Politics from the Viewpoint of a Natural Scientist

                                           Bohumil Fišer


CONTENTS

Foreword - Assoc. Prof. Zdeněk Koudelka, Ph.D.

Politics from the Viewpoint of a Natural Scientist - Prof. Bohumil Fišer, M.D.

1.       Natural and Social Laws

2.       Empires and Efficiency

3.       The 20th-century German Empire

4.       Russia and the Soviet Union

5.       War of the Dictatorships

6.       The Physiology of Dictatorship

7.       Dictatorship Against Democracy:  USSR vs. USA

8.       Politics and the Czech Republic

9.       The End of Politics, or the Clash of Civilizations

10.   Summary



Translated by Veronika and Darian Arky,2011.







                                             Foreword

      I greatly respect Bohumil Fišer.  He is a person who reached the height of his career in the
field of medical science when he earned the title of professor at Masaryk University in Brno.  He
was also drawn to politics, and here as well, as a Social Democrat, he achieved a prominent
position as minister of health in the cabinet of Miloš Zeman from February 9, 2000 to July 12,
2002.  He is a record holder, because no health minister since November of 1989 has remained in
office longer.  This speaks to the qualities of Bohumil Fišer, as well as to the difficulty of
managing this ministry.  Bohumil Fišer is a role model and an informal voice of authority for many
Social Democrats in Brno and in Moravia.  He is a role model for me as well.  I admire his ability
to correctly identify and capture the essence of complex political events.

      I welcome the aim of Jošt Academy to devote itself to political and political science
literature, and I consider it fortunate that the newly published Reflections on Politics contains
Bohumil Fišer's text, “Politics from the Viewpoint of a Natural Scientist.  ”The text brings to
readers a non-traditional theory on political processes in a wider historical context from the
point of view of a person who is a doctor by profession, and thus a natural scientist.  The work
itself, however, demonstrates his knowledge of the social sciences.  Fišer's work is a readable
essay.  Bohumil Fišer delivers an interesting and new view on past political events, and
extrapolates a possible explanation of current happenings.

Brno, February 9, 2011

                                                                                    Zdeněk Koudelka





                        Politics from the Viewpoint of a Natural Scientist

                                     Prof. Bohumil Fišer, PhD


1    Natural and Social Laws

      The progress of society in the current epoch, just like the standard of living of the greater
part of the population of our planet, is determined by the application of natural laws that were
discovered by scientific workers in the fields of natural sciences.  The generation of energy
applies the laws of electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and, in some cases, nuclear physics.  Air and
ship transportation is the applied laws of aerodynamics and hydromechanics.  Particularly
illustrative is the case of the development of communications technology.  In the 19th century,
James Clerk Maxwell formulated four famous theories of electromagnetism.  They mathematically reach
a conclusion about the existence of electromagnetic waves that propagate through the atmosphere and
in a vacuum.  Heinrich Hertz attempted to prove the existence of these waves in experiments.  Then,
all that was needed was to technically perfect Hertz's device for creating electromagnetic waves
and his instrument for recording them, and the radio was discovered, followed a few decades later
by the invention of the television.  At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century,
it was mainly about applying physical laws.  It is thus not surprising that the discoverer of the
atomic nucleus, Ernest Rutherford, says:  "All science is either physics or stamp collecting."  But
at the beginning of the 20th century, chemistry is connected with tumultuous advancement, and new
products resulting from chemical research enter our lives.  Mendel's Laws on inheritance, through
their revelation of the genetic code in the middle of the 20th century, can be appreciated on the
basis of an analysis of chemical processes.  Biology, chemistry and physics are ceasing to
fundamentally differ in the methods of study used in their individual branches.  Their application
is currently transforming our agriculture, and thus food production, just as much as medical
science.  At the outset of the development of individual fields of science, the results of leading
scientific workers were not accepted without quarrel.

      Galileo Galilei introduced experimentation to physics.  Astronomers before him such as
Nicholas Copernicus, Jan Kepler and Tycho de Brahe, used only the method of observation to create a
mathematical model of the universe at a time when the relatively precise calculations of the
Earth's radius made 1,500 years earlier by the Greek Eratoshtenes working in Alexandria had been
forgotten.  But Galileo Galilei was the first experimenter when he rolled balls along an inclined
plane.  Later, when he correctly described the universe, he was condemned by the Inquisition and
forced under torture to repudiate his ideas.  Even today -- more than one hundred years after its
discovery -- Darwinian evolution through natural selection is called into question, even though not
one fact exists that would overturn it, and even despite the existence of experimentally-derived
evidence, such as a bacteria's development of resistance to antibiotics.  Objections are raised on
the basis of an interpretation of a text written more than two thousand years ago, and they are
taken seriously by many individuals in high places.  The relationship between science and society
is not a simple one in the field of natural sciences.  It cannot therefore be expected that the use
of an approach common to natural sciences in a field of social science will be without dissent.

      Not all the results of natural science experiments are unequivocal.  There are also phenomena
that we observe and know to be manifestations of physical laws, such as earthquakes or atmospheric
phenomena, which we cannot correctly predict.  We know, though, that they are the result of the
effects of several factors, and we anticipate that, through a detailed study of them, we will come
to a deeper understanding.

      The question is whether we can uncover any constancy in political evolution.  In other words,
do several significant factors exist that determine political progression?  We shall attempt to
find an answer.

      The study of politics is reserved for experts in the field of social sciences -- people, on
the whole, who are deeply rooted in philosophy.  In addition to these philosophers, historians and
political scientists, the problem of political decision-making also occupies sociologists who, in
the context of Max Weber, are oriented toward analyzing statistical data, and economists who
analyze the impact of the state's economic decisions.

      The result of this approach is a computation of the factors playing a role in the formation
of political judgments.  Experts do not agree in their predictions, because each factor has a
different effect, and it depends on which of them is weighted more than others.  The science of
politics is at the stage of Rutherford's stamp collecting.  It seldom deviates toward the
formulation of fundamental constants determining political evolution.  One attempt at determining
social evolution was made by Karl Marx in his manuscript A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy in 1859:  "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,
but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness."  In short:
Economic existence determines consciousness.  The elaboration of this idea brought millions of
followers to the Marxist camp.  Its results led to dictatorship and a centrally controlled
economy.  A centrally controlled economy did not ensure a better level of economic existence.  On
the way to confirming Marx's theory, the communist experiment crashed, taking Marx's other
prognoses down with it.  Even if we can think that Marx's view on existence and consciousness is
correct, today it is not possible to consider Marx an authority in the formulation of constants of
social evolution.  Perhaps his ideas are a part of the history of social sciences, but nothing
more.  Let us have a look at other researchers.  We shall return to Darwin.  His theory on the
origin of humankind through the gradual evolution of a common ancestor of humans and primates found
repeated confirmation in the anthropological discoveries of missing links and their dating, as well
as in the analysis of genomes.  It is called into doubt not by scientific facts, but by those who
do not wish to abandon their religious notion of human creation by an intelligent creator, and by
those who question everything under the slogan that the evidence is not conclusive, and the current
state of knowledge does not allow Darwin's theory to be accepted.  Such an approach is
unscientific, even when someone who declares it has, as a scientific worker in a certain field,
obtained the recognition of the international scientific community.  The 20th-century theoretical
scientist Karl Popper, a British philosopher born in Austria, stresses that science represents the
refutation of (phony) scientific hypotheses.  We cannot prove any hypothesis; we can only refute
its validity by finding facts that do not conform to the hypothesis.

      In the case of Darwin's hypothesis on the origin of humans, such a fact does not exist.  The
alternative hypothesis calls for the intervention of a supernatural being.  Science does not
concern itself with supernatural phenomena.  From the perspective of current scientific knowledge,
Darwin's theory is unassailable.  Of course, this does not mean that it will not be further
expounded upon by additional details as new facts are discovered.  The development of civilization
long remained without a theory.  There was a description of the evolution of civilizations in
various parts of the world, mainly on the basis of archeological finds and written archives.  It is
a worthy scientific effort belonging to the category of stamp collecting as described by
Rutherford.  It does not answer the question:  Why?  Here science was on a level similar to that of
biology at the end of the 18th century when it was conceptualized by Carl Lineé, a renowned
scientist laid to rest in the cathedral of the Swedish city of Uppsala.  He is also known as the
father of the biological classification of plants and animals.  Contemporary biology is
represented, for example, by Richard Dawkins from Oxford and American Edward O. Wilson.  On the
basis of the evolutionary theory of natural selection, their sociobiology explains animal behavior
that is genetically determined, thus enabling a certain type of animal to survive.  Direct
application to human social behavior remains controversial.  That which is not controversial is the
logic of the system, which explains the variety of biological species. Here understanding moves
from description to a higher form of comprehension -- to explanation.

      In the area of the historical evolution of society, a bold step toward explaining the
development of civilizations has been taken by American physiologist Jared Diamond in the
bestsellers The Third Chimpanzee^^[1], Guns, Germs and Steel^^[2], and Collapse^^[3].  Diamond
explains the rises and falls of the human race, the fates of human communities, and the ways in
which human societies choose between demise and success.  He lucidly argues that it is natural
conditions (e.g., the abundance of game, the fertility of the soil, sources of raw materials, the
presence of animals suitable for domestication) that determine a society’s evolution, and not
factors such as race or religion.  His contribution to the advancement of our understanding has
thus far not been fully recognized, even though many indicate that Diamond’s work represents an
extension of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution of species as a theory of evolution of society.
Diamond’s work explains the evolution of society, but it does not concern itself with the political
steps that determine our modern history and political present.  This is what I will attempt to do
in this work.  What is encouraging for an author who is, by profession, a physiologist with a deep
interest in practical politics that led him for a time into public office, is the fact that the
education of Diamond and that of the author are similar.  Even though Diamond is neither a
historian nor a political scientist, he presents an analysis of society’s evolution that is not
naive, and which is fully acceptable for any intelligent reader.  The inherent laws of biology
differ from those of politics.  Clearly, a lack of philosophical, historiographic, politological
and sociological training must lead to some simplified conclusions.  On the other hand, a knowledge
of the inherent laws of biology allows a critical point of view from the outside that experts on
society are missing.  A lack of sociological training will certainly lead to errors in the
interpretation of facts, and to inaccuracies, and here the reader is kindly asked to accept an
apology.  On the other hand, the fundamental ideas must be formulated in a way such that the facts,
in the sense of Popper’s approach, do not refute them.  This is what the author must also attempt.

      Nature is governed by natural laws that are formulated by scientists.  Are politics also
governed by inherent laws?  If so, then they differ from the laws of Nature.  However, if we do not
attempt to formulate them, we remain at Rutherford’s stamp collecting, just as with biology at the
end of the 18th century.

      We will start with a description of the factors that determine political decision-making.
But before this, we must linger for a moment on a definition of politics.  Politics means the art
of governing the state (in Greece, the state was understood to mean the city state, the polis).
Political decisions thus lead to the attainment or maintenance of power in the state, and, in the
next step, to implementing measures that influence people’s lives.  Some groups of people will see
the change as positive, others as negative.  Historians describe an entire series of factors
determining political decisions, including a politician’s education and his state of health.  If
these factors were the most significant, it would mean that laws determining political decisions do
not exist, and the forecasting ability of the theory would be nil.  We shall attempt to show that
this is not so.

      Every scientific theory presents a simplified model of reality.  Science attempts to explain
a given phenomenon in the simplest way.  In the first half of the 14th century, the Franciscan monk
William of Ockham formulated a principle known as Ockham’s Razor.  If a certain factor is not
essential to the explanation of a specific phenomenon, then a scientist should not take its
influence into account.  In other words, Ockham’s Razor slices away everything that is not needed.
Albert Einstein greatly prized this principle, even though he did not always adhere to it, as the
following episode demonstrates.  The simplest solution to Einstein’s theory of general relativity
was the one assuming an expanding, non-stationary universe, as proposed by Alexander Friedmann.
Einstein doubted his approach and introduced a cosmological constant into his theory allowing a
solution for a stationary universe.  When American Edwin Hubble proved the expanding state of the
universe several years later, Einstein branded the introduction of a cosmological constant as the
greatest mistake of his life.  I introduce this episode to emphasize that the proper application of
Ockham’s Razor is not without its difficulties.

      If we take into account all of the aforementioned realities and attempt a hypothesis
formulating the minimum factors determining political decisions, we arrive at three factors.

      In abbreviated form, we can label these factors efficiency, timing, and mathematical error.

      What we mean by efficiency is clearly demonstrated by an example from history.  Archeological
finds from the period of hunter-gatherers do not include the discovery of fortifications, even
though, for example, there were fishing villages located in the same place over a long period of
time.  The reason they were not raided and plundered is simple:  there was nothing to plunder.  The
situation changes with the spread of agriculture.  Farmers store their surpluses, and these must be
protected against bandits.  Thus the need arises to form an armed force.  So long as this armed
force is protecting the group, the bandits do not attack, and the armed force is fulfilling its
function; but it is not being efficiently utilized.  The principle of efficiency requires the
utilization of this group in its own acts of banditry for the benefit of the group that created
it.  In the appropriate chapter, we will show how this method of consideration determined the
history of the 20th century.

      The principle of timing is known from many fields, including medicine or astronomy, for
instance.  For example, we would not operate on a valvular heart defect while the patient is not
impaired, nor would we wait until it is too late.  An optimal point in time exists for the
operation; or, better stated, an optimal interval during which to perform it.  Similarly, in
astronomy, there is an optimal interval for sending a space vehicle to Mars, and then this
situation does not repeat itself for several years.  In political decision-making, an attacker
tries to find the point in time when he alone is prepared for an attack, and his opponent is not
yet ready to defend.  The problem, however, is the frequently incorrect quantitative estimation of
the attacker’s strength in comparison with that of the defender, thus leading to disaster.

      The term mathematical error is very simplified.  We should correctly use the term
quantitative error of estimation.  For example, during the Russian Revolution, peasants and
laborers estimated that, if the property of the landowners and capitalists was divided among them,
then everyone would be well off, and this theme was the initial driving force of the revolution.
When simple numerical proportions showed this would not be the case -- because, given the number of
those who were poor, the divided confiscated property would only slightly alter their wealth -- the
revolution was already so far along that, for fear of repression, and as a result of the animosity
stemming from envy, it was already impossible to stop it.  An inaccurate estimate is followed by
inertia, and the process cannot be halted.  However, I do not present inertia as a principle of its
own.  It is the result of the error in estimation and not a factor that determines the original
political decision.

      Among the factors determining political decision-making, I do not list religion and
alternative ideology, racial differences, or morale factors as Kant’s Categorical Imperative does,
for example.  I will attempt to demonstrate that these are always ancillary factors that do not
influence political decisions.

2    Empires and Efficiency

      A fundamental concept linked to efficiency is that of ownership.  Our notion of ownership is
probably inborn.  We can infer this from the fact that it is perceived even by animals.  Dog owners
are very well acquainted with the fact that a dog knows that the food that is on a plate on the
table is not his.  His food is that which his master or mistress places on the ground for him.
Obviously, a dog learns this from a person.  However, even in the animal kingdom we see behavior
respecting ownership.  The lioness presents her prey to the lion, and only when the lion has eaten
to his satisfaction does the lioness consider the remainder of the food to be her property.
Respect for personal property in a human collective is an essential condition for the functioning
of a human society.  Yet, respect for ownership is at variance with the principle of efficiency.
If I want to apply the principle, I must offer justification as to why my neighbor does not have a
right to ownership.  In exceptional cases, we cite religious differences.  In tens of thousands of
years of war, however, this argument has been used in only a small number of conflicts, such as the
expansion of Emperor Charlemagne’s Eastern Frankish Kingdom, Islamic expansion in the first
millennium of the Common Era, the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas by Spanish and Portuguese
conquistadors, and, with some exceptions, the Thirty Years War in the 17th century.  In the vast
majority of cases, a historical argument is employed.  In ancient texts, the neighboring people are
labeled an enemy, because at some time in the past its members harmed our ancestors.  It is the
simplest and most dangerous argument, because it can be used anytime.  The Egyptians automatically
held the Babylonians as their enemies, as indicated in hieroglyphic texts.  The war against them
was considered a just one, and so long as it was victorious, there was a reason to exalt the
ruler.  If we move to Central Europe of the 12th century, in the oldest Bohemian chronicle written
in Latin, the educated chronicler Cosmas ascribed negative characteristics to the inhabitants of
Erfurt (the Thuringians) in neighboring Germany, and the Bohemians’ wars against them are seen as
fully justifiable.  Cosmas was a Catholic priest, and the Thuringians were also Catholics, so
religion played no role whatsoever in this conflict.  For more than fifty years already,
representatives of Arab countries have been arguing against the existence of the State of Israel
using the historic fact that the State of Israel is the property of the Palestinian Arabs.
Associations of resettled Germans argue similarly against the Czech Republic and Poland, and they
seek financial compensation for property confiscated after the Second World War.  The argument
against Poland is weakened by the great loss of Polish lives in World War II, and the rhetoric
against the Czech Republic is intensifying.  Historic rationale represents the perfect
justification of war, and it is the worst obstacle to a peaceful arrangement.  It is always
possible to draw from lengthy history a segment when one neighbor did more harm to another.  I
consider elimination of historic argumentation from negotiation an essential condition for
successful reconciliation.

      At the moment when we substantiate the right of ownership, efficiency then applies only to
the attack and counterattack.  It is natural that small nation states located in an area presenting
a certain geographic advantage can be wealthy, thus ensuring a high standard of living for all
their inhabitants, even in the case of considerable inequities in the distribution of wealth.
Kuwait and Singapore are recent examples.  However, given their size, small nations have limited
means to effectively defend themselves.  Then a mere historical argument suffices, and the
occupation of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military forces was the result.  Without
intervention by the USA, this occupation would have been irreversible.  Understandably, Saddam
Hussein grasped the danger and attempted to reach an agreement with the USA, but his offer was not
accepted.  The USA’s concern stemmed from the fact that Iraq, strengthened by an additional source
of crude oil as a source of wealth, would have been too strong an enemy for Israel, and further
protection of its Israeli ally would have meant considerable risk for the USA.  It is generally the
case that a small state is not independently capable of defense, and the principle of efficiency
calls for the rise of large empires.  Thus, the existence of the great empires of the Egyptians,
the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Greeks of Alexander the Great, and the Romans is not
surprising.  State entities sufficiently large to carry out defense and attacks come into being.
The disadvantage of every large entity is its heterogeneity.  As a rule, wealthier and poorer
regions must appear within it, and the state entity must move toward redistribution.  Moreover, the
ruling structures of certain regions cannot act independently, for they must respect the
restricting influence of the central authority.  Within every large entity, centrifugal tendencies
arise that can manifest themselves through internal conflict.  Concurrently, there is a struggle
between groups to obtain central leadership.  Centrifugal tendencies led to the dissolution of the
successor of the Spanish empire in the Americas, and to the Civil War of North versus South in the
USA in the 19th century.  A typical example in the 20th century is the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Slovenia was economically the most developed area, and it gained the most economically in becoming
independent from more populated, but economically weaker Serbia.  Croatia understood that it can
profit from tourism on the Adriatic coast, and the separatist effort was thus justified.
Independent Bosnia and independent Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are then simply fulfilling
the ambitions of local politicians.  Montenegro can profit from a short coastline attractive for
tourism, and from a small population.  The cardinal error of Serbian representatives was waging
war.  Compared to other countries of former Yugoslavia, the Serbian leadership possessed
considerable financial means.  It spent them for a pointless war in which neither the European
Union nor the USA would have tolerated Serbia’s victory.  If it had used them for investment, the
country’s standard of living could be much higher today.  Kosovo is a poor country without any
comparative advantages, entirely dependent upon the economic assistance of the USA.  The American
administration is relying too much on historic arguments.  It is connecting two issues -- the fact
that the Russian-led Soviet Union represented a significant threat to the USA, and the fact that
Russia has traditionally good relations with Serbia -- in which it sees a threat to its Balkan
interests.  Because the interests of the USA are not political, but economic, no one is threatening
them.  The USA is nonetheless willing to pay for a military base in Kosovo that has no meaning
there.  It is very strange that no one is investing in tourism in Albania.  No political obstacle
is blocking the development of tourism in Albania, and, given its small population, Albania could
be a tourist paradise for a number of European countries.  It is as if investors are behaving like
a herd:  for now, no one is leading the heard into Albania.

