Doing nothing brings the biggest political rewards nowadays

By Marcin Krol

Wednesday, Aug 22, 2001, Page 9

The best government is the least government. So liberal people usually believe, mostly because we fear that once a government becomes too powerful, it needs to take but a short step to be able to commit the sorts of atrocities that dominated modern times.

As a prescription for democratic government this belief appeared to be, at least in peacetime, adequate (Charles de Gaulle's rule in France being an exception) for the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Then people like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan arrived. They appeared to lead -- or really did lead -- strong governments and changed their societies enormously. They were succeeded by leaders such as Bill Clinton, Gerhard Schroeder, and Tony Blair. Suddenly "weak" government became fashionable -- up to a point. In Japan, a decade of paralysis has given the idea of weak government a black eye.

While weak government moved to the fore in the West, postcommunist Eastern Europe was ridding itself of the legacy of strong (ie, communist) governments imposing weak ideas. The sickness in postcommunist societies seemed to demand new leaders. But what type? Were Thatcherite leaders who would take society by the scruff of the neck and promote change needed, or were passive leaders a la Clinton and Schroeder to be preferred in the hope that weak government would not retard economic growth?

In Poland the liberals who were the brains-trust of Solidarity wanted, at first, weak government but realized the impossibility of this. So, when they took power in 1990, they were honest enough to say that the "spontaneous order" advocated by their hero Friedrich von Hayek would not work because reform needed to be pushed from above.

But the changes they imposed were painful, and voters evicted that first Solidarity government at the first opportunity. The so-called "postcommunists" who succeeded them, looking West, adopted the weak government model. They tinkered very little with what the first Solidarity government did; moreover, they didn't do much of anything else. The economy continued to improve, but people still thought their lives too painful. So the postcommunists were defeated at the next election by the "Solidarity Electoral Alliance" (AWS).

Once again, Solidarity promised strong government. Premier Jerzy Buzek rapidly introduced four major reforms: of local government, medical service, pensions, and education. All four seemed well-intentioned, but again they caused pain. Sensing public unhappiness, Premier Buzek and his ever-changing ministers stopped being activist. Overnight they moved from being a strong government to a weak, even cowardly, one.

But doing nothing is, in reality, impossible for government. For drift breeds decay. Besides, people who seek to be political leaders are born activists; if making policy doesn't provide them with enough to do, they discover other activities. Like stealing. Boris Yeltsin's post-1996 government, indeed, showed that stealing can be a full-time job for ministers. Of course, Poland's politicians developed a nicer phrase for such self-seeking. They called it "using power for their own ends."

As the odds for the Buzek government being re-elected receded because of public dissatisfaction with it, stealing, treachery, and corruption began to run amuck. As the AWS coalition disintegrated, loyalty among ministerial thieves disintegrated too. Soon, every evening news broadcast was revealing some new corruption story. On slow news days, only a vice-minister would be exposed. On busy days, ministers themselves were shown with their hand in the till.

In a world of incompetence and corruption, liberals must no longer support weak government. The first Solidarity government lost in its bid for re-election, but every Polish government since it has been living off the fruits of its policies. A decade after her removal, most of Thatcher's policies are still in place in Britain.

Decisive democratic governments "win" by seeing their policies live on, even after they are defeated.

So liberals should promote dynamic rulers of the sort who ruled in the first Solidarity government. For strong leadership is needed not only in dangerous times but in good times, because democracies rot from within. Witness the French Third and Fourth Republics, Italy's First Republic, Weimar Germany, and Argentina before Juan Peron: weakness begets cynicism which begets passivity. Democracy gets hollowed out from within.

Second, doing nothing promotes corruption. Politicians without policies have only politics. Witness the government of Francois Mitterrand in France. After it retreated from its left-wing commitments of 1981-1983 it had no real policies. Survival was all that mattered, and for this it needed money. Corruption on a vast scale followed almost naturally.

Third, our world requires serious political action. Globalization, nuclear proliferation and scientific advances like cloning demand decisive policy reactions. Governments who allow their political muscles to atrophy cannot cope with such issues. They will fudge, which may buy time, but that will make the price of a solution far higher.

Sadly, nowadays, doing nothing brings the biggest political rewards. Bill Clinton did nothing for eight years, Francois Mitterrand did nothing for 12.

Tony Blair's government took its riskiest decisions during the first weeks of his first term, and has done little since.

His passivity was rewarded with a thumping re-election victory. Taking his cue from these "success" stories, Chancellor Schroeder now seems determined to do nothing in Germany until its next election, even as the German economy stagnates. Poland's post-communists, seemingly certain of electoral victory in September, will likely do nothing too, and will rely on an invitation to join the EU -- a decision that will be taken in Brussels, not by them -- to be their legacy.

What will be the consequences of this "survival of the weakest," of this political reverse Darwinism? At other times, when democracies became enfeebled from within we have found ourselves in bad trouble. We may find ourselves there once again.

Marcin Krol is the dean of the history faculty at Warsaw University and editor and publisher of the intellectual journal Res Publica Now. Copyright: Project Syndicate