments have reached the right ears—this book is most probably my last attempt to put forth some reasonable hope for our common good and our common future as a society of humanity par excellence. For holding on to this last thread of patience I must thank eventually many of my anonymous readers, at least those from the area of the former Yugoslavia, a country that for some time stirred a hope in many of us. This book is dedicated to all the victims of the tremendous delusions that dismembered the country into the hopeless parts of what Monty Python called “something completely different”. Zadar, 9 September 2017 Vjeran Katunarić INTRODUCTION [T]he meeting went on and on. (Ilf and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs) You will die when you begin to doubt your ideals. (Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević, Mojsije [Moses]) [T]he fundamental and final purpose of the revolution was not, as some have thought, to destroy religious authority and weaken political authority. (Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution) This book is not written as another tribute to the laudable writings of Alexis de Tocqueville. Of course, it is to his credit that he first recognised counterrevolutionary processes in the pioneer democratic countries, i.e., France and the United States, thus uncovering self-defeating elements within the democratic revolutions (Tocqueville 2010 [1856]; Tocqueville 2000 [1835]). One such element is the penchant for centralized government. Another is the emergence of the new aristocratic class in the shape of industrial capitalists. He noticed that they, like the old aristocrats, distance themselves from the workers. Nevertheless, Tocqueville shied away from egalitarianism because, as he admonishes, it converts equality into the strongest source of a new despotism. Tocqueville’s criticisms represent central points of reference in modern political and social theory. Most authors, including contemporary Marxists, share Tocqueville’s pessimism as regards the present-day democracy. This is not surprising, since no sober commentator can close his/her eyes before the tremendous rise of social inequalities along with the revival of authoritarianism at the top and the bottom of contemporary societies. These processes do not represent a chapter of social egalitarianism and obviously do not fit Tocqueville’s anti-egalitarian tenets—apart from the fact that they have some relevance in the study of early Soviet socialism. Against his explanation, however, speaks the very fact that eventually the idea of equality was abandoned in the policies of both socialism and liberalism. At the same time, and probably for that very reason, the (core) meaning of liberty (for all) has also been dramatically changed. Eventually, the longer the increase of social inequality lasts, the heavier x Introduction the consequences. One consequence is the exhaustion of the willingness for social change along with the imagination of a more equitable
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