      If we concern ourselves with the collapse of empires, we cannot leave out the fall of the
Roman Empire and the break-up of the Soviet Union.  The collapse of both empires had differing
mechanisms.  As the Western Roman Empire, the Roman Empire changed its military policy before the
end of its existence.  This policy was based on a system of border fortifications.  This is an
effective method, and is thus used repeatedly throughout history.  We know the Great Wall of China,
the Maginot Line, the Atlantic Wall, and many others in the course of wartime conflicts.  This
method makes it possible for a much smaller number of defenders to repel a much larger number of
attackers, and to cause them considerable losses.  This system becomes practically ineffective,
however, if it is not augmented by a counterattack.  White Americans used the term “campaign of
retribution” in the war against Native Americans.  If we look away from the moral aspect of the
issue, the Native Americans’ attack on settlers meant certain losses of warriors; but anyone
devoted to the martial profession expects this.  Each unsuccessful attack is followed by the
attacker’s analysis, mainly an analysis of mistakes, and then the attacker carries out a set of
measures aimed at eliminating the mistakes during a subsequent attack.  A campaign of retribution
imposes the gravest losses upon a people:  losses of families, of women, and of children.  It was
this policy that practically lead to the extermination of Native Americans in North America.
Organization of the counterattack makes a military policy more expensive.  There is no economic
gain from it, and the loss of lives among fighters carrying out the counterattack is considerable;
but mainly, following the repulsion of the attack, the weakened attacker poses no immediate
threat.  The next attack will not come for a long time.  We therefore see the Romans’ lack of
enthusiasm for conducting a counterattack.  North American settlers overcame this.  Their tactics
lead to their total military victory.  The Romans, as the Chinese later against the Mongols, did
not employ this strategy, and in both cases it meant the fall of the empire.  The Western Roman
Empire was undone by barbarians, and the Chinese Empire by Mongols.  From a moral standpoint, the
tactics of the North American settlers are highly condemnable.  Neither the Romans nor the Chinese
used these tactics, though by no means for moral reasons; rather, it was pursuant to strategic
military deliberation, and based on the analysis I mentioned above.  Morally, each war of
aggression must be condemned, and such wars were a component of the philosophy upon which both
empires, Roman and Chinese, were built.  The end of the Roman Empire is presented here in a very
simplified way.  Nonetheless, if we compare the policy of Rome at the time of the Punic Wars with
that of the period before the end of the empire, there is an evident tendency to tolerate defeats
by barbarian neighbors and to conclude treaties that are very unfavorable for Romans from a
military standpoint.  The deviation from an offensive policy and the inclination toward defense and
a stalling retreat is obvious.  The rise and fall of the Soviet Union, as the rise and fall of the
Third Reich, deserves its own chapter.

      Relatively little can be added to the principle of timing.  Every political decision is
connected to it, and it relates mainly to an estimation of consequences.  A quantitative estimation
is imperative.  Everyone knows that losses will be met by both the attacker and the opponent.
Quantitative scale, or the ratio of losses, is vital.  If the estimate isn’t properly made, it
leads to catastrophe.  I will take this up in a later chapter.  At this point I will focus rather
more on moral and religious factors in political decision-making.

      Only a few political decisions are determined by a moral or religious approach.  Lately,
elimination of the death penalty is such a moral imperative.  A political decision having minimal
impact in the land, it does not directly affect any citizen, save for those few who are condemned.
From history we know that children were used in one of the Crusades, while other campaigns were
governed by reason, with the leaders of the Crusades making sure that their own rights of ownership
and those of their fellow warriors were fully respected.   The elimination of slavery in Great
Britain was steered by a moral imperative.  The political decisions accompanying the war of the
North versus the South are more complicated.  Here for the first time in our interpretation we
encounter the error of quantitative estimation as the cause of a catastrophe.  Slavery in the 19th
century was inexcusable.  It could not be supported by churches for whom all people were equal
before God, nor by monarchists, because slavery had no traditional place in any European kingdom.
It was of course unacceptable for leftists adhering to the traditions of the struggle of the Great
French Revolution.  The liberal bourgeois condemned violence in economic relations, and this is
predominant in the case of slavery.  The problem was that of the economy.  Agricultural producers
presumed that, without slavery, plantations could not be run in America, where production had
expanded only as a function of the importation of slaves.  In the middle of the 19th century,
however, the number of slaves was growing in a natural way.  Ownership remained the problem.
Simple emancipation of the slaves meant confiscation of the property of their owners without
compensation, as well as a threat to their means of production, the plantation.  No one except the
socialists accepted this course of action.  This was exacerbated by fear of a decline in America’s
trade, for the most part tied to American export of products produced on the plantations.  The
decision of the southern states to secede from the Union following the election of Abraham Lincoln
as President of the United States stemmed from the conviction that the elimination of slavery would
lead to an economic catastrophe in the South.  The southerners did not realize that wage laborers
were capable of ensuring production on the plantations for practically the same costs as slaves.
If they had quantitatively evaluated the situation correctly, they could have acceded to freeing
the children of the slaves and to their employment.  Freeing the older slaves and the
responsibility of their children to support them would have meant gradual elimination of slavery
without social and economic upheavals.  Lincoln’s decision to wage war against the South is
understandable.  Any responsible representative of a state threatened with dissolution will proceed
in this way.  These days, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and to some extent even North Ireland are
examples of how leaders will not acquiesce to the dissolution of the state.  Each breakup is
connected with instability, and, if there are not emphatic reasons as there were in former
Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, or the former Czechoslovakia, the breakup is negative and
often associated with violence.  The principle of efficiency says that order is better maintained
in a larger state.  The North Atlantic alliance prevents conflicts between nations in Europe.
Small nations in the Middle East are preserved by the military might of the USA.  In this way, all
small nations become less sovereign.  History showed that Lincoln was right.  He demonstrated an
example of how a U.S. president should behave:  Since that time, there has never been an attempted
coup d'état in the USA, and the country has shown itself to be one of the most stable on Earth.

3    The German Empire of the 20th Century

      In the preceding chapter we pointed out how the quantitatively inaccurate assessment by
leaders of the American southern states led to war.  In this chapter we will see for ourselves how
the same is true of 20th-century Germany and Japan.  As late as the 18th century, Germany
represented a collection of small states.  None of them had sufficient strength to build a colonial
empire.  This led to an incorrect notion that dominated German public opinion:  without colonies
and their bases of raw materials, German industry will lag behind the industries of the colonial
powers.  The fact that this notion is false is demonstrated by post-WWII economic development in
the case of both Germany and Japan; but at the beginning of the 20th century, no alternative to
this conviction existed.  A second notion is closely linked with this viewpoint:  Germany has
little agricultural land.  If one crosses the Rhine on a journey from Germany to France, he will
notice that the population density of France is lower.  From a geographic standpoint, however, the
vast expanses in the East were much more attractive.  The ideal of eastward expansion, Drang nach
Osten, presented itself.  The problems of the European Union’s agricultural policy hinge on the
fact that there is too much farmland and too many farmers; but no one was thinking of things this
way in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century.  The third incorrect perception -- for which
the label of incorrect quantitative estimation is not an entirely apt one -- is the notion that the
German economy is controlled by Jews, and that this fact adversely affects the standard of living.
This opinion held sway only with a narrow segment of the population.  Because a greater percentage
of the owners of commercial networks were Jews than what corresponded with the Jewish share of the
population, this was interpreted by some to mean that Jews dominated retailing and, to some extent,
financing as well.  For people unfamiliar with the political economy, Jews were the cause of their
poverty.  While the idea about Jews will not take hold of Germany’s poverty-stricken population
until the crisis of the 1920s, the first two notions -- i.e., that a lack of colonies is holding
back industry, and that small living space (Lebensraum) is a brake on agriculture -- determine the
national policy of the German empire at the beginning of the 20th century.  The decision-making of
Kaiser Wilhelm II incorporates all three of these principles.  The unified German nation builds an
army not just for its own defense, but for aggression, with the goal of increasing the power of the
German empire (the principle of efficiency), and plans an attack at a time when it assumes the
French are poorly prepared (the principle of timing), with the doubtful objective (the principle of
incorrect quantitative estimation) of gaining colonies and eastern territory.  Religious or ethnic
tenets have no influence whatsoever on the decision.  It is interesting that, as the main (and
formally the sole) perpetrator of this tragedy (Austria had a reason, though relatively petty, for
declaring war on Serbia following the assassination of the heir to the throne by Serbian
nationalists), Wilhelm II, who invaded neutral Belgium without reason and allowed the shelling of
civilian populations in British ports by naval guns, as well as the torpedoing of passenger ships,
was, unlike Hitler and Stalin (and currently Milošević), never labeled a war criminal.  The
question is whether his royal origin accounts for this.  Even today the public condemns the murder
of the Czar’s family by the Bolsheviks much more strongly than it does the murder of children in
the Vietnamese village of My Lai by the Americans.  Even though aristocrats for the most part
obtained their property by inheritance from ancestors who came to it through brigandish military
campaigns, they are often accepted respectfully by the public.

      Chaos is characteristic for the fate of Germany after the lost World War until the time of
Adolf Hitler’s rise.  The economy was burdened by the necessity of paying reparations, and German
governments proved unable to resolve the situation by any means other than the printing of money,
thus leading to inflation.  Inflation worsened the conditions for offering commercial loans, thus
stifling the entire economy.  Aside from a relatively thin layer of businessmen who were setting
the standard profit margin and modestly earning, the rest of the population was denied certainty
about the future.  Unemployment, which stems from the inability to conduct business on credit, is
not too high; but concern about unemployment and the inability to plan a family, to plan a home (an
apartment or a house), and to generally plan for the future affects the majority of people.  Two
opinions dominate.  The communists emphasize the responsibility of the capitalists for starting the
war, and they prepare a revolution to be accompanied by the confiscation of property and a loss of
social status for members of the middle class.  Through coercive acts, strikes, and demonstrations,
they attempt to provoke a revolutionary situation and deepen the chaos.  Social democracy seems to
offer salvation.  At this time, German social democracy has no platform.  The conception of a
socialized state is not defined at this time; Keynes has not yet formulated his approaches to
intervention in the economy.  Attacked from the right and the left, helpless social democracy
fails.  The original ideas that led to the declaration of the First World War -- that Germany needs
raw materials, thus colonies; that Germany needs living space, thus an eastward crusade -- remain.
People must only find an explanation for why Germany lost.  The simplest and most effective thing
is to declare betrayal the cause of the loss.  The betrayer can be found in the cosmopolitan group
of people that is the Jews.  At first glance, this is a believable idea.  In order to maintain
their business profits, they joined with the Jews in Western European banks and sold out Germany.
Even people who did not share this belief -- because there was not one piece of evidence that would
support it -- supported any measure that would eliminate chaos.

      The requirement for a government with a strong hand naturally contradicted the platform and
tradition of social democracy, and, in subsequent elections, this led to its loss of the
opportunity to lead the nation.  In this situation, the way opened up for Adolf Hitler.

      Countless treatises have been written about Hitler.  All of them have emphasized the
situation in Germany after the First World War, and the fact that he was an uneducated criminal.
But why is it that never in history had an uneducated criminal stood at the head of a nation the
size of Germany -- a nation with such a high level of education in the humanities, and in the
natural and technical sciences?  I believe that it is appropriate here to ask the question:  Why do
people enter into politics, and why are they successful?

      Many people declare that politics is dirty, therefore they do not want to take part in it.
They consider politicians to be psychopaths hungry for power and money.  That there are such types
is true; but certainly not all of them, nor even the majority.  Politicians are linked by something
else.  It is a talent for politics that is at the inception of every political career.  Just as a
top-notch soccer player does not start to play soccer in order to become a top-notch professional
player, or just as a musician does not learn to play an instrument so that he can ensure himself a
top-notch income, likewise no one enters politics with visions of money and power.  An athlete more
intensively devotes himself to his sport when, by comparing himself with others, he realizes that
he has a talent for the sport.  Similarly, a musician who becomes aware that he is better than
others opts for a professional career.  It is the same with a talent for mathematics or
literature.  Nor is it any different in politics.  Many politicians recall that already in high
school they gained some political position as a class president, or as students were elected as
representatives, or as young workers were chosen for labor union committees.  Anyone who has
political talent comes to recognize it in the way he is able to gain people’s trust.  Hitler
undoubtedly had political talent.  Just as there are hundreds of professional athletes with
exceptional talent, all politicians are endowed with a certain level of political talent.  However,
they generally differ from the type of politician Hitler was.  To be successful, a politician needs
to gain the support of the majority.  As a rule, this leads to considerable flexibility.  The
politician modifies his ideas according to the majority.  Trust thus obtained can easily be lost.
In stable political conditions, he is replaced by another politician, and political life goes on.
In certain crisis situations, however, politics demands a politician with a vision.  Wilhelm II was
undoubtedly such a politician.  He removed his capable opponent, Bismarck, from power, armed
Germany, and militarily attacked neighboring countries with the aim of strengthening Germany.  A
similar politician with a vision was Lenin, who planned the Russian Revolution in exile.  It has
nothing to do with whether the politician is a criminal or not.  Winston Churchill and Charles de
Gaulle were politicians with a vision.  Among Czech politicians there was certainly T.G. Masaryk.
These examples I have presented show that visionary ability is not connected with morality.  The
vision can be morally acceptable or unacceptable.

      What characterizes Hitler as a politician with a vision?  It is his publication   My Struggle
(Mein Kampf).  Hitler offers the image of a superior people predestined to direct the course of
affairs around the world on the basis of characteristics that are inherent in Germans:  high
intelligence, industriousness, dedication, discipline and courage.  Thus far these positive
characteristics have not manifested themselves in the standard of living because Western
capitalists (plutocrats), communists, and, above all, Jews (Jewish Bolsheviks) have been preventing
them from doing so.  These ideals inspired superficially reasoning Germans who were experiencing a
low standard of living and, as the case might be, an inability to obtain work connected with a
shortage of life’s basic needs, including food.  Hitler’s interpretation seemed logical to them.
Most people lack the ability of quantitative reasoning, and they are capable of accepting this
erroneous quantitative estimation.  No one conducted an analysis to calculate what percentage of
GDP was spent on Jews, and what percentage of GDP was the result of their work; and, as I mentioned
at the outset, a mathematical error in people’s thinking was decisive for Hitler’s rise.  A second
factor was the attitude of leading figures in the German economy:  top managers of the economically
most powerful financial institutions, banks, and industrial concerns.  Their flawed assessments
accompany us through all of history.  Many wealthy people in history, out of concern over losing
too large a share of their assets, did not invest in defense, and subsequently they lost all their
property after a defeat.  An example is the Bohemian Protestant aristocracy that skimped on its
army (but not on noblewomen’s toilets at balls held in Prague under the auspices of the queen, wife
of King Frederick I) before 1620 and, following the Battle of White Mountain, lost all of its lands
through confiscations benefitting the generals of the victorious Hapsburgs.  The German businessmen
were afraid of the communists, who proclaimed nationalization of property without compensation, and
of the social democrats, who were striving for the nationalization of key enterprises with
insufficient compensation, and for high taxes to redistribute wealth.  Hitler’s anticommunism,
along with the removal of Jewish competition (though this was secondary), was decisive for them,
and they therefore provided Hitler financial support for a costly election campaign.  They viewed
the elimination of democracy positively.  Strikes were forbidden, managing a business easier;
operating costs were lower, and profits higher.  We have to realize that this was a time when the
state had one main task:  to maintain internal order, and to defend the state against external
enemies (in other words, to wage war).  Bismarck’s achievement at the end of the 19th century
introducing state-sponsored health and social insurance was an exceptional act aimed at taking wind
out of the sails of the social democrats.  The state did not interfere in the economy, and so the
Great Depression arrived at the end of the 1920s.  The drop in the standard of living worked to
Hitler’s advantage, and he won the elections.  A coalition with the bourgeois parties made him
chancellor, and allowed him to abolish democracy and deal with the communists and with the social
and liberal democrats.  Arbitrary arrests made it possible for him to imprison potential criminal
offenders and establish order in Germany.  Within the Nazi Party, he liquidated his opponents in
the four-million-strong, undisciplined, paramilitary SA with the concurrence of military leaders
and Reich President Hindenburg, as well as with the support of the industrialists and bankers among
whom the SA had created feelings of uncertainty.  Hitler then removed Jews from public life.  He
thus fulfilled the wishes of anti-Semites, a large segment of the German population who, along with
Hitler, surmised (entirely without reason as I mentioned above) that Jews were holding back the
evolution of the German nation.  Hitler thus simultaneously resolved a fundamental problem of every
dictatorship:  how to reward the faithful.  The public is capable of tolerating a dictatorship
rather well, so long as it does not harm their economic interests; but the natural desire for
freedom means that the dictatorship’s supporters do not elicit positive emotions.  In exchange for
this unpleasant position in society, it is necessary to reward them.  Thanks to their higher level
of average education, Jews, despite their relatively small share of the population, held a
relatively high share of society’s significant positions.  By confiscating their property and
removing Jews from prominent positions, Hitler gained the ability to reward his supporters, and to
gain more of them.  Hitler implemented his political program just as he presented it in Mein
Kampf.  Those who tolerated him as they allowed him to form a government with a thirty-percent
share of the vote often declared that his platform was just a populist philosophy created to gain
votes according to the saying, “Once a politician is elected, he forgets his promises.”  This
saying, aside from exceptions proving the rule, is untrue.  Every politician tries to implement
every bit of his party’s platform.  If he doesn’t succeed, it is always external circumstances that
prevent him from doing so, and not a lack of will.  People often repeat this ridiculous saying even
today.  It is as invalid today as it was invalid in Hitler’s time.  The fate of the Jews was
planned by Hitler, and everyone who supported him shares in the responsibility for the Holocaust.
If a dictatorship wants to maintain itself, then rewarding the faithful is a first-priority goal of
the dictator.  It is not an easy task.  As we shall see in the Soviet Union and other socialist
dictatorships, it led to the devastation of the economy.  Thanks to the Jews, Hitler’s work was
easier in this direction.  The most difficult task, however, was to improve the economy, and thus
the standard of living in Germany.  Hitler handled this task superbly, better than anyone else in
Europe.

      Hitler was understandably not a gifted economist; but he handled the Great Depression of the
1930s better than was the case in any other country in the world.  If we take industrial output in
1928 as 100%, then the output at the end of 1939 for the USA is 115%, for France 100%, and for the
United Kingdom and Germany 130%.  At the same time, however, unemployment at the end of 1932 was
32% in the USA, 12% in the United Kingdom, and 18% in Germany.  In 1939, unemployment in France
remained the same as in 1932 (300 thousand unemployed; between 1932 and 1939 the figure had risen
and again dropped, in fact), in the USA it was 25%, in the United Kingdom 10%, and in Germany is
had dropped to zero.^^[4]  Hitler achieved this through spending on armaments and investments in
the transportation infrastructure by constructing highways.  He managed the crisis by increasing
taxes six times.^^[5] ^^[6] Thanks to the dictatorship, no one protested, and workers whose
standard of living had significantly increased while their fear of unemployment vanished, cheered.
Today center-right economists insist that state interference is always negative, and that
Roosevelt’s interventions in the economy delayed its reinvigoration.  They insist that high taxes
lower business incentive, and that society as a whole suffers as a result.  They are unable to
explain Hitler’s solution.  Anyone who publicly points to this success is accused by the
center-right media of supporting fascism.  Hitler’s economic success significantly strengthened his
public standing and led to his belief that he could successfully achieve his political goals as
well.  Hitler’s goals were criminal, but they were realistic.  They were essentially a continuation
of the goals of Wilhelm II, with the addition of anti-Semitism.  Hitler wanted to create a German
colonial empire in Europe.  Nations to the east would deliver unskilled labor, and Germans would be
in charge.  The functioning model had been tested in preceding centuries by colonial powers.
Hitler would soon begin its implementation.  The closure of universities in the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia and in Poland clearly demonstrated what Hitler was preparing.

      At the end of this chapter it must be added that the realistic criminal concept was based on
an error.  The world wars were wars for raw materials.  Germany, Japan and Italy lacked raw
materials.  After the global war which these nations lost, they were again without raw materials.
But despite this they quickly and successfully evolved economically.  This is proof that the notion
that it is not possible to develop without raw materials or without living space is a simply an
incorrect estimation.  This is my argument for the position that both wars came about on the basis
of an erroneous assessment.

      As we shall show in the next chapter, the philosophies of Lenin and Stalin were also built on
the foundations of erroneous estimations.

4    Russia and The Soviet Union

      The Great French Revolution is the cradle of modern European democracy.  English democracy
is, after all, influenced by the slogan, "No taxation without representation."  This implies that
those who pay taxes should vote.  The English system of democracy -- which, along with a House of
Commons, also features a House of Lords whose membership is in some cases hereditary -- to some
extent contradicts the "One man, one vote" slogan of modern democracy brought about by the French
Revolution.  Another motto of the French Revolution is the famous "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"
the modern translation of the original Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.  The drafters of the French
Constitution, as those of the U.S. Constitution before them, fix the inviolability of private
property as a guarantee of the state, meeting with the criticism of those who stress that, without
equality of ownership, there is no true equality, and, for want of means, the poor cannot even take
advantage of freedoms, such as the freedom to travel.  The critics of so-called bourgeois democracy
consider calls for their fraternity in building and defending a state immoral.  In the latter half
of the 19th century, socialist parties wanting to achieve material equality come into being.
Because the poor are in the majority, some assumed that it would be sufficient to strengthen the
democratic system, and then, on the basis of the principle of "One man, one vote," create a
parliamentary majority, pass laws redistributing wealth, and form a government to enact these
laws.  Another group of socialists insisted that owners will not willingly give up their assets and
will fight for them even at the price of eliminating democracy, thus socialism can only be achieved
by revolution.  The defeat of the Paris Commune in 1871 supported the arguments of the
revolutionary group.

      After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, Parisian Republicans feared that the
conservative majority in the National Assembly would restore the monarchy.  The National Guard in
Paris refused to obey the order to lay down its weapons, and, following local elections won by
advocates of revolution, the rule of the Commune was established.  Regular troops of the central
French government militarily suppressed the Commune.  The government lost 750 soldiers, and 20,000
Communards were killed.  Later, 38,000 supporters of the Commune were imprisoned, and 7,000
deported.^^[7]  It was a total victory for the right.  It was a Pyrrhic victory.  During the
Russian Revolution, the suppression of the Paris Commune was a main argument for executing
potential class enemies without trial under the watchword, "Before they do it to us, we'll do it to
them."  Here again, timing is one of the arguments for making a political decision.  Through the
history of the Paris Commune, Lenin makes his argument for staging a red terror at the time of the
Russian Revolution.

      The devoted revolutionary Lenin acted upon Marx.  Lenin, with his high intelligence,
political talent, and extensive philosophical -- though not economic -- education, adopted all of
the economic argumentation from Marx's Theory of Surplus Value.  Marx states that the capitalist
appropriates a portion of labor output in the form of surplus value.  This is obviously true, but
the problem is a quantitative one.  Though Marx doesn't emphasize it, he gives an example in which
the surplus value equals roughly 100% of a worker's labor.  He calls this exploitation.  This
implies that elimination of exploitation will double the worker's income, thus also doubling his
standard of living.  This is Marx's fundamental error, as all builders of a socialist economy
discovered.  Surplus value includes rewards for planning and organizing work, and for the marketing
of products, i.e., bonuses for managers (who are, in most cases, also owners), a portion of
operating costs, expenses for ensuring cash flow through loans, and outlays for losses resulting
from poor sales and those caused by defects in the manufacturing process.  If a capitalist with a
large number of workers appropriates 10-15% of the surplus value of their labor, he acquires a
tremendous sum of money, and by putting aside a portion of this, a tremendous amount of assets over
the course of years.  We must realize that we need a certain sum of money for life's basic needs,
mainly food, clothing and shelter.  Every amount, even a small one, above this amount increases our
opportunities to purchase goods and services that we do not absolutely need, thus significantly
increasing our standard of living.  The mathematical error rests in the fact that 10% is not 100%,
and even if we take everything from the capitalists, the workers will be left with only a few
percent more, while the flaws in organizing the work will multiply.  These arguments explain why
every socialist method of production failed.  Lenin did not realize this while declaring a
revolution.  At the beginning of the revolution, the saying went:  "The elimination of exploitation
will significantly increase our standard of living."  At the time when aristocratic estates were
being looted, total confiscation was taking place; but it brought the revolutionary peasants and
laborer practically nothing besides a few stolen pieces of furniture or flatware, or some jewels,
and the revolution was being propelled by the argument of fear of a repeat of the results of the
Paris Commune.  After the victory of the revolution, Lenin realizes his economic mistake.  Central
planning is leading to economic catastrophe.  He therefore adds private initiative in the form of a
New Economic Policy.  The New Economic Policy (NEP 1921-1928) is successful.  The answer as to why,
following Lenin's death (1924), Stalin ended it in 1928 is clear.  The standard of living rose
unevenly during the period of the NEP.  The greatest gains were made by independently operating
farmers and entrepreneurs, manufacturers and businessmen.  Those who gained nothing were those who
had risked their lives for the victory of the revolution.  The struggle against counterrevolution
was waged en masse, because many people had fought on the side of the revolution.  I already
mentioned that the main task of a dictator is to take care of his faithful.  Stalin solved this
through a centralized economy with a leading role for the communist party, thus taking care of
party operatives at the expense of the economy.  Taking land from the peasants and forming
collective farms opened up further managerial positions for members of the Bolshevik party and
strengthened the dictatorship.  The fact that the Soviet dictatorship was crueler than
dictatorships at other time and places (e.g., the Napoleonic dictatorship) can be explained by
Stalin's personality, which combined the character of a criminal with the cautiousness of a
politician.  Stalin's cautiousness was already known from his time in the Bolshevik leadership
when, in St. Petersburg before the November revolution in 1917, he supported the minority position
to put off an armed attack on the Winter Palace for fear that the uprising might fail.  If Stalin
judged that a politician among the Bolshevik leadership was capable of carrying out a bold policy
and gaining support for it, he had him murdered.  He retreated from the plans of global revolution
and concentrated on repressing the opposition in his own ranks.  The result is the dismissal and
later murder of Trotsky, and the executions of Bukharin, Kamenev, Rykov, Yagoda, and Zinoviev
following show trials.  He was supported in this effort by those party functionaries who feared
that they would be among the bold politicians dismissed from their positions for incompetency.
This is demonstrated by the execution of Tuchachevsky and the subsequent purge of the Red Army.
Tuchachevsky was an officer in the Czar's army, and the Czar's noncommissioned officers Budonyi and
Voroshilov were aware of his greater intellect as they worked on a concept for the defense of the
Soviet Union, so they asked for Tuchachevsky's removal.  Stalin acquiesced when, on the basis of
his own suspicions, he came to the conclusion that Tuchachevsky represented a personal threat to
him.  Stalin only struck when he was certain of a high likelihood of success.  At the beginning of
the Second World War, he attacked Finland, where the Red Army's advantage was clear.  He killed all
potential enemies: for example, the Polish officers captured during the combined invasion of Poland
by the German and Soviet armies on the basis of a treaty with Hitler at the beginning of the Second
World War.  He had millions of people murdered in the Soviet Union, with further millions dying in
labor camps.  In 1948, he blockaded Berlin, because the likelihood of the Western Allies starting
WWIII over it was minimal; and when an air bridge transporting foodstuffs and other necessities
into Berlin functioned, he called off the blockade after eleven months.  He incited Korean
communists to attack South Korea, because he judged that the country would be difficult to defend.
When defeat threatened the Korean communists, he did not intervene with the Red Army, because he
did not want a direct confrontation with the USA; but he recommended the help of the Chinese
communists, whom he had previously dissuaded from an invasion of Taiwan.

      As a dictator he was very successful.  Because the desire for freedom is in every person, a
dictatorship requires every real or imagined enemy to justify his existence.  Some people can be
convinced this way, and the rest are repressed through violence.  The danger for a dictatorship is
in a plurality of opinions in leading organs of the state.  An example is the Prague Spring of
1968, which led to the collapse of a dictatorship that was restored with the help of Soviet forces
under Brezhnev's leadership in August of the same year.  Stalin harshly suppressed the rise of such
pluralities, and if he got the impression that a certain person among the leadership probably did
not conform to the opinions of other leaders, he had him executed.  Through Soviet advisors, he
proceeded this way in all people's democratic countries to suppress every plurality at its
inception, and to make the other members of the communist party fearful.  He thus prevented the
rise of opposition within the Soviet Communist Party, and within the majority of the parties of the
so-called people's democratic states.  President Tito of Yugoslavia was the exception.  Stalin
waged a media campaign against him, but Tito's cautiousness kept Stalin from killing him.  After
Stalin's death, the dictatorship of the Soviet Union passed to Khrushchev, who did not end the
dictatorship, but minimized repression so that the dictatorship existed with a minimum of
violence.  It is no surprise that he was stripped of his leadership by other comrades who were
concerned that the dictatorship might not hold itself together, and the sterner Brezhnev appeared
on the scene.  After his death, leadership passed between the ill and aging Andropov and Chernenko,
and after them to Gorbachev.  Linked to Gorbachev is the end of dictatorship in the Soviet Union
and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union as a state.

      We will examine the war between the Soviet Union and Germany in the next chapter.

5    War of the Dictatorships

      Every dictatorship must fulfill four conditions to maintain itself:  1. spread an ideology
which validates its existence, persuades a portion of the population, and justifies the attitudes
of its adherents; 2. reward its supporters for their participation in preserving the dictatorship;
3. declare continuous success (Lenin:  The wheels of the revolution must not stop) to convince a
segment of the population and prevent the casting of doubt upon its leading position among elites;
and, finally, 4. prevent a plurality of ideas among the elites.

      Hitler and Stalin fulfilled all of these conditions.  A dictatorship is, of course,
maintained through violence, and a level of violence in the form of the murder of millions of
people was extremely high in both dictatorships.  The killing of the First World War and in the
civil war in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution certainly contributed to this.  Over time the
level of violence declines, and repression becomes more subtle.  People are continuously watched,
and expressions of dissent are punished by the loss of desirable employment and the exclusion of
children from opportunities for education, which in turn limits their ability to find a good job.
However, repression under Stalin and Hitler was brutal.  Each dictator watched the other, and they
mutually learned the art of rulership from each other.

      Hitler’s initial victory was ensured by the economic growth he launched.  On the basis of an
analysis of the global economic crisis, J. M. Keynes recommended intervention of the state in the
economy; Hitler did so instinctively, with the aim of preparing for German military expansion.
Keynes’ argument about the prosperity of Egypt arising from the building of the pyramids -- which,
despite their lack of utility, stimulated the entire economy^^[8] -- explains Hitler’s economic
success.  Like the pharaohs, Hitler did not proceed consciously, but his activity had a positive
economic effect.  This attuned public opinion toward him positively.  In the expanding economy,
numerous suitable jobs are found for his supporters.  A second source of rewards for his supporters
was confiscated Jewish property and relinquished positions in society.  The ideology was
attractive.  By virtue of their talents, the Germans are a nation superior to others, and under
Hitler’s leadership they will become the most powerful nation on Earth, with the highest standard
of living for all Germans at the expense of other nations.  His success in preventing a plurality
of ideas within the Nazi Party was helped by the liquidation of the SA with the clear support of
the military and conservative politicians.  Hitler interned other political opponents --
communists, socialists, liberals, and ardent Christians -- in concentration camps.  His initial
goal was not their liquidation, but their internment until the time of the victory he fully
anticipated.  According to written instructions, they were to be released one year after the
conclusion of a victorious war.^^[9]  If the preceding plans of Hitler had been carried out, then
their influence on German society would have remained insignificant.  In the case of the Jews,
Hitler considered resettling them in occupied areas in the East.  The halt of the advance on the
Eastern Front led him to change his mind, and in 1942 he decided they should be physically
liquidated.  Old people and small children were not productive, and caring for them meant a drain
on the German economy.  Their murder was decided by this utilitarian way of thinking (as
corresponds to the principle of efficiency), not by the sadism of the Nazis, though there were a
great number of sadists among the guards in the concentration camps.  Because Hitler adhered to all
four of the aforementioned rules, his dictatorship lasted until the final days of his military
defeat.  Even though successes no longer existed toward the end of the war, Hitler convinced the
public of miracle weapons whose development was about to be completed, and he promised ultimate
victory.

      Stalin adhered to these four rules with equal thoroughness.  He promised the building of
socialism and communism -- where all the needs of the working class would be fulfilled -- though
with a delay, caused by the necessity of devoting significant resources to defending the country
against Western imperialism, as he stressed.  The struggle against plurality within the leadership
of the Soviet Union was ensured by show trials and executions, or by internment of all potential
enemies of the Bolshevik Party in labor camps.  The declaration of successes is simpler under an
information embargo.  Then it is possible to declare the sufficient production of essential
foodstuffs, the electrification of villages, the construction of hydroelectric power plants and the
Moscow metro as unparalleled.  Rewarding supporters is a dictatorship’s greatest problem.  The
communist dictatorship solves this through central control of the economy, which, unlike a
free-market economy, is very ineffective.  All communist dictatorships in the world have done
things this way, with the same negative result.  For Stalin, however, it was important that this
system enabled the buildup of an arms industry, and that restraining potential enemies was
simplified, because they could not take refuge in the protection of a private economy.  A
dictatorship that allows private business is therefore often more brutal in its methods, as
Franco’s Spain demonstrates, for example, in comparison with communist European countries in the
1970s and 80s, because wherever there is a private economy, it's not possible to use loss of
employment as a means of coercion.

      A comparison of the ideologies of both dictatorships reveals that they are not similar, and
the differences bring unavoidable consequences for both dictatorships.  Hitler’s ideology of the
superiority of the German nation and the Germanic race has utility for members of his own nation.
This ideology loses its logic when cooperating with other fascist dictatorships.  Is the Italian
nation also superior because it is led by Mussolini?  Is Franco’s Spanish nation and Salazar’s
Portuguese one superior?  German Nazis had a practical problem with Czech fascists who wanted to
create a nationalist dictatorship, not a state entity in the thralldom of Germany.  On the other
hand, we can judge the ideology from the standpoint of Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which we can
characterize in simplified fashion through the expression “Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you.”  If the goal is the submission of one nation to the suppression of another, this is
morally unacceptable according to Kant’s philosophy.

      Communist ideology does not have these problems.  It advocates extreme equality and absolute
equality of wealth.  A property owner stripped of his property will be equal to a person who never
owned anything.  The idea of equality is inherent to humans.  We abandon it only in times of
threats requiring central control, that is, non-delegable command authority.  During a period of
war, the Roman Republic abandoned democracy for strictly practical reasons.  Hitler pragmatically
tolerated Mussolini and the Japanese, while he made use of friendship and cooperation with Slovak
nationalists to sunder Czechoslovakia, and even tolerated the Slovak state thereafter, especially
when he found support there for his foreign and, in the case of the Jews, his domestic policies.
Ukraine was to become the breadbasket of Germany.  This prevented Hitler from concluding a treaty
of alliance with anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists.  He considered Ukraine and Poland to be
conquered countries, not liberated territories.  Contrarily, communist ideology is
internationalist.  While Hitler’s every victory increased the demands for an occupier’s
administration -- even though the use of cheap labor not only paid for this administration, but
also brought immediate profit to the German nation -- each victory by Lenin, and later Stalin,
brought a massive influx of communists into the revolutionary army, thus significantly
strengthening the position of Russia, and later the Soviet Union.  Germany’s military allies, other
than the Japanese, were ineffectual and unreliable.  The allies of the Soviet Union significantly
increased its strength.  The slogan “With Red China we are one billion” is an expression of this
fact.  As a rule, the Soviet Union went on the offensive only in places where it had the support of
indigenous communists.  This was the case in Korea, Hungary, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan and even in
Czechoslovakia in 1968.  If the U.S. secretary of defense was worried that the action against
Czechoslovakia in 1968 would continue in the form of an attack on the Federal Republic of Germany,
it was a naive notion.  The Soviet Union made its only attack on Finland in 1939; yet the objective
was not to occupy Finland, but simply to achieve an adjustment to the borders near then-Leningrad
and strengthen the security of the Soviet Union.  Ideology is often associated with war crimes.
Even though, in the case of Germany, it seems that war crimes are directly connected with ideology,
a series of historical facts indicates that this is not so.  Wilhelm II commenced offensive
operations as a war for living space and raw materials, even without creating a propaganda
apparatus for spreading an ideology.  The Catholic religion as an ideology certainly is not
hateful; yet it is associated with the slaughter of the inhabitants of Magdeburg during the Thirty
Years War in the 17th century.  In a contemporary context, the conclusion that the Islamic religion
is not bound to aggression flows from this.  We know that, during the Middle Ages, Muslim states
existed on the Pyrenean peninsula that were tolerant of both Christians and Jews.  If contemporary
terrorism employs Muslim ideology, it is not because it is a criminal one.  Islamic dictatorships
misuse religion for political goals, and we also see that wars occur mainly between Muslims -- for
example, Iran versus Iraq, Iraq against Kuwait -- and terrorist attacks kill Muslims most of the
time.  The disputes between Sunnis and Shiites are similar to those between Catholics and
Protestants during the Thirty Years War.  If we see how individual actors switched faiths during
this period, and how their new allies accepted them, it is absolutely clear that an individual’s
religious belief was secondary in this political conflict.

      Stalin regretted the conflict with Germany.  He believed that it was possible to come to an
agreement with Hitler on the division of spheres of influence; but Hitler rigorously fulfilled his
political agenda, his vision, as he described it in Mein Kampf.  The political system of the
Western democracies had completely failed after the First World War.  Conservative politicians
feared that the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution would also be transmitted to their laboring
classes, and, if their economies made it possible, they focused their attention on this issue.
Their fatal political mistake was not working out a plan for implementing the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles, including a policy for restricting Germany’s rearmament.  It is a general weakness
of democracy.  Politicians plan for four to five years, for one period in office, that is, with the
goal of being reelected, and they put off conceptual issues extending beyond this period.  After
the toleration of his military occupation of the Rhineland, annexation of Austria, and seizure of
territory in the border region of Czechoslovakia, Hitler must have justifiably come to the
conclusion that the West was weak, and so it was true.  He concluded that what is most important is
speed (the principle of timing).  He must achieve his major goals swiftly before Western Europe
consolidates its defense.

      Hitler had political talent going for him.  Reliability and keeping agreements is fundamental
in politics.  Hitler adhered to all of his agreements with his allies.  He assisted Mussolini
militarily even when it meant only disadvantages for German expansion.  He concluded a treaty with
the Japanese, even when racial purists pointed out that the Japanese belong to a different race,
and prominent Nazis considered Japanese demands for occupying all of Russia’s Asian territory after
a victorious war excessive.  For Hitler, the means of achieving his goals was expansion.  Here he
relied exclusively on his armed forces and occupation authorities.  He did not have a tendency to
find allies in occupied countries, and he uncompromisingly subordinated institutions of local
government to the occupiers without any negotiation whatsoever.  This corresponded to his goals.
Germans will rule in all countries; they will organize production, and their high standard of
living will result from the labor of subjugated nations.

      As I already noted, the Bolshevik approach to expansion was diametrically dissimilar.  The
foundation was revolution in a particular country.  The revolutionary leadership of the communist
party would form a government, and the troops of Bolshevik Russia, or later the Soviet Union, would
ensure its stabilization.  This concept stemmed from Marx’s program of global revolution.  The
governing group is always the communists.  Nationality is not important, and their authority to
make decisions at the local level is restricted very little.  But one-hundred-percent loyalty to
Moscow’s leadership is required of the most senior communist party representatives of the various
individual countries.  Lenin created this concept, and his attempt to use units of the Red Army to
lend help to a communist revolution in Germany after the First World War document it.  Lenin did
not succeed, because the units of the Red Army were halted by Polish troops near Warsaw.  Trotsky
wanted to continue with Lenin’s policy, but the cautious Stalin prevented it.  He created a model
whereby socialism and communism could be built up in one country, and he significantly limited
expansion.

      Hitler began the Second World War with an invasion of Poland after he agreed with Stalin on
its partition.  The response was a declaration of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
Hitler was quickly victorious on the Western Front.

      Historians explain the subsequent course of the war in terms of Hitler’s incompetence
resulting from his lack of education in military affairs.  Some people in Germany would like to
place the blame for defeat exclusively upon Hitler and draw attention away from the mistakes
committed by the German generals.

      Hitler’s first mistake is considered to be the Dunkirk miracle.  Shortly after the collapse
of the defense of France, retreating British units were concentrated near the port of Dunkirk, and
they embarked on ships to withdraw to England.  Hitler halted the attack of his ground forces, thus
allowing the British to save themselves.  Hitler’s critics see behind this an attempt on his part
to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom.  This view lacks logic.  Hitler launches an air war
several months later.  It appears that the main reason for the halt at Dunkirk was the overly swift
advance of armored units ahead of their supply convoys.  Tanks with insufficient ammunition and
fuel would not have helped Hitler much, and an attack by infantry units unsupported by tanks would
mean high casualties, which would have dimmed Hitler’s triumph in Germany.  Hitler’s tactics in the
Battle of Britain were the same as those of Eisenhower during the 1944 invasion of Normandy:
First, to gain absolute air superiority, then, under air cover, to carry out an invasion of England
and deliver a decisive blow to the British armed forces.  Stalin, when he later evaluated Hitler’s
policy, considered the fact that Hitler did not attack England immediately to be Hitler’s
fundamental error.  Stalin was willing to come to an agreement with Hitler, and it would have
suited him if Hitler had defeated the United Kingdom and gained raw materials and a region for
agricultural production at the expense of the British Empire.  Hitler wanted to defeat the United
Kingdom, but he relied on his air force commander, Göring, who, as an excellent fighter pilot in
WWI, had great authority in the German Luftwaffe.  I have already mentioned all the mistakes of the
British in failing to impose the Versailles Treaty and tolerating German rearmament.  The British
did one thing well:  they established a system of air defense.  It was not just about radars, but
mainly about a system of communication enabling effective defense.  Hitler did not want to take a
risk.  He knew well that the British did not have forces for an immediate invasion of France, and
he decided to quickly invade the Soviet Union.  Every bold commander underestimates his enemies.
It was true for Napoleon, and also for Hitler.  Success in France surprised Hitler.  The French and
British armed forces were the best in Europe, and Hitler had not expected such easy success.
France’s entire military strategy had been flawed, however.  A proper defensive strategy is
predicated on the principle of the shield and sword.  The French Maginot Line, a system of
fortifications on the German-French border, represented the shield; but the sword, i.e., the plan
for a counterattack, was missing.  The same had been the case for the Roman Empire in the 5th
century, and for China at the time of Genghis Khan.  The result was predictable.

      The situation was different in the Soviet Union.  Although Defense Minister Marshal
Tuchachevskij declared that the Red Army would crush the enemy with an immediate counterattack, the
strategy was different.  The essence was to weaken the enemy during the course of his attack on
Soviet territory, to establish a defensive line deep in the rear, to disrupt supply lines, and,
after the enemy was weakened, to switch over to a counterattack.  Poorly armed border units and
agents and organizers who were already well trained before the war began for acts of sabotage
against supply lines in the country spoke for this strategy.  For example, such an agent was Zoja
Kosmodyemyanska, a partisan and heroine of the anti-fascist underground who was executed by the
Germans.  Some historians proclaim that Stalin did not believe that Hitler would start a war
against the Soviet Union, and that he withdrew to his dacha not far from Moscow after the invasion
of German forces.  It does not correspond with the character of an extremely suspicious person that
he would have trusted Hitler, especially when his intelligence service reported the concentration
of forces on the Western border of the Soviet Union.  Stalin’s behavior can be explained in that he
expected an attack against himself by his colleagues along with the attack by Hitler, and he fled
the field in keeping with his cautious approach.  When he saw that there was no putsch against him,
he took up command.

      Many military historians explain the tragic course of the war for Germany through Hitler’s
ignorance of waging war.  More detailed scrutiny shows, however, that Hitler always stuck to the
advice of his military commanders.  He wanted to invade England after the destruction of the
British Air Force promised by the Luftwaffe command.  He also refused to retreat from Stalingrad
when the air force’s leaders promised to supply the General Paulus’ German units with an air
bridge.  He halted the attack on Dunkirk because the tanks were without ammunition and fuel, just
as he stopped the offensive ahead of Moscow in 1941.  Hitler invaded the Soviet Union because
German spies had informed him about an increase in the number of tanks being manufactured, and he
launched the action at what he thought was the optimum time.  Neither Hitler nor the army’s
leadership could help it that German soldiers were insufficiently outfitted for the Russian winter.

      In response to the question of how he, as a military strategist, evaluated Hitler’s mistakes,
Stalin replied that Hitler should have invaded England immediately after the defeat of France.  In
my opinion, an invasion without air superiority would have ended in catastrophe for Germany.  After
the defeat of France, Hitler proceeded, according to classic military strategy, with an
uninterrupted continuation of offensive war.  At the beginning of the attack on Britain, there was
an attempt to crush the British Air Force and control the skies.  In my opinion, Hitler’s mistake
was that he proceeded like a soldier and not like a politician.  If he had not started to bomb
English cities, but dropped leaflets on them describing the horrors that British air raids were
causing for women and children in German cities, and declared that, just as he was dropping
leaflets, he could drop bombs, but that he did not want to wage war against the civilian
population, it would have been difficult for Churchill to continue with the air raids in the face
of British public opinion.  This would have allowed Hitler to commit all of his airpower against
the Soviet Union and overturn the slight Soviet advantage in the air.  It is difficult to speculate
how the war might have unfolded in such a case.  What is pertinent is that it was the plans of
German military commanders that failed.  Göring’s Luftwaffe did not defeat the Royal Air Force, and
was unable to ensure air superiority in the Soviet Union.  Dönitz’s submarines were unable to halt
the supplying of the British Isles over the Atlantic.  Germany’s tank army lost against Soviet
tanks near Kursk.  The Atlantic Wall did not defend occupied France against an Anglo-American
invasion.  The armored counteroffensive in the Ardennes failed in 1944.  Hitler and his generals
overestimated their strengths and lost, just as Napoleon did.  Here I believe that Hitler’s
conviction about the inferiority of Slavic peoples played a role.  This led him to underestimate
the Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the war’s burdens and also inflicted the great majority
of losses upon the German Army.

      Japan counted on a German victory.  If the Soviet Union capitulated, Japan expected that the
U.S. and the United Kingdom would eventually conclude a peace with Germany, ensuring Japan
territorial gains, including limitless sources of raw materials.

      I have tried to show how the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, the two world wars, were
started by the erroneous estimation that economic development requires that sources of raw
materials be militarily ensured.  The fact was that both the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan
experienced tremendous economic growth after the Second World War without their own sources of raw
materials.  The foundation of economic development is a well educated work force and scientific and
technological advancement.  Nations possessing raw materials have no choice but to sell them, even
though in the short run they can use their monopoly on those raw materials as a means of exerting
political pressure.

      Another lesson results from the battle of dictatorships during World War Two.  If the
dictatorship is under obvious external military pressure, the condition of declaring success is not
a condition for maintaining the dictatorship.  During the first two years of the war against the
Soviet Union, only Hitler could declare success.  The citizens of the Soviet Union, even the very
strong critics of Stalin who did not express their criticism out of fear, became loyal.
Democracies in ancient Greece and the Roman Republic respected limitations on freedom and the
necessity of non-delegable command authority.  On the other side of the coin, we see the same thing
in the later years of the Second World War.  Attempts to carry out a policy eliminating Hitler
arose within a narrow group of military officers and did not resonate among the wide masses of the
German population.

      We will develop these observations from the war of the dictatorships in the next chapter,
where we will concern ourselves with the functioning of the dictatorships and with their demise.

6    The Physiology of Dictatorship

      A description of the construction of an organism is, in biology, indicated by the term
anatomy.  The anatomy of a dictatorship allows us to describe the structure of the organs
sustaining a dictatorship.  In biology, physiology concerns itself with the function of an
organism.  Physiology is written in Chinese with two characters.  The first of them is the
character for logic, the second for life.  In biology, physiology is a synonym for the logic of
life.  I have borrowed this term to describe the logic of the workings of a dictatorship.

      At the outset I will dispel several myths.

      Some people emphasize that a dictatorship is connected with murder and torture, and that the
foundation of a dictatorship is a government of brutal terror.  Many seek the essence of a
dictatorship in the personality of the dictator, and in his perverse appetite for killing.

      In reality, murder in dictatorships is mainly related to timing.  Lenin’s effort to organize
the Cheka and eliminate potential enemies was driven by a push to avoid hesitation and the delay
associated with it that could have brought the revolutionaries in Russia the fate of their
predecessors, the Paris Communards shot in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.  Hitler interns his
opponents in concentration camps, with the intention of releasing them after a victorious war.
Every dictator must behave ruthlessly.  He is driven to this by his closest associates, many of
whom have ambitions to take his place.  He cannot allow himself to be labeled weak or indecisive.
Then his associates would strip him of his supreme leadership.  This means that the personality of
the dictator plays no role.  Stalin’s cautiousness caused much greater killing in his own ranks
than was the case with Hitler.  Unfortunately, the 20th and 21st centuries consider the killing of
enemies to be a valid social norm for democracies and dictatorships.  The burning of villages and
the murder of Native American women and children is a part of the history of the democratic United
States, and the murder of women and children in Africa and Asia is a part of the histories of
democratic France and the democratic United Kingdom.  Even though the airstrikes in Iraq and
Afghanistan do not intentionally target women and children, they are ordered when their absence
would threaten the lives of allied soldiers and the success of their military operations.

      In dictatorships we see that killing is characteristic for their beginnings, when the
dictatorship is consolidating its power.  An example is the Franco dictatorship in Spain, just like
the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; and, on the other hand, the dictatorships in the communist
countries of Europe and Asia, just as in Castro’s Cuba.  The statistics on executions carried out
clearly illustrate this.  In fact, it is the wish of every dictator to rule without violence, with
the massive support of the country’s whole population, who will honor and celebrate him.  Only the
people’s striving for freedom compels him to violence.  In a dictatorship we also encounter the
murder and torture of prisoners.  During the period of consolidating power this contributes to the
spreading of fear, thus to the stabilization of the dictatorial regime.  However, we encounter it
even in a subsequent period when the dictatorship is very strong.  It is related to one of the four
conditions for the existence of a dictatorship, rewarding the faithful.  In every system, in
dictatorships and democracies, people with sadistic tendencies are inclined to join the country’s
security apparatus.  Thus we encounter this phenomenon in both systems.  In democracies, where
government oversight exists through the criticism of independent media, the politician must,
whether due to his own moral conviction or out of concern for reelection, order redress.  Even in a
dictatorship these events are sometimes unpleasant for the leader, and he does not want them to be
repeated.  Investigations of the use of torture in prisons occurred in communist Czechoslovakia and
even in Hitler’s Germany, though always without punishment of the violent policemen.  The
leadership of the dictatorship thus signaled that it did not desire these illegal manifestations,
but at the same time made clear that violent policemen are more important for the leadership than
respect for laws giving prisoners limited rights, for example, the right to humane treatment.

      Another myth is the notion that people can topple the dictatorship if they demonstrate the
courage to do so.  This is a very dangerous notion, because, among the silent majority of people
who do not support the dictatorship, but do not fight against it, it creates a feeling of guilt.
In another way, this notion can be formulated thusly:  Every nation has the government it
deserves.  On the other hand, there are people who oppose the dictatorship by nonviolent means, in
communist dictatorships labeled as dissidents, and they figure very prominently in the collapse of
the dictatorship.  Their role in the fall of the dictatorship is not, however, inciting the silent
majority.  With their activity they contribute to the formation of a plurality of ideas among the
ruling elites, and thus to the elimination of one of the four conditions of a functioning
dictatorship.

      Ideology is condition number one.  Integral to scientific thinking is that each scientist
critically analyzes the arguments supporting and refuting his position.  What applies to science
does not apply to politics.  In politics, the politician proclaims that which supports his policy.
If he mentions ideas that contradict his political policy, he belittles them.  Emphasizing
counterarguments is the role of the opposition, if one exists, of course.  It is similar to the way
things are in the legal practice.  A defense lawyer emphasizes only that which is beneficial for
his client, while, on the other side, the prosecutor, though he is supposed to be objective, in
practice emphasizes the facts speaking against the accused.

      At the outset of every major social change there is a violent seizure of power.  Revolutions
accompany us throughout history.  The cause of revolution is the dissatisfaction of certain strata
of society with their situation.  Often it is an economic situation; frequently the lack of a sense
of freedom, for example, religious freedom.  People who have political talent, meaning that they
feel they can manage the state in accordance with their beliefs better than the current ruling
elite, place themselves at the head of the revolution.  The revolutions in Britain, France and
North America were caused by the discrepancy between the significant economic status of certain
strata of the population and their limited political power.  “No taxation without representation”
is the slogan expressing this ideology.  The result of these revolutions (though in France, after a
series of reversals) was democracy.  It was this way because all of these revolutions occurred in
countries with a tenable economic situation for wide segments of the population -- in places where
the precept of these democratic revolutions, i.e., the inviolability of private ownership, was
respected.  Elected governments would administer the state, and the majority of citizens would
confirm or replace governing representatives in periodically repeated elections.

      A revolution that culminates in dictatorship usually has one of two causes that in most cases
combine themselves.  The first is a state of threat from an external enemy.  In a state of the
threat of war, people prefer dictatorship, because unified management of a defense is accepted as
unavoidable.  The second cause is a feeling of economic injustice among a wide segment of society.
The ideology is therefore based on two theses:  the struggle against the external enemy, and the
struggle for economic justice.  These slogans are understandably modified.  Anticommunist
dictatorships emphasize the threat to society from chaos, which is the goal of the communists, and
the defense of private ownership and religious values.  Unpropertied people in a number of
countries are religiously oriented, so they support the dictatorship in its effort to suppress the
atheistic communists.  The propertied support the dictatorship for fear of confiscation of their
assets by the communists, and out of fear of a worsening of their economic standing under the
socialists.  They are afraid that these two groups, the socialists and communists, have a majority
in the country, and that free elections would bring them to power.  Spain between the world wars is
an example.

      The fundamental rallying cry of communist dictatorships is the slogan of an ongoing class
struggle:  The world is divided into two camps, the imperialist camp that wants to destroy us with
war, and the socialist camp that yearns for peace and social justice.  The struggle between these
camps can only be carried out at the price of limited personal freedoms and suppression of
alternative ideas about how society should be organized.

      Many dictatorships are not economically strong, and the concern of overthrow is great.  Thus
communist dictatorships sought support from the Soviet Union, and anticommunist dictatorships from
the USA.  This was evident in the secondary slogans of the dictatorships.  The anticommunists
emphasize friendship with the USA, and the communists with the Soviet Union.

      Ideology allows for a logical answer to all questions, so long as we accept the fundamental
thesis of struggle.  Any casting of doubt upon the actions of the ruling group is construed as a
betrayal of the struggle.  He who criticizes the lack of freedom in anticommunist dictatorships
helps the communists; in communist dictatorships, he is on the side of the imperialists who want to
destroy them for profit.

      The second condition, the declaration of success, is closely linked with ideology.  The
political method of formulating a declaration means that it is not important to emphasize the
unsuccessful, but just success.  It happens in democracies, but here there is the opposition on the
other side emphasizing the failures.  After the Russian communist revolution, electrification was
an undeniable success.  Hunger was explained as the inimical activity of the kulaks.  After World
War Two, successes in conquering space were highlighted, and the standard of living in the USSR was
declared to be good and ever increasing.  The standard of living in the West was portrayed as
excellent for the wealthy and catastrophic for the majority of the population.  The stores are full
of goods, but people do not have money to buy them, the communists said.

      On the other hand, people are willing to accept ideological arguments so long as failures are
objectively the result of the enemy’s actions.  Thus, Hitler was widely accepted in Germany up
until the end of the war, and Stalin was widely accepted in the Soviet Union during the Second
World War.

      The most important condition for the functioning of a dictatorship is the rewarding of its
supporters.  This problem is not so pronounced in anticommunist dictatorships.  Most of them came
into being on the basis of a military coup, and military officers are rewarded as a priority in all
countries.  The same is true of the members of the police force.  Propertied citizens support an
anticommunist dictatorship out of fear of the communists; that is, out of concern for their
property and their status.  Anticommunism aligns them with the USA, thus they gain the support of
the most powerful democratic country.

      This is also the weakest link of the communist dictatorships.  Economic growth is sacrificed
to this condition.  Incompetent supporters receive leading positions in the economy, and only their
loyalty to the dictatorship, not their success at work, determines their status.  In democracies,
government enterprises are less effective than private ones because management must concern itself
not only with the company’s purely economic interests, but also with political interests, such as
employment or rewards for supporters of the governing party, better still for the opposition as
well, so that positions remain stable even during a change of government.  This understandably
influences workers’ morale and initiative.  On the other hand, competition with private enterprises
leads to the company’s rationalization, though never to the same extent as in a private company.
No impetus for rationalization ever existed in the state-owned enterprises of communist countries,
and the economic results were catastrophic.  Thus communism sacrificed the economy for the
dictatorship, with negative outcomes for the existence of the dictatorships themselves.

      The final condition, the suppression of the existence of a plurality of ideas within the
dictatorship’s ruling group, is clear for any dictatorship; yet in most cases it is exactly the
failure to do so that is the cause of the demise of the dictatorship.  An exception is
dictatorships that have lost a war, such as Hitler’s.  Dictators are not aware of danger for the
existence of the dictatorship, but of the danger of losing their own personal power.  Thus they
suppress other ideas within their own circle throughout their lives.  We see this with Hitler (the
struggle against the SA), Stalin (the battle against the internal enemy), and in all the purges
taking place within the ruling political party or the repressive apparatus of all dictatorships.
Those dictatorships that relied on the assistance of the Soviet Union and lessened their efforts in
the struggle against members of the ruling group who held opposing views ended their existence
simultaneously with the fall of the Soviet Union.  Because not respecting this final condition for
the existence of a dictatorship is behind the fall of the majority of them, we will take notice of
this phenomenon in more detail.

      At the beginning of armed conflict in a revolution, fear unites each group fighting against
the other.  The communists fear they will end up like the Communards after the defeat of the Paris
Commune, and the conservatives are afraid they will be like the victims of the Jacobin terror
following the French Revolution.  The homogenous ruling group begins to differentiate after the
victory of the dictatorship.  In Russia, the ideas of some leading representatives of the Bolshevik
Party lead to a change in Lenin’s outlook, and the period of the NEP (New Economic Policy) begins;
but the opponents of NEP are not persecuted within the party.  This leads to Stalin’s turnaround
connected with bloody purges.  In Italy and Germany, shortly after the victory of the dictatorship,
a war begins that solidifies the ruling group.  Wartime defeats lead to the removal of Mussolini in
Italy in the midst of the Second World War, but not to the removal of Hitler in Germany.  Hitler
had bloodily repressed the SA beforehand, but it was mainly the shared participation in war crimes
and crimes against the Jews and the fear of reprisal by the Allies that led to a solid cementing of
the Nazi elites.  Perhaps a certain role was played here as well by a particular trust in miracle
weapons that could alter the course of the war.  A drowning man will clutch at a straw, so the
saying goes.  The main role was played here by the attitude of the Allies.  They were willing to
negotiate with Mussolini’s former associates and offered them a compromise.  They did not do this
in the case of the Nazi Party in Germany.

      If a dictator deals decisively with the proponents of diverse opinions within his own group,
then his position is unshakable.  If he dies, a vacuum occurs, and it is natural that someone must
take his place, and the battle for succession is understandably a battle of ideas aimed at gaining
the trust of the majority within the group holding power among the dictatorship’s leadership.  This
is how dictatorships ended in Spain and Portugal, and, in a somewhat modified form, even the
dictatorship in Yugoslavia and in the Soviet Union.

      Shortly after the victory of the dictatorship, a plurality of ideas within the leading circle
arises as a rule in all dictatorships.  The leading circle is one of people with political talent,
but they are not sadistic criminals.  The goal of every dictator is to rule with the trust of all
the people in his brilliant capabilities, and without the use of violence.  The dictator grasps for
violence 1) out of concern for the dictatorship’s defeat, and 2) out of fear that he will be robbed
of power by members of his ruling group.  The red terror after the revolution in Russia and the
murder of supporters of the White Guards is an example of the first reason, and Stalin’s purges in
the Bolshevik Party are an example of the second reason.  It is a given that in every ruling group
there is competition for the leadership after stabilization of the victory.  Each person with a
talent for politics knows that, if he wants to be successful in this competition, he must convince
the majority of the other members in the leading group that he will be better than the current
dictator.  In other words, he must begin by criticizing him.

      The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia had the ideology of a global revolution.  Lenin’s
philosophy arose from Marx’s precept that revolution cannot be won in a single country.  Marx drew
from the experiences of the French Revolution, when all the powers of Europe united against France
and thus militarily defeated her.  Lenin therefore considered the revolution in Russia as a
beginning, and, under the rule that the wheels of the revolution must not stop turning, he planned
its further progression.  Stalin modifies this approach with the thesis that revolution in one
large powerful country such as the Soviet Union is undefeatable, but he continues to plan
revolution in other countries.  The highest body is the Comintern under the leadership of the
Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union, and Moscow provides all other revolutionary communist parties
material and military assistance.  After the victory of the revolution in other countries, an
alternative idea arises that it is not necessary to obey the Soviet Union.  The first to come
forward with this idea was Josef Tito in Yugoslavia, and he succeeded.  Yugoslav communist
partisans gained power in Yugoslavia without the assistance of the Soviet Union, and Tito ceased
recognizing Stalin’s authority.  Stalin attacked through the media, but not at all militarily.  It
cannot be said which was more important:  this experience, or the proven model in the Soviet Union
of purges accompanied by executions that took place under Stalin’s leadership in all communist
parties.  After Stalin’s death, alternative ideas of another type immediately appear.  Dictators
are faulted for loss of the population’s trust.  Critics argue successfully that they can gain the
confidence of the people through their intelligent approach.  The dictators are blamed for
unnecessary cruelty, which is the dominant factor in the loss of trust.  Thus, in 1956, the
majority of the leadership of the Hungarian Communist Party rejects the leading role of the Soviet
Union, along with the violent methods of the repressive elements of the communist party, i.e., the
Hungarian state police, and Imre Nagy, a representative of these ideas, assumes power in Hungary.
The Soviet Union crushes the Hungarian revolution, which it labels counterrevolutionary, and Nagy
ends up on the scaffold.  Shortly thereafter, alternative ideas are declared in the Soviet Union.
Nikita Khrushchev halts the purges in the Soviet Communist Party and establishes a certain form of
a legal state within the context of communist dictatorship.  However, he does not persuade the
leading circle of the dictatorship with his actions.  He is inscrutable to his comrades.  Everyone
still remembers Stalin, who was absolutely intelligible:  He did not tolerate alternative ideas,
and he rewarded loyalty.  With Khrushchev they are concerned as to whether he has the situation
under control, and whether he will pull them, his associates, down into the abyss of failure and
loss of status.  The group selects Leonid Brezhnev.  He limits cruelty, and political executions
end in the Soviet Union, though rigorousness increases.  The loyalty of every citizen is examined,
and only those who are thus screened receive leading positions.  Alternative ideas within the
ruling group are suppressed.

      We can trace the rise of alternative ideas within the development of the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia.  After 1948, executions occur under a reign of terror, though, for political
reasons, they are limited to around 200 executed.  Shortly thereafter, under the leadership of the
Soviet Union, a purge takes place in the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, also
accompanied by the execution of leading communist functionaries.  Stalin’s chosen leader of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, bears the greatest responsibility.  His
loyalty to Stalin is determined by his sense of obligation.  As an uneducated person without the
wider support of Czechoslovak communists, he was chosen by Stalin to be the leader, and Gottwald
did not want to disappoint Stalin.  He dies shortly after Stalin’s death, and the new president,
Antonín Zápotocký, a writer from a family of long-time social democrats, immediately minimizes the
terror.  Political prisoners are released under an amnesty, and executions are halted.  After his
death, the Soviet Union installed Antonín Novotný, who was uneducated, but adept at managing
people.  Nonetheless, shortly thereafter, in the mid-1960s, alternative ideas appear.  Political
discourse must be made possible, and not those who are loyal, but those who are the most capable
should be chosen from among the membership of the communist party.  In 1968, the slogan “Socialism
with a human face” appears, and Alexander Dubček is chosen by the ruling group as its leading
representative.  The Soviet Union does not tolerate alternative ideas in the leadership of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, calls for a renewal of repression against those proclaiming
alternative ideas, and intervenes militarily.  Like Janos Kadar, who is installed in Hungary by the
Soviet Union, Gustáv Husák, installed in Czechoslovakia, carries out a policy of moderate
repression.  A legalistically authoritarian state comes into being, with laws forbidding the
promotion of alternative views.  This neutralizes popular dissatisfaction, but the greatest
weakness of a dictatorship remains:  the faithful must be rewarded.  They gain well paid management
positions in industry, in research institutions, at universities, and in cultural institutions,
without consideration of their abilities and regardless of their performance, simply as a reward
for loyalty.  State-owned companies are generally less effective than private ones, because, in
addition to production and the provision of services, they must also take into account employment
and the responsibility to employ workers who have political sponsors, and who thus work less and
lower the morale of others.  In a democratic society, they are subject to the criticism of the
media, which stimulates the output of state-owned enterprises.  Such was not the case in Husák’s
Czechoslovakia, nor in Kadar’s Hungary.  The economic consequences were disastrous.  While Czech
industry was in very good condition after the Second World War and meant economic strengthening for
the Soviet Union, in the 1980s it lagged behind Western Europe to such an extent that the Russians
realized that, in exchange for their quality crude oil and natural gas, they were receiving goods
of inferior quality from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.  This fact
contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union in exactly the same way that a contributing factor
to the collapse of the colonial empires of Britain and France was the fact that politically
managing colonies was economically disadvantageous for them.  At the end of the 1980s, there was
essentially no communist manager who would have privately considered the communist dictatorship a
good thing.  Only the evident unrealistic nature of an alternative -- and the seemingly inevitable
military intervention of the Soviet Union with all of its negative consequences -- was the reason
for continuation of the current policy.  The argument that cooperation with the Soviet Union
protects us against German revanchists who wish to revise the outcome of the Second World War was
spread as communist propaganda by the media, but no one believed it.  In communist countries,
dictatorship was maintained by fear of Soviet intervention, and this also suppressed alternative
ideas.

7    Dictatorship Against Democracy:  USSR vs. USA

      The politics of the second half of the 20th century are characterized by the Cold War and
proxy wars between the USA and the USSR.  Never in history did more powerful superpowers stand
against each other.  Let us attempt to analyze their mutual relations from the beginning to the
ultimate victory of democracy.  The American Constitution of 1787 is the foundational legal
document of the world’s first modern democracy.  Prior to this, we can speak of democracy in Great
Britain, where the freedom of commerce, of movement, and of expression is connected with
participation in the administration of the state; however, the existence of two legislative
chambers, only one of which is elected, in itself demonstrates that democracy here was not
complete.

      American democracy is based on the equality of individuals and on respect for property.  All
colonists arrived poor in North America, and they acquired property through their labor, or by
inheritance from those who earned it through their work.  Thus, in America there was no property
that one would consider to be unjustly acquired.  Each citizen, in accordance with Kant’s
Categorical Imperative (treat others as you would be treated), respected this status quo.  An
American did not encounter property about which he would conclude that it was justified to deprive
someone of it because its owner was using it without the right to do so.  The idea of the
socialists about the unjust distribution of wealth thus never gained mass support in America.  This
of course did not apply to black slaves, and later to free Americans of African origin; but they
always constituted a minority in the USA.  If Americans wanted to trade, conclude treaties and
otherwise communicate only with democracies, there was only Great Britain, from which they had
liberated themselves by a revolution.  Thus at the outset they immediately declared the principle
of non-intervention in the affairs of foreign countries, with the sole exception being that of
protecting citizens of the United States and their property.  When, shortly after the creation of
the United States, Algeria cast American citizens into slavery, the government of the USA sent
warships to free them, and pursued this policy for another 200 years.  The policy of the USA has
always been absolutely clear.  Every form of business was given the green light, with only minimum
government involvement, and immigrants with ideas for business were welcome.  The founders of the
USA also put stock in education, and they supported universities so much that there was not another
country where education had greater support.  The positive feedback effect of an intake of brains
in universities and private enterprises led to growth in the level of qualification of the USA’s
labor force.  Highly qualified professionals established companies requiring highly qualified
labor, university graduates easily obtained handsomely paid employment, and, at the same time,
there were many well paying jobs left over for intelligent, hard-working immigrants.  In the USA,
no impediments to development existed:  there was enough land, but few people to farm it; enough
mineral wealth, and few people who would mine it.  The shortage of labor raised wages, and thus the
influx of qualified people from Europe did not subside.  Nowhere on Earth were there as few
obstacles in the path of “idea (business aim) - product - sales - profit” as in the USA.  The
United States became economically the most developed country in the world.  While other major
powers gave preference to gobbling up colonies, the USA favored free trade.  A conquest of colonies
by a covetous Germany in the First World War would have threatened the USA‘s trade with the United
Kingdom and France, upon which the prosperity of the USA was then dependent.  Thus the USA engaged
militarily on the side of the Western Allies.  The confiscation of some property from a few
Americans in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution led to military intervention that the USA
quickly ceases, because it has no hope of success.  What remains is the American aversion to
communist dictatorships.  The majority of Americans had already declared their opposition to
socialist notions of the necessity to redistribute wealth.  American democracy concurs with the
association of workers in labor organizations that will collectively bargain for wages and, in the
event of a failure to agree, carry out strikes; but it rejects any interference whatsoever into the
rights of ownership.  This outlook characterizes American policy throughout the entire existence of
the USA, and I will attempt to show how it led to some political failures and resulting
destabilization throughout the world.

      Lenin’s revolution, by proclaiming global revolution, threatened established political order
around the world.  The leadership of the Soviet Bolsheviks organized communist parties everywhere,
with the goal of revolutionary confiscation of property and the establishment of communist
dictatorships that would militarily safeguard Bolshevik Russia.  The USA correctly perceived this
as a danger for its own democracy, and from the beginning took up a position against it.  It must
be added that the USA was threatened relatively little, because the communist ideas about the
unjust distribution of wealth were not falling upon fertile soil in this case.  This was because,
within expanding businesses, capable people who, for a lack of money, did not obtain an education
had many opportunities, even without education, to reach top-paying management jobs, and even
uneducated people were paid for their work so that they could lead a free life.  That is, they had
enough money for food, clothing, entertainment and a home with furniture and a garden.  Immediately
after the First World War, Germany was threatened by communist revolution, but Hitler, with the
support of financing, drew off many supporters from the communists.  During the period of the NEP,
it appeared that Lenin significantly relaxed his international activity, and Stalin with the thesis
of socialism’s stability in one powerful country further reduced the danger for other countries.
At the time of the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, they had
other worries in the USA.  It seemed that the American dream of prosperity for all had ended, and
President Roosevelt with his New Deal policy had to expend great effort to rescue the economy, and
with it democracy in his own country.

      The greatest danger was Hitler’s plans for world domination.  It was clear that, if Hitler
defeated the Soviet Union, isolated England could not hold on, and the United States would not be
able to defend against the combined attack of the Japanese and the Germans.  The strategies of an
alliance with Stalin and a closer alliance with the United Kingdom were the only possible policy
for the United States.  Shortly after the Second World War, the United States proceeded correctly.
The Marshall Plan, American assistance to Europe, boosted the economy of Western Europe, thus
strengthening democracy in these countries.  Conservatives here began to cooperate with
democratically-thinking socialists, and they viewed a certain form of central planning and
nationalization of major businesses as a compromise solution.  Americans did not look favorably
upon free education and health care, together with universal social security; but as a bulwark
against the communists coming to power, they were approved.  Preventing Soviet military
intervention around the world was another correct step of the USA’s foreign policy.  However, the
Americans made their mistakes in the details.  The fundamental error, as we shall see, was their
rigid cleaving to the sacrosanctity of private property.

      The Soviet Union emerged from the Second World War as a victor.  The leadership of the USSR
considered this a victory of the Bolshevik Revolution, however.  In all the countries the Red Army
occupied, and in some, like Czechoslovakia and Poland that it had even liberated from fascist
tyranny, the Soviet Union ushered in a communist dictatorship.  Stalin had already informed
Churchill of this step ahead of time.  In other countries (such as Greece), he did not intervene.
The problem was with the eastern portion of Germany.  The Allies' agreement with the creation of a
Soviet Occupation Zone was, of course, likewise their acquiescence to the establishment of a
communist dictatorship.  Here there was the problem of Berlin.  The USSR played the high roller and
sealed off the supply routes, correctly sensing that the USA, the United Kingdom and France would
not go to war over this with the nuclear power that the USSR already was.  The USSR expected that
the Western allies would evacuate those most loyal to them and leave Berlin in the clutches of the
communists.  An air bridge supplying West Berlin with all its needs had, however, a tremendous
psychological effect.  The residents of West Berlin knew that they were not abandoned.  The Soviet
plan had counted on resigned West Berliners.  When this aspect did not materialize, the Soviet
Union opened the supply routes and thus restored the pre-crisis situation.  In doing so, the USSR
revealed its tactic.  Lenin’s wheels of revolution would not stop, but here and there they would
roll forward just a bit.  If successful, they would stay there; if not, they would roll back
again.  This approach had special significance for communist dictatorships.  As I indicated, a
condition of dictatorship is the suppression of alternative ideas.  This is completely justifiable
in warfare, where non-delegable command authority must apply.  This tactic was the reason for its
application.  The history of the second half of the 20th century is a history of one crisis
subsequent to another.  The imperialists are threatening us in Berlin; the imperialists are
threatening us in Korea; the imperialists are threatening us in Cuba; the imperialists are
threatening us in Vietnam.  Any alternative idea whatsoever can be judged as helping the enemy.
The USA managed the Berlin crisis.  The Korean crisis arrived.

      From a geographic standpoint, South Korea is poorly defensible.  The government is a
right-wing, moderately corrupt dictatorship without popular support.  Militarist communist North
Korea was clearly dominant.  Máo Zédōng pressed for an attack.  His ambition was to become the
hegemon of revolution in Asia, and the USSR had to make the decision.  The North Korean communists
received permission for the attack from the USSR, as well as material and ideological assistance.
The Chinese People’s Army was in reserve.  The war ended in three years at a cost of four million
victims so that the status quo could remain unchanged.

      Thus end American successes.  Afterwards, until the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union,
only American failures followed.  None of them was fatal, as a country with such economic and
military strengths as the United States cannot even commit an error that would imperil it.  Before
we take note of Cuba, which is an example of the failure of American political thinking, we will
concern ourselves with the attitude of Americans toward dictatorship in general.  The citizens of
the USA have never lived in a dictatorship.  For them, dictatorship is something terrible, for it
takes away that which every person values most, freedom.  Those who have spent a portion of their
lives in a dictatorship know that it does not mean a loss of freedom for everyone.  I will be
specific, and I will start with the period before the onset of Hitler’s dictatorship.  A university
graduate without work and a laborer who worried that he would lose his job did not have a feeling
of freedom in democratic Germany of the 1920s.  Although they could vote, few people in a democracy
consider this to be the most important perk of democracy.  Usually 30%, or sometimes even more
citizens do not take part in elections, and only a minority concern themselves with studying
campaign platforms.  What is essential is freedom of expression, though many perceive this as the
bickering of politicians fighting for position in the elections.  Many people like the freedom to
travel, the freedom to find a nice place to live, the freedom to dress as they like, the freedom to
choose their food, the freedom to have fun, and the freedom to pursue their hobbies.  All of this
requires money that a certain layer of a democratic society does not have.  If a worker in Hitler’s
Germany had stable work, his sense of freedom grew considerably.  Because he was paid and thus
gained many of the aforementioned freedoms, he had no reason to fight for political freedom, and he
did not encounter the repression of Nazi dictatorship.  With the exception of a small number of
communists and socialists, there were only a very few German laborers in the concentration camps.
The Russian proletarian had his basic foodstuffs guaranteed; the fear of losing his job did not
exist; he received free medical care; and, if his children had talent, they could study for free.
If they did not want to study, or if they did not have talent, they too became workers, with wages
only slightly lower than the pay of school graduates.  Most dictatorships bring order to the city
streets -- something with which democracies all over the world have problems -- and the freedom to
go out into the street safely after dark is also a benefit for some people.  I know many decent
people from Czechoslovakia who never hurt anyone, and who often helped others, and at the same time
they loved Stalin as a liberator of Czechoslovakia.  It is difficult to estimate how large a
segment of the population supports a dictatorship.  Many do not understand the mechanisms of a
dictatorship, and they assume that it is necessary to dismantle the repressive apparatus and the
restrictions on freedom of expression and travel, and only then will they support the
dictatorship.  They do not understand that the repressive apparatus and the restrictions on freedom
of expression and travel are essential for maintaining the dictatorship.

      Americans also do not understand a state where private ownership is not respected.  But
people in many countries consider the distribution of property to be unjust.  For the most part,
wealth is not concentrated in the hands of an individual because of his exceptional performance as
a professional athlete, artist or inventor, but often as the result of speculation that is barely
legal, or illegal when there is no way to prove illegal activity.  In occupied countries, after
liberation from Hitler’s dictatorship -- in Czechoslovakia for example -- many women had lost their
husbands who perished in the struggle for freedom, and they and their children received a small
amount of compensation.  Those who did not collaborate outright, but who took advantage of the
opportunity in an occupied country to do business, had a great amount of property.  It is therefore
no wonder that political parties calling for the nationalization of property gained a majority in
the free elections in Czechoslovakia in 1946.

      On the basis of their life experience, Americans assume that support for a revolution leading
to dictatorship is irrational, based solely on deceptive propaganda.  I have attempted to show that
the support of the population for revolution, while not usually a majority, is widespread.

      For Americans, a dictatorship that does not respect private ownership is much more
appalling.  It is true that, in a free business climate, the enemy of the dictatorship can be
freer.  He is not dependent upon the ruling power for his pay; he can have his children study at
private schools, or, as the case may be, let them work in the company they will inherit, or in the
business of another enemy of the dictatorship.  Because such a dictatorship cannot use the subtler
forms of pressure -- such as reduced pay and exclusion from education and better paying employment
-- than a dictatorship that does not respect private ownership can, it is often forced to use much
more brutal methods for suppressing resistance.

      These American prejudices were determinant in the attitude of the government of the USA
toward Castro’s Cuba.  Fidel Castro did not declare himself to be a communist at the beginning.
However, so long as he did not want to lose favor with his supporters, he had to accept a certain
form of redistribution of wealth.  The behavior of the USA could have led to Cuba remaining an
authoritarian state (as it also was under Batista) emphasizing a struggle against poverty (which
did not interest Batista) and with a more or less neutral attitude toward the USA, just like dozens
of countries of the so-called Third World in Asia and Africa.  But the USA pushed Cuba into
cooperation with the Soviet Union, at significant risk to its own security and that of the entire
democratic world.

      Americans could not influence Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring of 1968.  Alternative ideas in
the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia led, under the slogan “Socialism with a human face,” to a
policy of the rule of law, to freedom of expression, and to a loosening of restrictions on
traveling abroad.  The Soviet communists did not tolerate such a policy out of concern for their
leading role in all communist states dependent upon the Soviet Union, and they launched a military
invasion.  Later media interviews about this period with several leading American officials show
that the Americans had not understood the Soviet Union’s policy when they concluded that they had
sidestepped the danger of an attack upon Western Europe by the Soviet Armed Forces.  Though this
was the scenario of Soviet military exercises, the Soviet Union had never had such a policy, not
even in the time of Stalin’s rule.  The only country the Soviet Union attacked without reason was
Finland at the outset of the Second World War.  In all other cases it relied on the communist party
within the country.  It thus gained power in all communist countries around the world.  According
to my unconfirmed information, the USSR had a twenty-year plan prepared for Western Europe in which
they expected that, by the end of this time, all of Europe would be communist.  Soviet communists
expected that, perhaps ten years after the Second World War, an economic crisis would break out in
the capitalist world similar to the one that appeared at the end of the 1920s after the First World
War.  The Academy of Sciences of the USSR was supposed to expeditiously provide top officials
relevant information for analyzing capitalist crises.  These officials expected that, as a result
of a crisis, elections in the capitalist countries of Western Europe would lead to the rise of
communist-supported leftist governments in which the communists would gain power and, most
importantly, request military assistance from the USSR.  Soviet armored troops were prepared for
this.  No crisis took place, and thus the plan was not carried out.  In 1968, there were student
demonstrations in some Western European countries, but nothing pointed to an economic crisis.
Intervention in Western Europe was therefore never contemplated.

      Chile is another American mistake from 1973.  Socialist Salvador Allende became president as
a result of democratic elections.  Although he governed in a coalition with the communists, he
remained a democrat.  To ease enormous divisions of wealth, he moved toward nationalization, and
this is never tolerated by the USA.  He turned down the Soviet Union’s offer of military
assistance, submitted his policy to subsequent elections (in which he was victorious), and the
United States supported an illegal, anti-democratic military coup by Pinochet, who toppled
Allende.  Even though the Americans attempted to appear neutral, no one in Latin America believed
them.  No future South American president, whether it is Venezuelan Chávez or Bolivian Morales,
will trust the USA.  The crisis of trust in the USA is complete in South America, and this will
mean problems for the USA into the future as well.

      The USA’s engagement in Southeast Asia was a further American miscalculation.  The Americans
imagined that they would gain the support of the entire Vietnamese population, but the opposite was
true.  The communists added a racial subtext to their partisan war by convincing many that the
Americans were white colonizers without whom everyone would be better off.  (Mathematical error as
a driving force in history is at work here as well.)  The USSR’s material assistance complemented
the strategy of the Vietnamese communists.  Each military victory by the Americans was a lapse in
the overall aim, each loss of American lives pointless.  Neither American military commanders nor
government officials had an exit strategy.  They assumed the Vietnamese communists would give up
the fighting; but for them, every loss meant support from the population, and they correctly
supposed:  “Why should we stop when we are on our home soil?  They can quit much more easily and
return to the USA.”  Ultimately, that is what happened.

      In Afghanistan, the Americans helped bring down the communists and defeat Soviet intervention
with the help of their surface-to-air missiles that Afghan fighters used to shoot down Soviet
helicopters like partridges.  The result was a buildup of al-Qaeda bases, where planning took place
for the largest attack on the USA since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

      The destruction of Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq had its rational seed.  His army threatened
Israel, and there was the danger that the USA would be forced to help its ally at a time that would
be much less advantageous for the USA and Israel.  Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is easy to resolve
after the military victory.  I believe it is a mistake that the USA does not cooperate with
left-wing political forces.  After the fall of the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union, they
cannot be a fifth column, because there is no power for whom they would be a fifth column.  But
they can be a counterweight to Muslim religious radicals in their appeal to poor people in
countries where the middle class is essentially non-existent.

      There is practically no one in the USA who doubts that the firm stance of President Ronald
Reagan and British Prime Minister Thatcher against the Soviet Union is to be credited with the
collapse of the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union.  This is a fundamental fallacy.
American pressure in the way of anti-ballistic missiles, Star Wars, and other forms of weaponry was
trivial.  Although the Soviet Union could not attack the USA, and though it never had any intention
to do so, the position of nuclear stalemate had of course remained otherwise unchanged since 1948.
The thousands of nuclear missiles the Soviet Union had, and which Russia still has, clearly prevent
an American attack, even if the Russian Federation had not one tank, nor one airplane, nor a single
aircraft carrier.  Communism has not collapsed in Cuba, nor in North Korea, and these are
comparatively weaker countries than the Soviet Union was.  But it is necessary to answer the
question as to why the communist Soviet Union collapsed.

      The theory of the function of a dictatorship offers us a clear-cut answer.  Within the Soviet
governing circle, in other words, among communist officials, alternative ideas appeared.  Leading
economic officials, communists managing companies, wanted a change in the system.  That had gained
prominent positions in Soviet society, and they wanted to make use of them.  A dictatorship that
could send them to prison or execute them at any time, or at least fire them, prevented this.
Managing state enterprises in the way managers in capitalism run private firms was their goal.
Perestroika and glasnost led to this, and they achieved their goal.  As evidence that they achieved
their goal, we see them today as the wealthy Russian owners of enormous assets around the world.

      As far as concerns the Russian empire, i.e., all the communist satellite countries, the
explanation is also simple.  The British shed their colonies mainly because they ceased to bring
them profit.  From an economic standpoint, there was more favorable commerce for Britain.  The
Soviet Union exported quality crude oil and natural gas to its subordinate states and received
low-quality consumer goods, because the incompetent but obedient managers of planned industry were
unable to make any other kind.  A first step of the Soviet Union even before its collapse was to
switch to trading crude and natural gas for dollars.  The actual collapse of the Soviet Union did
not do much damage to the Russian Federation.  All of the successor states to the USSR, perhaps
with the exception of the Baltic republics that are massively supported by the European Union, have
greater economic problems than the Russian Federation.  The politicians of the successor states
took advantage of their political talent and became independent rulers; but the standard of living
of the citizens of these countries in no way benefitted as a result.

      There are still politicians today who warn against potential aggressiveness in the style of
the Soviet Union.  But just as Britain is not making ready to occupy India, the Russian Federation
is not preparing an invasion of the countries of Europe’s former East Bloc from which it has
withdrawn.  A Russian diplomat once declared that, when a large country enters into conflict with a
small one, the small country is usually at a disadvantage.  This certainly applies.  The Russian
Federation will take advantage of its strengths.  Its strength is in its wealth of natural
resources.  Countries that are too critical of Russian policy can expect that they will have
difficulties with the delivery of natural gas and crude oil from the Russian Federation.  There are
concerns, but these will be overcome, because the Russians want money for their natural gas.  All
the same, they will sell it at the highest possible price, just like any other capitalist.

      It appears the Americans have not grasped that they are not engaged in a clash of
civilizations with the Russian Federation, but that they must try to get along with Russia, just as
with any other democratic country.  In the strategy of war, we must be on the offense when the
enemy is weakened.  It seems that the Russian Federation is weak, and therefore we are setting up
radars on its borders and guided missiles, such as in Poland, and we are arming its neighbors who
want to resolve a border conflict militarily, such as Saakashvili’s Georgia.  These steps will
obviously not have much effect on a country with thousands of missiles with nuclear warheads; but
within Russia they will support the opinions of those politicians who want to get attention with
their strident attitude against America, and the aforementioned steps will serve them as an
argument.

      Nor did America conduct a reasonable policy in the Balkans.  It was not possible to prevent
the collapse of Yugoslavia.  The most developed region, Slovenia, profited from its independence
and from joining the European Union, and Croatia with its beautiful coast can live well from
tourism.  Tiny Montenegro is considering the same path.  Its population can perhaps make a living
from its short coastline.  The others could be helped by cooperation.  The Serbian policy of
Milošević was as unfortunate for Serbia as Hitler’s policy was for Germany.  But the United States
could have been more cool-headed.  The bombing of Belgrade did not win any friends, and Milošević’s
days were numbered as it was.  Russia had no intention of intervening, neither at the beginning nor
at the end of the conflict.  An independent Kosovo can only survive on American money.  The USA
will pay for a base that it does not need there at all, because there is no one there who would
threaten its interests.  When investors discover that Albania is an optimum tourist destination,
the American base will just be excess for the American military when the budget is cut.

      A more serious problem is Israel, but it deserves its own detailed analysis.

      I have devoted myself to the policy of the USA and the USSR in such detail because
decision-making in the Kremlin and in Washington determined world policy for half a century.  The
mistakes of dictatorships are advantageous for the world, but the mistakes of democracy can be
fatal.  Americans are aware of this, and so far they have not made any gross mistakes.  One danger
going into the future is its own flawed decision-making.  It is the only superpower, but it must
always consider its steps.  The future of the planet depends on them in the next half-century.

8    Politics and the Czech Republic

      The Czech Republic is the assembly plant for all of Europe, and it is as it is.  "Je to jak
to je" is the Czech translation of 14th century English King Edward III's "It is as it is," the
most important sentence in political thought, in my opinion.  It always holds true, unlike the
"After us, the deluge" pronouncement of perhaps the most significant female politician in history,
Madame de Pompadour, which almost always holds true in politics.  "It is as it is" means that we do
not know how a certain status quo came about.  It tells us only that there is nothing or very
little we can do about it.  I pointed to the example of Germany and Japan after the Second World
War, where, for successful advancement, a country needs top-notch, world-class technology if it is
to guarantee the entire nation's standard of living.  A worker who assembles a Siemens telephone
switchboard does not differ in the nature of his work from an African worker who assembles a wooden
bed; but, thanks to the high-quality scientific and technical level of the German product, his
income is many times more than that of the African.  This is not a remnant of colonialism, but a
difference in the tradition of education.  For Africa there is no solution here.  It can invest
into the development of education and reach great successes; but it will never attain the German
technical tradition.  The Industrial Revolution began in England, and at the end of the 18th and
the beginning of the 19th century it spread to the East.  It came to the Lands of the Bohemian
Crown from Germany, and it fell upon fertile soil.  Prague's Charles University educated natural
scientists and lawyers.  The Prague Technical University, later named Polytechnic and founded in
1709, trained engineers.  Thus all the experts for organizing industrial manufacturing and trade
were in place.  It was in Bohemia and Moravia -- which were among the world's several
industrialized regions and the most developed parts of the Habsburg monarchy -- where Czechs,
Germans and Jews (some considering themselves Czechs, others German) instituted a market economy
with economic competition, and with top-notch, world-class technology.  The trend continued in an
independent Czechoslovakia, where, in addition to corporations with extensive research and
development capabilities such as Škoda Pilsen, Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk (ČKD), and Baťa Zlín,
there were dozens of manufacturers of technical products, radio receivers, motorcycles, automobiles
and airplanes.  The state-owned corporation Zbrojovka Brno, manufacturer of top of the line
weapons, cannot be overlooked.  The German occupation and accompanying closure of Czech
universities halted this development, but its short seven-year duration did not mean a
catastrophe.  Neither did the communist regime -- which must be condemned for persecution and
murder of political opponents -- bring an end to research establishments after 1948.  University
professors who did not share communist beliefs were transferred to the institutes of the Academy of
Sciences, newly opened on the model of the Soviet Union.  Professionals with a communist
orientation -- of whom there was no shortage, with the communists having received 40% of the vote
in free elections after 1945 while Stalin was admired as a victor over fascism -- moved to the
universities.  In a number of nationalized companies, the scientific research departments were
expanded.  Despite this, it was the beginning of Czech scientific and technical stagnation.  Within
the communist bloc, the priority was research in theoretical and applied fields important for the
military, such as the physics of aircraft and rocket design, and aerospace physics.  Everything was
done in the Soviet Union.  Other science was not important.  Research institutes gradually became
places where, in the context of rewarding the faithful, the dictatorship installed its followers in
leading positions, and the effectiveness of research work ceased to be important.  A manufactured
product did not have to be of top technical quality, so long as it more or less served its purpose
and could be delivered to the Western market below cost.  Although there were several capable
people in every lab, the stagnation was enormous.  Czechoslovakia lost its scientific
competitiveness, as well as its contact with the leading edge of advancements due to the
prohibition on travel to the West.  After 1990, practically all research and development
establishments were shut down.  The university labs and those of the Academy of Sciences remained,
but these were devoted to basic and not applied research.  I think the research and development
labs should have been reorganized so that the hangers-on were eliminated, but the labs maintained.
It could have been a condition for the owners as the labs were privatized.  I think it was a
mistake not to do this, but I do not know whether there was still anything to salvage.

      Theoreticians of the market economy teach us that everything capable of existence is improved
by the invisible hand of the market; but it is not that way with research and development in the
Czech Republic.  With a few exceptions, research and development takes place where the firm's
management has its headquarters.  At the same time, the firm tries to keep its production at this
location as well.  I could offer several examples.  The Škoda Octavia car, the product of
Volkswagen's subsidiary, looks like a Volkswagen Passat, but it has a different chassis and is
therefore less stable.  The more expensive Passat is produced in Germany, where workers' pay is
five times higher, and the cheaper Octavia is made in the Czech Republic.  Both products sell well,
but things can only work this way so long as the pay of our Czech workers is lower than in
Germany.  And thus it not only is as it is, but also as it will be.  The governments of countries
that have invested in high-technology can, by supporting research and development in their
countries, support their countries' economies.  For us in the Czech Republic, by supporting basic
research we are helping others.  What can we do?  Attempt to create applied research and
development.  If this is to be preceded by the reduction, or by the potential elimination of basic
research in the institutions of the Academy of Sciences and the universities, it is the wrong
course.  We will end up, as is usually the case, with elimination.  If we orient teams who are
successful in basic research toward the problems of applied research, we have hope, not certain
success.  Among the post-communist countries, success has been had only by Estonia, which is tied
to Finland, where there is a national corporation, Nokia, with a high-tech orientation.  If we do
not succeed, there is nothing that can be done.  Today Egypt and Greece are also not the centers of
civilization.  We can live well this way as the assembly plant of Europe.  Here we have some
comparative advantages:  a qualified workforce (better than in Poland), relative stability (not
chaos as in Ukraine), and we are not in an earthquake zone (as is China where, even figuratively
speaking, factory owners cannot know when things there will start shaking).  A connection to the
European Union is important for our economic lifeblood, and at the same time it protects us against
political extremism.  Restricting ourselves with regard to the EU is absurd.  Every politician
among our neighbors knows that the EU is more important for us than we are for the EU.  Waging a
media war against Russia is also absurd.  Natural gas flows from them to us, not from us to them.
They will always want to sell it at the highest price, and they are not pining to occupy the Czech
Republic.  For us, picking Tibet as a place where we will fight for human rights and not taking
notice of regions that are closer -- we are more cautious with the Kurds, the Basques, and the
Palestinians, because we do not know what to do with them -- means economic losses to the detriment
of those who fight for human rights in a more circumspect way.  And that means basically all of our
partners in the EU.

      With the EU, the economic growth and stability of the Czech Republic are ensured.  Whether we
follow the route of a socialized state with high taxes for the wealthy, or the path of liberal
capitalism is something we will always be deciding in parliamentary elections.  We do not have any
real problems with our neighbors.  At the same time, this does not mean that we will not create
them in the future through our own ineptitude.

      In our country we have one pseudo-problem, the Sudeten German organizations and their efforts
at compensation, and one serious problem, the Roma.

      Why are the Sudeten German organizations a pseudo-problem?  It is because this is an issue
that can never be resolved through compromise with the Czech Government.  Sudeten Germans came to
the territory of the Czech state at the invitation of Bohemian kings, and they lived in the border
region for centuries.  This region was called the Sudetenland.  After Hitler came to power, the
German government demanded that the territory inhabited by Germans be annexed to the German Reich.
Britain and France agreed to this in the Munich Pact.  Prior to this, a secret-ballot referendum
was held in this territory, and the clear majority of the German population, at that time citizens
of the Czechoslovak Republic, opted for joining the Reich.  They made a decision between life in a
democratic Czechoslovakia, where an integral part of democracy was education in the German
language, including at universities (the German part of Charles University in Prague and the German
Technical Institute in Brno), and life in the dictatorship of Hitler's Germany.  They were thus the
only group that, by an overwhelming majority in free elections (only the communists and not many
social democrats were opposed), supported Hitler and his aggressive policy.  After the defeat of
Hitler's Germany, in what was considered reparation for the damages caused to Czechoslovakia in the
war started by Germany, President Beneš reached an agreement with the Allies in the war against
Hitler for a removal of the Sudeten Germans and a confiscation of their property.  Since that time,
Sudeten German organizations have sought a return for those who were removed, or for their
descendants, and restitution of their property, even though those who were resettled received
specific compensation from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.  After 1989,
President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel apologized for the removal, saying that it was an
application of the principle of collective guilt, which is unacceptable in a legal state.  That
would certainly apply if no elections had taken place; but as it was, it is debatable whether it
was about the principle of collective guilt, or about justified retribution.

      The point is that, ahead of elections in Germany, Sudeten German organizations are approached
by German political parties, some of whose representatives, in an effort to gain their votes,
express vague support.  Why can there be no restitution?  In my view, what is fundamental is that
the basis here is a historical argument.  These people lived here for centuries.  This argument is
the most dangerous one for provoking armed conflict, because it is always possible to find a period
in history when this or that territory belonged to some group of people.  A historical argument
represents a perpetuum mobile of enmity, and no reasonable politician should ever employ it,
because it represents a coffin for compromise (as we can see in the disagreement between
Palestinian Arabs and Israel).  On the basis of this argument, Native Americans could demand
payment for land, and someday it is possible that indigenous Australians could bankrupt Australia
as such a demand is fulfilled.

      The second argument is a practical one.  Sudeten Germans were dispossessed of their property
after the war, and 300 thousand citizens of Czechoslovakia perished in the Second World War started
by Germany.  The majority of them were not killed by the Sudeten Germans, but they bear shared
responsibility through their voting in the referendum.  The bus driver who drives through a
railroad crossing against a red light did not kill his passengers, rather it was the train with its
engineer; yet despite this he is responsible for their deaths.  If the scales were balanced by
compensation to the state for the killing of its citizens in the amount that courts now recognize,
it is a question as to what the resulting bottom line would be.  The German Government could never
accede to this method of argumentation.  Perhaps it could negotiate a small gain for Germany with
the Czech Republic, but then Poland would demand the same approach, and compensation for 4 million
dead is unacceptable for Germany from an economic standpoint.  It would cause the collapse of the
German economy, so demands for reparations for roughly 20 million Russians and Ukrainians could not
even be registered.  I have pointed out the absurdity of this situation, but its irrationality does
not prevent politicians in Germany and even in the Czech Republic from raising this issue.  In the
introduction I showed how mathematical error is a driving force of politics, and when a descendant
of a dispossessed Sudeten German does not add things up correctly, he can, in his misplaced hope,
support a politician who promises him compensation on his way to power.

      The Roma problem is serious.  The Roma are a disadvantaged minority in the Czech Republic,
for the most part not integrated into society, and their poor level of education corresponds to a
high level of criminality, mainly minor theft, which has a negative impact on the non-Roma
population, who demand the withholding of welfare payments and tough punishments for theft.
Guarding and feeding a thief in jail is, however, more expensive than welfare, whose reduction
causes a rise in criminality, because there is usually no interest in hiring unskilled labor.

      The Roma represented a problem even during communist rule.  The government solved it by
overpaying for unskilled labor, mandatory employment, and relatively high supplementary payments
for children which, in view of the large size of Roma families, represented a significant economic
factor.  Also, with government-owned apartments assigned on the basis of family size, Roma families
were allocated apartments that they often destroyed, because their natural way of living was
nomadic, and this had been eliminated by the communist dictatorship.  Because the demand for
unskilled labor is low, Roma live on welfare payments, and occasionally they manage to get an
assigned apartment from local authorities.  Given the rate of unemployment, they use their free
time for criminal activity.

      A solution to the problem is not easy, and nothing has been done during twenty years of
democracy in the Czech Republic.  Many call for crackdowns, and in the dissatisfied public they
find support that enables their political career.  But, as I mentioned earlier, repression is not
without a price, and the activity ends with them pretending for the benefit of the majority of the
public to take a hard line against the Roma, and the criticism of pro-Roma organizations gets them
votes in the elections.  However, as regular politicians they must continue with the established
policy of providing welfare and assigning apartments, because there is no other vision for
resolving the Roma issue.

      Everyone understands that, when a problem is unresolved after twenty years, its solution will
neither be simple nor cheap.  It would seem that the only solution is positive discrimination,
partially successful in the USA with African-Americans.  My recommendation is relatively expensive
and time consuming:  For about 50 percent of the most intelligent Roma children, establish boarding
schools on the model of British boarding schools for the wealthy where they will be taught by
highly paid teachers and counselors, with the goal of having the Roma children high school educated
(about half of them) and college educated (the other half).  The results would take decades, but it
is the only reasonable alternative to the current policy of unemployment, welfare, and substandard
government housing.

      Political life in the Czech Republic corresponds to political life in the rest of Europe.
Social democrats emphasizing a socialized state and conservatives seeking a leading role for the
private sector initiative of the free market with the smallest possible role for the state compete
for the voters’ favor.  After the Velvet Revolution, the socialized state received priority in the
form of free health care, free education, and an egalitarian pension system, even though the
country was governed by center-right parties.  However, the attempt at the least amount of
interference by the state in private sector initiative opened a path to uncontrolled capital
speculation, and thus to the creation of a class of individuals with capital whose excessive wealth
was not, and still is not, burdened by any kind of taxation.  The media -- mainly the distinctly
center-right-oriented major electronic media -- evidently prefers political indoctrination to
objective reporting, and this markedly influenced public opinion that is, in any historical
situation anywhere, inclined toward erroneous quantitative estimation, or rather, to mathematical
error.  For example, bank managers profited from high incomes, and, after the bankruptcy of banks
that the state rescued with taxes, they were left with lavish homes and perhaps even considerable
wealth that was essentially indirectly obtained from taxpayers’ money.  Opinion polls show that
they are tolerated by the public as private citizens, but conversely, the salaries of members of
Parliament -- which are much lower than in Western European countries -- are judged by the public
to be undeserved.

      In the game of politics, the size of the national debt has a pronounced role.  The
significance of the national debt is often misunderstood even by politically oriented citizens,
thus even though this issue is an international one, it is worth mentioning here in greater
detail.  There is perhaps just one kind of expenditure that is negative for the economy of a
country, and that is the purchase of weapons from foreign suppliers.  Other expenditures stimulate
the economy.  Investments in infrastructure, in roads or public works, for example, give people
work, and social transfers are converted by the poor into goods or services whose sellers convert
them into more expensive goods, or into private investments that mean the development of further
capacities for manufacturing or providing services.  If people do not pay taxes, they consume more
goods and services (those who are poorer), or they increase their personal investments (those who
are wealthier).  Thus it is a good thing when a country has high expenditures and low taxes.  The
other side of the coin is the necessity to pay interest on debts.  These lead to higher taxation
and lower expenditures by the state.  It is clear that the optimum is somewhere in between.  The
question as to where is answered by quantitative analysis, though it is far from exact.

      All of economic science is far from exact.  People’s decisions about whether they will buy,
thus boosting the economy, depends on their assessment of the future, which is more influenced by
the mood in society than by exact data.  Soros provides an excellent explanation for this in his
book, The Alchemy of Finance.^^[10]  The financial speculator who profits is the one who is the
first to correctly sense a change of mood.

      Let us return to national debt.  If it is 30% of GDP, then a five-percent annual interest
rate equals 1.5% of GDP.  That is how much less income we all have, but no one recognizes it.  If a
5% of annual GDP debt raises the economy by 5% annually, then in ten years we will have, in stable
GDP prices, an average income of 162.89%, and the debt will grow to 57% of GDP.  Ten years ago we
paid 150 crowns in interest out of an average salary of 10,000 crowns, and now we pay three times
as much, or 465 crowns.  It is better to pay nearly 3% from higher pay than 1.5% from a lower
salary.  But everything has its limits.  To pay 5% of one’s salary on interest to foreign bankers
is too much.  If we continue in this way for several more years, that is where we will end up.
Thus a modern economy places emphasis on long-term sustainability, which tells us:  debt no higher
than 60% of GDP, and budget deficit below 3% of GDP.  If we have inflation of 2% and a real GDP
growth of 3%, then in a year we will have a debt of 63 units and a GDP of 105 units, and that is
once again a debt corresponding to 60% of GDP.  The debt will not grow, and the interest will be
less than 3%.  This is stable, long-term sustainable economic development.  The problems arise in
an economic crisis when tax revenues decline and a budget deficit below 3% of GDP cannot be
maintained.  That 5% can be tolerated in a crisis, but then we have to go below 3%.  Some of our
economists believe that it is better to introduce the euro later, and to stimulate GDP growth in
the meantime with a budget deficit above 3% until a critical level is reached at 60% of GDP, which
almost all countries in the eurozone have exceeded.  I believe, even though my opinion has no place
in a policy based on evidence, that the sooner the better.  Slovakia is a model for us.  Spreading
fear of Greece with its high budget deficit can only happen in an environment where the media
engages in politics instead of objective reporting.  Greece has, even thanks to its deficit, a
higher standard of living than the Czech Republic, and even after painful cuts, it will have a
better standard of living, despite the fact that it is not a country with high-tech production
yielding large profits.  German and French banks hold Greek bonds, and if Greece declared
bankruptcy, the banks would lose money, just as would German manufacturers of the weapons that also
contribute to the Greek budget deficit.  This explains their approach to financial assistance.

      If we return to Czech politics, the budget policy of the Social Democrats has been
disappointing.  The budget deficit of 2002-2006 was needless, as the growing economy would have
sustained an increase in taxes to the level of our neighbors, Germany and Austria.  The reduction
of social transfers proclaimed by the center right in an effort to demolish the socialized state is
unnecessary, and a social crisis looms.  Then all that is needed is for public opinion to shift so
that the wealth of the well-to-do is perceived as unjust, and a labor leader with vision and a
desire to make a name for himself is able to use strikes to create a society of uncertainty in
which the rich will remember how good things were under the restrained government of the Social
Democrats.

      In the Czech Republic, just as in all democracies, only the policy of small steps can be
successful.  Defeat is always defeat, but every great victory is a Pyrrhic victory that will
transform itself into defeat in the next election.  If conservatives significantly lower taxes for
the rich, the socialists will introduce a tax progression that is just that much sharper when the
government changes.

      Another major topic is corruption.  Everyone speaks negatively about it, but it has its
positive aspects as well.  When a park or a square in the center of town is nicely spruced up, no
one asks how much it cost.  There is an opinion that it is only thanks to corruption that cities in
developed countries look so good.  A battle against corruption using the methods of a war on crime
is doomed to failure.  It is possible to prosecute only those activities when the gangsters have
violated mafia ethics and not divided up the spoils in accordance with the principles that the
Caribbean pirates considered fair.  Then, the one who is deceived, either on the basis of the Monte
Cristo syndrome or the Czech “if not me, then not you either” syndrome, reports the matter to the
police.  This does not mean that I am skeptical about the battle against corruption.  Here there is
of course a strong debt to the media.  The atmosphere can change if journalists are loudly
questioning why a highway on flat land is more expensive than it is somewhere else in the
mountains, or why we are buying armored personnel carriers in Austria when we can manufacture them
at home.  We still will not find out whether they are any good while the Germans, Slovaks, Poles
and Austrians are not attacking us, and if it is about a deployment abroad, then we have to buy in
the USA, because they are the only ones who have tested technological advancements in the combat
situations of their numerous wars.  Another good question is why a hospital room costs more than a
studio apartment when it does not have a kitchen or a commission for a real estate agency.  Or:
Isn’t a water park built because it is difficult to estimate how much a stainless steel slide
costs, as opposed to a retirement home that could be compared with residential apartments?  It is
impossible to entirely wipe out corruption, and government projects will always be more expensive
than what is sold on the open market; but through transparency and comparability it is possible to
reach a point where corruption will raise the price on a worthwhile project by a few percent, and
though such an increase is unacceptable from a moral standpoint, it is insignificant from a
practical point of view.

      The Czech Republic is a country of reserves.  We are a nation with low taxes (in the Czech
Republic 36% of GDP, in Germany 40%, in France 46%, in Denmark 50%).  If it becomes necessary, we
can raise our taxes in the style of our richer Western neighbors.  We pay less for health care.
The Czech Republic places 6.9% of GDP in health care (2006 WHO statistics for 193 countries); we
are in 68th place globally; five countries have lower infant mortality rates; and we are in 31st
place for female life expectancy.  (This indicator for males is more dependent on smoking, alcohol
use, and risky activity, and less of function of health care than it is for women.)  For little
money, great performance.  But the price is a financial undervaluation of health care workers that
will have to be resolved.

      The fate of our country has always been linked to the fate of Europe.  The more powerful
nations will always be heard more; but there is no threat of destabilization for Europe, nor for
the Czech Republic.  In the first half of the 20th century, people’s fates on our continent were
always bound up with politics:  two wars and a Holocaust, if I am to name the most serious
examples.  In the communist dictatorships, it was no longer so much a matter of life and death, but
very much one of freedom.  We are already living in a time when our fate is decided, and will be
decided, much more by chance, relationships, heritage, talent, and the attitude of our children
toward school and drugs than by politics.  Politics will be managed by people who have a talent for
it, while others will observe them, give or withhold their support in elections, criticize them,
and, as with sports, chat about them in their free time.

9    The End of Politics, or the Clash of Civilizations

      In the 21st century, two comprehensive views of politics exist that are diametrically opposed
to each other.  In his book, The End of History and the Last Man,^^[11] Francis Fukuyama stresses
that, in synchronization with the progress of natural science, humankind has found the optimal
arrangement of society -- liberal democracy.  And, despite the reverses that may occur in this
country or that one, it is this social system that has triumphed in most countries, and therefore
we are at the end of history.  Samuel Huntington advocates the opposite view as he predicts a clash
of civilizations in his book of the same name.^^[12]  Both authors are leading political
philosophers, thus they utilize a scientific method of philosophy.  From the perspective of a
natural scientist who, as a government minister in the Czech Republic, worked for a short time as a
professional politician and therefore came into contact with practical politics, this methodology
differs from the one he has used all his life, the methodology of the natural scientist.  This
methodology can lead to different practical political conclusions.

      Today there is no notable natural scientist who would not accept Darwin’s evolutionary
theory.  No one doubts that there are such differences between the functions of animals’ brains and
the human brain that human psychology as a science cannot be advanced by experiments on animals or
by observation of their behavior.  On the other hand, we can see elements of human behavior in
rudimentary form in our closest relatives, chimpanzees, and the study of the behavior of other
animals living in groups, such as dogs, can also be instructive.

      In all animals we encounter a survival instinct that leads us to avoid potentially fatal
danger, a fear of pain and the attendant effort to avoid injury, and hunger forcing us to secure
food.  Besides this, animals living in groups are, in the form of their neuronal networks,
genetically programmed for behavior that makes life in a group possible, and the group itself
represents an evolutionary advantage that this genetic pool maintains and passes to further
generations.  The notion that the mutation of incipient deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) leading to
behavior that threatens the group is eliminated from the genetic pool appears to be correct,
because such a group dies out.  On the other hand, positive mutations lead to propagation of the
group, and a greater number of individuals increases the likelihood of survival.  Evolution has
therefore ensured that our brains are programmed in such a way that our psychology helps us to
survive.

      Thus there are several types of behavior reinforced by evolution that are characteristic of
life in a group.

1.      Respect for property.  If human behavior did not include this element, it would mean
permanent fighting among member of the group for food, and we do not see this in other groups of
animals, for example, dogs in a pack.

2.      The sense of freedom.  This allows individuals to move freely while seeking food.  With
dogs as with children, we see that they take pleasure in freedom when it is allowed them.  This
feeling is the source of our enjoyment of exploration, of moving to other places, of independent
decision-making.  Advancement is tied to the sense of freedom.  Every discovery has resulted from
this feeling.  Only when we freely decide upon a specific step can we discover new things.  No one
can give us an order to do this, because he does not know what that step is.  We see in chimpanzees
that some of them discover new things -- for example, how to fashion a stick for hunting termites
-- and others are capable of learning from them.

3.      The desire for acceptance by the group.  This is closely connected with a feeling of
friendship.  Among chimpanzees, an individual displays an inclination toward another individual by
grooming, patting and hugging.  We encounter patting as an expression of a feeling of friendship
among humans as well.  A person sees from this that he is not alone.  The feeling of loneliness is
a negative emotion that an individual tries to avoid, and this, coupled with the positive emotion
created by interaction resulting in a sense of belonging, strengthens the group’s cohesion.

4.      A feeling of solidarity.  An individual is willing to risk his life in the interest of the
group.  In a pack of dogs we see that, if one individual is threatened, the others defend him by
attacking.  This sense is very important for the survival of the group.  The survival of peoples
and nations has often hinged upon the bravery of warriors.  The courage to take a risk in the
interest of the group is obviously at odds with the instinct of self-preservation.  Evolution takes
care to see that both feelings are balanced in the group.  Those who are too courageous perish in
the fighting, and they do not transmit genes of heroism (or the courage to take risks) to their
descendants.    A group in which there are no genes of courage whatsoever is extinguished, because
it cannot defend itself.  Evolution thus ensures a balance that we see in all human societies, and
in communities of animals.

5.      The desire to be led in the case of risk.  Practically all groups are organized
hierarchically.  This is true of packs of dogs, groups of chimpanzees, and all human societies.  In
the case of a threat, liberal democracy transfers tremendous authority to the commander-in-chief of
the armed forces.  Frightened chimpanzees hide behind the male leader, and free movement in the
surrounding area is put aside.  Non-delegated command authority increases the group’s chance of
victory.

6.      The feeling of envy.  We can observe this in dogs.  Dogs in a room are lying about on the
couch.  We give one of them a treat.  In the next moment, the others jump from the couch and beg
for one as well.  It appears that envy motivates members of the group to act.  Most of the time
this is positive.  An envious individual tries to attain the success of the envied individual
through activity -- in the case of humans, by working; in the case of animals, by searching for
food even without any feeling of hunger -- which is a positive for the further existence of the
group.  Envy is a motive for hatred, and that is the negative price for a positive motor of
activity.

7.      The desire to apply one’s own talent.  There are endless examples in the case of humans.
In the case of chimpanzees, we have evidence of one talent:  political talent.  I will come back
here to the descriptions of Jane Goodall, the greatest expert in the world on the behavior of
chimpanzees, from whom I have taken all the information about chimpanzees that I mention
here.^^[13]  Goodall describes how a male chimpanzee, Mike, seized control over a group, and she
adds:  “Mike had a strong desire to dominate, a characteristic that is pronounced among some
individuals, and almost completely lacking among others.”

      All the feelings and desires I have mentioned above are most probably a result of the
arrangement within the brain of neurons modified by DNA mutations.  The process of learning is
rudimentary among animals, and all individuals essentially mature in the same environment.  If such
an arrangement of neurons is evident among chimpanzees, there is no reason to assume that it does
not exist among humans.  It will understandably modify our behavior, and no one doubts the
influence of the psychology of leaders and the psychology of the masses upon political
decision-making.

      Here it is appropriate to pause and examine the controversy over Fukuyama, with whom, unlike
Huntington, I mostly agree.  Fukuyama considers, as does Hegel, the motor of social activity to be
the yearning for recognition, which he labels with Plato’s term, thymus.  Thymus is a human
attribute.  The concept of isothymia is described as the desire to be recognized as the equal of
others, and the concept of megalothymie as the desire to be recognized as the leader, the desire
for fame.

      This philosophy presumes that the fundamental interest of every person is politics; but that
is not how it is in reality.  People with political talent are actively engaged in politics, and
others are only interested peripherally, so long as they are satisfied with their lives.
Conversely, they attribute dissatisfaction with their own lives to the political situation.  I have
already mentioned that politics sometimes determines people’s lives, and I offered the Holocaust as
an extreme example.  In a liberal democratic society, things are not that way, and a person capable
of leveraging his political talent becomes a celebrity in the same way as people who are capable of
maximizing their talent in sports, music, literature, acting or science.  Again, there is no doubt
that genetic disposition is responsible for at least some portion of talent; but environmental
influences, especially those of childhood, make themselves felt as well.

      Not much is written about the existence of talent variation among animals, but this is
certainly the way it is.  A racing horse is differentiated by his athletic talent, and some animals
of the same species learn better than others, for example, dogs that are trained.

      To exhort political talent above other talents in a form of megalothymia does not seem right
to me.  We encounter this because certain people have multiple talents.  Their decision about which
one to pursue is often not understood even by those closest to them.

      In evolution, the existence of diverse talents within a group is desirable when there are
changes to the surrounding natural environment.  Sometimes the athletic talent of the warriors or
hunters is needed; sometimes it is the extensive knowledge that some people accumulate.  At other
times there is a need to solve a problem, and here is where the talent for science pays off.  There
are people who are adept at establishing intimate relationships, and others who excel in music or
acting.  Political talent ranks with other talents.  But just as there are many talented athletes,
but only some of whom end up as national champions, so only a few of the many people with political
talent occupy the highest offices in national government.  Here external influences play a major
role.  If Napoleon had not been an artillerist, he would never have become an emperor.  Not every
artillerist becomes a Napoleon.

      There is no politician without political talent, just as there is no musician without an ear
for music.  We can divide politicians into those with a vision, and those who are simply attempting
to maintain the status quo.  But history has not known a politician whose own vision changed the
perceptions of society.  Hitler’s vision of a Third Reich, of Lebensraum and the elimination of
Jews from society was already in place before Hitler.  Except for the murder of the Jews, it
dovetails with the vision of Wilhelm II.  Lenin’s vision is described in Marx’s writings, and
Churchill’s vision of defeating Germany was attuned to the mood of Britons.  The division of
politicians into those with a vision and those without is, to some extent, artificial.  People with
political talent will always be with us, and their approach is similar to that of the chimpanzee
Mike, who attains his position as the dominant male in the way described by Jane Goodall.

      Mike, as Jane Goodall named him, initially held low status within the hierarchy of male
chimpanzees.  He was one of the last to get access to bananas, the primary food of chimpanzees, and
he was threatened by practically all the other mature males, who even actually attacked him.

      Mike’s later behavior is reminiscent of a planned advance on the path upward.  For his shows
of aggression, Mike began to use more frequently than the other males the empty kerosene cans that
were strewn about Goodall’s camp where the chimpanzees went for bananas.  Once, a group of mature
males were grooming each other.  It lasted for approximately twenty minutes.  Mike was about 25
meters from them, often looking in their direction, and occasionally grooming himself.  Suddenly he
moved toward the empty kerosene cans and returned with them to the place where he had been sitting
beforehand.  Armed with these cans, he continued to observe the other males.  After a few minutes,
he began to sway from side to side.  He gradually swayed more vigorously, his hair sticking up, and
then, quietly at first, he began a series of screams.  As he did so, he stood up, combatively
placing himself facing the group of males, and he began to smash the cans against each other over
his head.  This, along with Mike’s screaming, made such noise that the other males ran away.  After
a few moments there was silence.  Some males returned to the group and continued grooming, but some
remained further away out of apparent concern.

      After a short interval, Mike’s screams and the smashing of cans rang out.  The other males
fled again.  Before they could return, Mike aggressively placed himself facing Goliath.  Goliath
was the leader of the group, and he had not run away like the others.  Mike remained in a combative
stance.  Suddenly, Rudolph came to him, making soft sounds of subordination, and he deeply bowed to
Mike and began to groom him.  Finally, the male David Graybeard came to Mike, placed his hand on
his flank, and began to groom him.  Only Goliath remained sitting off to the side, and he looked in
Mike’s direction.  It was clear that Mike had created a serious threat to Goliath’s heretofore
unchallenged leadership.  It took a year before Mike’s position was secured and he himself felt
secure in it.  Tension remained between him and the former leader, Goliath.

      Goliath did not give up his position without a fight.  He posed combatively in front of the
other members of the group, and a confrontation with Mike was unavoidable.  The confrontation began
with Goliath jumping onto a tree near Mike, and then Goliath remained still.  Mike looked
momentarily at Goliath, and then he began to put on a show:  He shook branches, threw stones, and
finally jumped on Goliath’s tree and shook the branches.  When he stopped, Goliath replied; he
shook the tree and the branches.  Finally, they both ended up on the ground.  There they stopped,
sat down and stared at each other.

      Then, one after the other, they shook branches and faced off combatively.  This lasted for
about half an hour.  Each subsequent performance was more combative than the last; but, aside from
the fact that they occasionally hit each other with the branches they were shaking, they did not
attack each other.  After a particularly long break, it unexpectedly appeared that Goliath had lost
his nerve.  He ran toward Mike, bowed before him, and began to groom him intently.  For a while
Mike completely ignored Goliath.  Suddenly he turned and began to groom his defeated opponent.
They sat and continuously groomed each other for about an hour.  This was the last actual duel
between these two males.  Thereafter it seemed that Goliath had accepted Mike’s superiority.

      However, Mike had to defend his leadership.  Once, a chimpanzee male named David ran from
Mike and screamed, running toward Goliath, whom he hugged before turning and screaming in Mike’s
direction.  The humans who were observing saw that he was angry.  Suddenly, David started to run
toward Mike, and Goliath followed him.  Meanwhile, Mike was making a combative show in front of
another group of males who retreated.  When they saw that David and Goliath were running toward
Mike, they joined them, and suddenly there were five fully mature males standing against a lone
Mike.  Mike screamed and jumped on a tree, and the other males pursued him.  The observers were
certain that Goliath was going to regain his status as the leader.  But Mike suddenly turned and
started shaking branches, and in the next moment he jumped headlong toward the five males.  They
were startled and hurriedly jumped from the tree to run away.  When Mike sat with his hair standing
up, the other males stood cowering at a distance.  Mike had defended his status.

      This description demonstrates what political talent looks like in a group of chimpanzees.  I
will relate two more interesting situations.  Mike attacked an older female, Flo, grabbed a bunch
of bananas from her, and struck her.  Two hours later Mike came to Flo and started to play with her
fingers.  After a few minutes they were tickling each other and playing together.  When a
chimpanzee leader exerts his status, he usually very quickly calms the subordinate member of the
group by touching and hugging.

      Chimpanzees often move about in pairs.  Some of these pairings are so stable that we can
speak of friendship.  While he was still in a subordinate position, Mike had a friend, J.B.  J.B.
was obviously subordinate to Goliath.  When Mike became the leader, Goliath did not want to allow
J.B. to get at his bananas.  J.B. screamed, and after a while Mike arrived.  He did not interfere
in the squabble, but when Goliath saw him, he allowed J.B. to have some of his bananas.  Friendship
with the leader ensures higher social standing.  These episodes are not intended to show that the
politics of people and chimpanzees are the same; but I am writing about chimpanzees only to
demonstrate the fact that some individuals have political talent, and some do not.

      We see that Mike gained his position by convincing the others in the leading group that he is
the right individual for the position of leadership.  This is the politician’s approach whether in
a dictatorship or a democracy.  Just as an individual prefers freedom, but when endangered
sacrifices it for security, there is no diametrical difference between a politician in a
dictatorship and a democratic politician.  Thus we are not surprised that communist politicians who
helped create or sustain the communist dictatorship became supporters of democracy when they
concluded that democratization would benefit society.  This is true for Czech politicians who,
after actively participating in the seizure of power by the communists in 1948, declared the policy
of the Prague Spring in 1968.  The same is true for Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Shevardnadze in Russia.

      Sometimes Kant’s Categorical Imperative which I mentioned earlier is emphasized.  Certainly
neither German fascism with domination by Germanic races, nor the attitude of American settlers
toward Native Americans -- or that of democratically elected politicians in the southern states of
the Union toward slavery -- passes the test.  On the other hand, the Crusades aimed at spreading
Christendom, or the Muslim conquest to spread Islam, just as the communist revolution designed to
turn all people into proletarians, are, from this perspective, debatable.  The current conflict
between the democratic left and the democratic right is also about what the supporters of both
directions consider to be just.  One group wants the same standard of living, the other the same
starting position, augmented by socialized networks for medically impaired citizens.  Each group
considers its opinion to be fair.

      I conclude this discussion of politicians with the observation that they will always be with
us to carry out policy that is dictated by three main factors:

1.      the factor of efficiency,

2.      the factor of timing,

3.      erroneous quantitative estimation.

      I already addressed these factors in the introductory chapter.  Now I will mention them in
connection with criticism of Fukuyama and Huntington.  Fukuyama cites Hegel’s theory about the
first person and the beginning of history.  According to this theory, there was a conflict between
a master and a slave.  The master was willing to risk his life, and he valued rulership more than
life.  The slave preferred life over an equal or ruling status, and he decided to serve the
master.  This theory accepts inequality as a result of the victory of courage over cowardice.  The
last person refuses to accept this arrangement, and the result is liberal democracy and the end of
history.  I have tried to show that, from the perspective of natural science’s view of man, the
situation is different.  Slaves began as captives in war.  The principle of efficiency dictated
having an army to defend property, and when an army came into existence, efficiently making use of
it to gain more property, including slaves.  Democracy has a chance when there is security and
safety.  This condition existed for millennia after the advent of agriculture and very rare
surpluses.  Empires must defend themselves, and if they did so successfully, then they attacked so
that they would be even more powerful.  When a combination of factors weakened them, they were
immediately attacked by neighboring empires taking advantage of the second factor, timing the
attack for when the opponent is weak.  Erroneous quantitative estimation led Napoleon to his
campaign in Russia, Hitler to his attacks on all fronts, and Japan to an attack on the USA.  The
mistaken calculation that, if we redistribute the country’s wealth, the majority will attain a good
standard of living led the poor into the communist revolution.  When, after nationalization, they
saw that it was an erroneous quantitative estimate, they continued in a revolution spurred on by
hate.

      Having criticized Fukuyama, I will move to criticism of Huntington.  Huntington says that the
divide between us (located in one civilization) and them (located in another) is a constant of
human history.  He indicates that differences in behavior toward people from the same or from a
different civilization result from these causes:

1.      from a feeling of superiority (sometimes as well from inferiority) over people considered
to be fundamentally different;

2.      out of fear and mistrust of these people;

3.      from the difficulties accompanying communication with these people as a result of differing
languages and norms of social behavior;

4.      from a lack of familiarity with the prejudices, motivations, social relationships, and
customs of these people.

      These factors certainly appear in economic competition.  But there is nothing wrong with
that, because economic competition is the driving force for improving living conditions, and all
liberal democracies, including the American one, are founded upon it.  Armed conflicts arise from
entirely different causes.

      In the past, wars were exclusively about property.  The group that was militarily stronger
found an ideology allowing it to be reconciled with inherent respect for the property of others
(our enemies do not have any rights, because they worship other gods) and attacked.  In agrarian
societies, every war ended with territorial gains, or with the confiscation of arable land, the
source of all wealth.  In the present, I know one example:  the occupation of Kuwait by Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq.

      Civil wars are a continuation of revolution, and they are about control over property within
the nation.

      It is more complicated with wars of liberation.  The longing for liberation is connected with
the longing for freedom.  What is essential is that a group of people with political talent
attempts to gain control by convincing the public in their own country of the advantages of
independence -- the majority is looting us and outvoting us in the elections is the argument in
democracies; or, in dictatorships, we want to rid ourselves of domination -- and obtains the
financial means for war.  What is more complicated is that, in some cases, the breakaway means
economic advantage, and at other times there is only the result of erroneous quantitative
estimation.  A war for independence is a war to break away from a large state.  The breakup means a
weakening for both sides, and the state’s leaders will naturally try to prevent it.  The war of
North versus South is a typical case.  The southern states mistakenly believed that the abolition
of slavery would ruin them economically.  Lincoln, by preserving the unity of the nation, created
the conditions for the rise of the most powerful country on Earth in the following century.

      A similar example is the breakup of Yugoslavia.  For three nations the current
post-Yugoslavia arrangement is advantageous:  Slovenia, the level of whose economy could subsidize
the rest of former Yugoslavia; Croatia, which can base its economy on tourism thanks to the
Adriatic coast; and Montenegro, which was in no way oppressed by Serbia, but can profit from
tourism thanks to a low population and beautiful beaches.  Independent Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, independent Bosnia-Herzegovina, and independent Kosovo have no advantages from the
breakup.  Serbia would have won militarily without the intervention of the USA and the EU.  The
current situation works thanks only to the EU’s economic assistance in Bosnia, and the USA’s in
Kosovo.  Bosnia could be a powder keg in the future.  Kosovo’s independence was declared at a time
when there was already a democratic government in Serbia willing to guarantee Kosovar Albanians all
possible rights.  The Americans decided to finance a military base there instead.  This resulted
from their flawed analysis that they had caused the collapse of the Soviet Union by force, and out
of fear that Russia would later intervene militarily on behalf of the Serbs.  Not even in Stalin’s
time did the Russians intervene in Korea; they did not intervene in Vietnam (I will take note of
Afghanistan later); and they were not preparing to intervene in Serbia after they had voluntarily
departed from Eastern Europe, including the Baltic republics.  The USA has a military base for a
conflict with no one.  If the Americans had created an independent Kosovo without Srpska Mitrovica
by changing the borders, they would have gotten rid of the part of the population that does not
like them and reduced future tension.

      All other wars in the second half of the 20th century were wars under the rubric of “the
wheels of the revolution must not stop.”  These are the war in Korea, the war in Vietnam, the war
in Afghanistan, Argentina’s war to liberate the Falkland Islands, and the wars of the Arabs against
Israel.  I will not take up the numerous wars in sub-Saharan Africa, because they are a result of a
combination of the aforementioned causes (war for property, war for independence from a large
state, and war to confirm the success of dictatorship).

      It is worth mentioning two wars, in Vietnam and in Afghanistan.  Communist Vietnam came into
being as a result of a gross mistake by the French.  The battle for the fortress at Dien Bien Phu
is a textbook example of faulty strategy.  It was not their own error that left the French to be
defeated there.  It was the strategic success of communist General Giap.  The mistake was that the
French were there at all.  They were supposed to establish the defense of Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue and
Saigon (the shield), and, through assaults supported by air cover, to attack communist
administrative centers (the sword).  That is the military aspect.  It is my opinion that they
should have formed a government along the lines of Norodom Sihanouk’s in Cambodia in a timely
manner and departed.  The American strategy was even worse.  The Americans believed that, if they
kill lots of Vietnamese communists, then they will give up the attempt at revolution.  During
senseless American offensive operations, many American soldiers lost their lives.  In a training
course for reserve officers one learns that, if both forces are roughly equal, losses to the
attacker are higher than losses to the defender.  Moreover, the Americans constantly changed their
strategy.  If, with air superiority, they had organized the occupation of Hanoi and Haiphong by a
South Vietnamese tank army, they could have obtained a better negotiating position.  America’s
engagement cannot, however, be unilaterally condemned.  The Soviet Union would have continued in
more proxy wars to keep the wheels of revolution from stopping, and to strengthen its own
dictatorship.

      The war in Afghanistan is proof of this.  It began in classic fashion.  The communists seized
power in the capital, and a civil war broke out.  Because Afghanistan was not a country of rich and
poor, envy and the hatred resulting from it was not great, so the communist revolutionary army did
not have many adherents.  The Soviet Union arrived to assist militarily.  American surface-to-air
missiles destroyed Soviet helicopters, and the Red Army left the country in defeat.  It seems that
this defeat strengthened alternative ideas in the Soviet leadership and contributed to Gorbachev’s
succession.

      Samuel Huntington predicts dangerous clashes in the future that will apparently arise from
Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Chinese assertiveness.  He sees three main problems
dividing the West and the other societies.  The West is trying:  1) to prevent the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction; 2) to promote human rights; 3) to preserve its own culture, and social
and ethnic integrity by limiting the number of immigrants or refugees it accepts.

      The spread of nuclear weapons can only be prevented with difficulty.  The technology was
developed over a half century ago, but up to now it has held true that whoever possesses nuclear
weapons is more powerful than others.  For fifty years the USA and the USSR mutually threatened
each other with such a quantity of missiles and bombers with nuclear payloads that it would have
been enough to kill two-thirds of the population of both countries.  Anyone would wonder about the
danger of accidentally starting a nuclear war.  Members of the military were all under time
pressure, because the advantage of a first strike was obvious, and seconds counted.  Nowadays, such
danger has passed.  All other nations have nuclear weapons more or less for reasons of prestige.
The exception is Israel.  If there was a threat of the Israeli military’s defeat by Arab neighbors
with a total population twenty times larger than Israel’s, then the threat of the destruction of
Cairo or Damascus might dissuade them from a further advance.  Like Jordan, Egypt currently does
not have offensive goals.  Iraq has been pacified after the American intervention, Iran is far
away, and Syria is weak.  But Israel correctly takes into consideration that future regime changes
in neighboring countries could alter the situation.

      North Korea has nuclear weapons for its own defense, but no one is attacking her.  After the
lessons from the unification of Germany, with money shifting from west to east for twenty years,
South Korea does not much long for unification.  North Korea itself is not dangerous for anyone,
because it knows that a potential conflict would not cease.  North Korea is driven only by the
effort to maintain its own dictatorship.

      Nuclear India and Pakistan are not preparing to wage war over Kashmir with nuclear weapons,
and I will discuss China later.

      Human rights are not the exclusive province of the West.  Authoritarian regimes are focused
upon the danger of chaos to which democracy leads.  The freedom to vote is one thing, and the
freedom to go out for a walk at night without becoming a victim of a criminal street gang is
another.  I think that the West has some catching up to do.

      Immigrants are not a problem of the country from which they departed.  Their countries tell
them to stay home.  Most immigrants are motivated by a yearning for a material well-being that most
religions either condemn, or at least do not favor.  When they find out that everything in a
liberal democratic society must be paid for, that the goods they can purchase are a symbol of
status in their country of origin, but not in the country where they have arrived, and that they
are on the lowest rung of the social ladder, they begin to envy and hate.  This personal problem
has no solution; but if the result is an insistence upon rights that contravene the historical
rights of the majority of the population, then there must be a discussion.  Demonstrations calling
for outlawing cartoons of Mohammed are in accordance with the right of free speech; but calls for
violence are not.  I think that prohibiting women from wearing a veil in public is not in keeping
with liberal democracy; but compulsory education, including physical education, with a standardized
curriculum is.  I think that sufficient use is not made of the “carrot and the stick.”  More social
services are needed.  On the other hand, in the future it will be desirable to establish a region
(an island near Africa, or a portion of purchased territory) where those who do not respect the
laws -- including even those who have EU citizenship -- will be exiled.  Sharia law could be
enforced in this territory whose inhabitants would be adequately fed, and who would be able to
leave for any other country willing to accept them.  I do not think that the countries of the EU
will find a way to do this, so anti-immigration populists will get votes in elections for a long
time to come.

      According to Huntington, the clash of civilizations is more than just a clash of people of
different races and religions.  A more detailed analysis reveals that religion was always a
secondary factor, though an important one.  The Christian Crusades to the Holy Land appear to be a
prototype of religious wars; but they culminate in the sack of Constantinople.  The religious wars
of the 17th century between Protestants and Catholics see participating rulers and military
commanders switching sides from one camp to another, and the acceptance of the stricture that
subjects will have the same faith as their lord is evidence of the fact that there was no great
consistency in relation to faith.  Ideology serves as justification for why the enemy has no right
to his property.  No one doubts that the driving force behind the conquest of the Americas by the
Spanish and the Portuguese was not faith, but gold.

      One area, however, is a strong argument in favor of the notion of a clash of civilizations:
the attacks by Islamists.  Some judge that this is connected with the religion of Islam; but there
are several arguments indicating that this is not true.  The great campaigns of conquest by Islamic
armies were always marked by religious tolerance.  This is true for the Arabs' conquests in North
Africa and on the Pyrenean peninsula, as well as for conquests made by the Turks.  In both cases,
the rule was:  “If you surrender without a fight, you can keep your own religion.”  In other words,
we want your taxes and a portion of your property, but religion is secondary for us.  Islamic
states on the Pyrenean peninsula tolerated Christians and Jews, and religious tolerance ceased with
the victory of the Christians.

      The second argument is also from history.  Terrorist attacks are not a Muslim invention.  We
know more about this from the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany in the 1970s than from 19th-century
anarchists.  Under the banner of urban revolution, this group of young intelligent people
terrorized German society for several years.  A group had formed whose members were people inclined
to risk their lives in the interest of the group.  This is, as I indicated, a very important
inherent characteristic in human evolution.  The group in this case was neither an extended family
nor a nation, but an armed cell.  They were successfully defeated by crime-fighting methods, though
they found a number of sympathizers around the world.  We know the same about al-Qaeda.  Religion
is secondary, and what is primary is the group and its victory in the form of spectacular terror.
It carries out a series of attacks against citizens of its own faith and is entirely undisturbed by
this.  The problem in destroying al-Qaeda is not the USA or Europe where there are highly capable
security forces, but countries where government efficiency is low.  As happens everywhere in the
world where there is not thorough oversight by the organs of a legal state, an authoritarian police
force will certainly infringe upon human rights; but it seems that this is the only effective way
of dealing with terrorism in these countries.  Neither America nor Europe is threatened by a
massive attack.  On the other hand, murdering thousands of people in a shopping mall is not
difficult now, just as it was not difficult in the past.  Losses must be expected; but there is no
alternative to detailed and deliberate police work.

      Let us answer the question as to whether the USA and Europe are threatened by a clash of
civilizations with China and Russia.  After the enormous communist Chinese military swept Chiang
Kai-shek from mainland China to Taiwan, it waged a war in Korea against the USA (operating with UN
forces) that ended in a stalemate and many times higher losses for China, and later conducted a
senseless and short war against Vietnam.  However, China’s communist leader Máo Zédōng made a most
important decision that positively affects life on this planet more than most people realize.  He
decreed the “One Child Policy” for Chinese families.  Even in a poor family, one child will
generally not go hungry, and the parents can usually invest money in its education.  Mao wanted to
prevent famine with his decree.  Not only did he succeed, but at the same time he opened a path to
prosperity for China.  If we compare India and China, China achieves better economic results mainly
because the rate of its population growth is slower than India’s.  For example, in 1961 India’s
population numbered 452 million, China’s 673 million.  By 1977 the rate of population growth was
the same percentage-wise (143% over 1961), but in 2001 India’s population had grown by 226% over
1961, and China’s by 192%.  The annual per capita production of rice in India was 33 kg, just as in
China.  In 2001, the respective numbers were 76 kg for India and 115 kg for China.  Similarly for
wheat:  in 1961, 28 kg for India, 22 kg for China; but in 2001, 57 kg for India and 78 kg for
China.  The production of meat in 1961 was 3.7 kg for India, the same as China’s 3.8 kg.  In 2001,
the production is 4.5 kg for India, and China’s is ten times greater -- 50.1 kg.  China has ever
more resources to devote to research and education, and prospects for high-tech advancement that,
as I have already shown, determines a country’s economy and the standard of living of its
population as a whole.

      Once child per family has one important psychological effect, however:  The parents are
worried for the child’s safety, and they do not want to lose him in a war.  China is a communist
dictatorship with a ruling group at its head.  And all members of this group do not want to lose
their only child in a war.  China will thus not embark upon military adventures, even if its
economy allows it to arm its military at a high technological level.  The USA and Europe can feel
secure in the face of the Chinese armed forces -- but not in the face of Chinese economic
competition.  Thus far, China is competing with low salaries for its workers, just as Japan did in
the 1950s.  China expects a destiny similar to Japan’s, the destiny of a wealthy country with a
high level of technological advancement and a high standard of living.  On the other hand, the vast
Chinese market can consume high-tech products from the USA and Europe.

      As far as democracy is concerned, it appears to be a long way off.  The ruling group is in
favor with the people when prosperity grows, and there is no pressure from the public for a change
of policy.  Advocates of a hard-line communist dictatorship still exist within the ruling group,
however.  The West must not make mistakes giving them the opportunity to gain greater influence.
This means accepting the formal One China Policy.  If Western politicians say that Hong Kong is a
part of China and that they are satisfied with this state of affairs -- and, when there is the
occasional tension between Hong Kong’s municipal authorities and those of China, if they do not
highlight the disagreement -- everything will be in order.  If Taiwan accepted the notion of a One
China Policy, stressing its autonomy and allowing for the possibility of full reunification in the
22nd century, it would help the economically-minded leadership of China in its struggle with the
militaristic police-state wing of the Communist Party of China.  Pressure to respect human rights
is correct; but the release of a dissident from jail must be explained as the correct move of
strong leadership, not as a retreat under pressure.  The problem of Tibet it not entirely
clear-cut.  The suppression of human rights is connected with a rise in Tibetans’ standard of
living resulting from Chinese economic assistance.  I think that recognition of Chinese
accomplishments must accompany the pressure for greater human rights, including religious freedom;
but the demand for an independent Tibet damages relations with China.  No one in China is flying
the flags of Native American tribes and demanding that the United States abandon its territory and
pay reparations to Native Americans.  The same is true in Europe.  China does not interfere in the
affairs of the Basques and the Irish in Northern Ireland.  The outlook for cooperation with China
in the future appears optimistic.

      Under economic pressure, Russia has been carrying out a one child policy for a long time
already.  Russia did not leave Eastern Europe so that it could again try to occupy it.  Non-Russian
peoples in the Russian Federation should make demands for the economic development of their regions
and investments in education and culture; but an attempt at independence is out of the question.
None of these nations would subsequently be truly independent, but under the influence of another
power, and the Russian Federation will not allow this.  Cooperation between Europe and the USA and
Russia in reducing international tension should be expanded, because both sides will profit from
it.  When the Americans put Patriot missiles in Poland, these missiles will not shoot down a single
Russian missile, because Russia will not launch any missiles into Poland; but Russia will, under
any pretext whatsoever, limit natural gas exports to Poland as a way of saying, “If you make
problems for us, we will do so for you.”  There will be no war, but it will be an argument for
those politicians who are anti-American in their orientation, which could negatively impact
cooperation between the USA and Russia in other parts of the world.  It is a shame, because the
USA, Europe and Russia all face the danger of Islamist terrorists, and therefore have common
interests.

      Conflict with the Arab world appears most serious.  All Arab nations are authoritarian;
rather, with the exception of Tunisia and Egypt and perhaps Yemen, they are dictatorships.
Sometimes the ruling group is composed of military officers, in other places it is a classic
monarchy.  Dictatorships need an ideology with the threat of an enemy to justify their existence.
For the Muslim world, the enemy is the State of Israel.  Israel came into being on the basis of a
historical argument:  It was the original homeland of the Jews.  Israel should never have come into
existence.  If the status of the Jews in the countries of Europe had corresponded to their
education, industriousness and skills -- and if they had not lived under the threat of
anti-Semitism -- they would never have emigrated to the Holy Land.  Hitler excluded them from
German society, and Western European democracies acted as if it was not their business.  Here the
quote cited earlier applies:  “It is what it is.”  Israel exists within territory where the
Palestinian Arabs once lived.  Israel has a most powerful friend in the USA, and is therefore
indestructible.  The dictators are able to foist upon their people the mathematical error that
Israel is responsible for their relative poverty.  All presidents of Muslim countries in the region
have been visible in the struggle against Israel, from Egypt’s Nasir to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein,
Libya’s Qaddafi, Syria’s Assad, and the presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Israel and the
USA complete a picture of friendship:  they are wealthy, and they do not recognize Allah.
Petroleum producing countries conduct a policy whereby they are protected by the USA from their
poorer, yet better armed and warlike Muslim neighbors so they can get the best price for their
oil.  The domestic policies of all of these countries are, with a few exceptions, the worst on the
entire planet.  They use their oil riches to finance social policies, but investments in education
are relatively low.  There is no widespread education oriented toward the natural sciences, despite
the fact that it could be the foundation for the high technology that these countries need to
develop a modern economy.  This separates them from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India.  Only Tunisia and Egypt focus on the tourist industry.  The
ideology of Muslim dictatorships contains religious elements condemning birth control.  The result
is large uneducated families, and uneducated women are the main factor in the population
explosion.  The intervention of the USA in Iraq, where the army of Saddam Hussein represented a
permanent threat to Israel (with the danger that, when it least needed to be, the USA would be
drawn into a war resulting in high American casualties) was certainly the right thing.  The
destruction of al-Qaeda’s bases in Afghanistan was similarly warranted.  After the military
victory, however, the Americans made a mistake when they naively assumed that establishing
democracy would solve the situation.  The greatest danger of democracy after the violent overthrow
of a dictatorship is chaos.  This is what happened in Germany after the First World War, and much
of the population supported Hitler’s rise because he guaranteed the elimination of the chaos and
rampant crime that the government could not handle.  Czech politicians were aware of this danger
after 1918, and in democratic Czechoslovakia they assumed control over the entire repressive
apparatus represented by the Austro-Hungarian police and gendarmerie.  It must be added that
Austro-Hungary was an authoritarian legal state before the First World War, where the repressive
apparatus was under the oversight of judicial authorities.  The fact that the Americans
underestimated the role of repression did not matter with the Kurds, who received the Americans as
liberators; but, by not utilizing some of the elements of Hussein’s repressive apparatus (after
removing Hussein’s fanatical supporters, of course), the Americans ended up harming democracy
itself.  People cannot feel free in a country where bombs explode daily, even if they have the
right to vote and freedom of speech.  Another error of the Americans is their distaste for
cooperation (meaning financial support) with socialists.  They confuse them with communists, but
even communists are not dangerous for America after the fall of the USSR.  Their agitation in the
same poor regions where the Islamists recruit most of their fighters would gain the support of many
unpropertied citizens against the Islamists.  The same applies for Afghanistan.  Here there are
groups from the time of the communist dictatorship that loath the Taliban, and the Americans could
make use of these groups in the battle against them.  It applies here as well that police work and
a network of informers can yield positive results, mainly without the loss of American soldiers.
The most powerful enemy of the USA in the region is Iran.  The policy of sanctions can delay
armament, but it strengthens the leadership of the Islamic republic.  Under pressure from the USA,
the leadership’s order is to close ranks and not produce any alternative ideas that lead to the
self-destruction of the regime.  In my opinion, an optimum strategy for Iran should recognize that
it is an authoritarian state with elements of democracy such as multi-party elections, which
automatically means an election campaign with the free dissemination of ideas.  A major theme for
the upper middle class could be “My home is my castle,” meaning a prohibition against the
Revolutionary Guard entering someone’s home without the permission of a court, which would allow
young people from these wealthier classes to live in the American lifestyle they crave.  If
politicians received financial support from these people, then these alternative ideas would
spread.  For addressing the poorer classes, financial support to socialist parties is important.
Their platform of social welfare would gain the support of many, and would lead to pressure to
limit militarization.  Perhaps the leadership of the Islamic republic would react by restricting
the democratic elements of the state.  But this would radicalize the socialists for a revolutionary
struggle against the Islamic dictatorship, and lead to a certain lessening of international
tension.

      Israel is behaving correctly when it limits risk by building a protective wall between Israel
and Palestine, and it is unfairly criticized for it.  However, it is not reasonable to make
irreversible decisions about the access of Palestinians to a mosque in Jerusalem.  Within the
framework of a definitive peace settlement, the supporters of peace in the Palestinian state will
have to demonstrate a certain symbolic success, and leaving the Temple Mount under Palestinian
control does not impair the authority of the State of Israel, just as the authority of the Italian
state is not impinged by the fact that security in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is handled by the
Vatican.

      I consider investment in Palestine by the wealthy oil nations -- for example, the
establishment of modern firms -- to be an important element of stability.  The USA would ensure
that these enterprises do not become the target of Israeli reprisals for terrorist attacks on
Israel.  Palestine’s economic prosperity would automatically lead to an attempt to normalize
relations with Israel, in similar fashion to China’s normalization of its relations with Taiwan.
Peace in this region is possible, but the USA must rid itself of its incorrect notion that we are
on the verge of a clash of civilizations.  When it places Patriot missiles and radars on the border
of the Russian Federation, it shows that it has not yet learned to do so.

      I have tried to show that there will be no clash of civilizations.  This does not mean that
history has ended, and that liberal democracy is a kind of arrangement in which anyone who has
tasted it will desire nothing else.  There are great differences between liberal democracies.  They
are not just differences of per capita GDP.  This is not too important for internal stability.
People understand that there are wealthier nations; but they consider it to be unjust when some
citizens possess enormous wealth, and others have trouble taking care of their basic needs.  It is
economists who consider the socialized state incapable of being financed, and therefore
unacceptable.  Statistics show that this is not so.  The differences in the incomes of the rich and
the poor are best shown by the Gini coefficient, named for the Italian economist who introduced
it.  His mathematical explanation is somewhat complicated, so I will content myself with a
substitute solution offered by a calculation of the ratio between the average income of the 20%
best educated and the 20% least educated.  In some countries this ratio is around 3, in others 8
(e.g., 8 in the USA, 7 in the United Kingdom, 4 in Germany, Denmark, Austria, Finland and Sweden,
3.5 in the Czech Republic, and 3.4 in Japan).  If it is 8 in a specific country, transfers can lead
to the doubling of the income of the 20% poorest, while the wealthier will still have three times
as much, which is just simple arithmetic.  High taxes reduce business initiative, and we pay for
this with a lower tempo of economic growth.  Statistical data do not support this idea, however.
They show that high taxes are not a curse, because a society that is more egalitarian enjoys more
solidarity, and is thus more stable.  Significant social stress does not occur.  Simple calculation
demonstrates that, if the 20% most poor are to have the same standard of living, then a country
with a ratio of 8 must double its GDP, with all of the negative consequences for energy consumption
and the resulting pollution of the environment.  In the USA in 1966, the income of the 20%
lowest-income households was 7,000 dollars, for the next 20% it was 20,000 dollars, for the next
20% 31,000 dollars, for the next 20% 44,000 dollars, and for the 20% highest-income households
79,000 dollars (with the income of the top 5% at 79,000 dollars).  In 1998, for households with the
lowest incomes it was 9,000, for the next group 22,000, for the next 37,000, for the next 58,000,
and for the highest-earning 20% 123,000 (215,000 for the top 5%).  This shows that thirty years of
economic growth had a practically negligible impact on 60% of American households (the data are in
dollars adjusted for inflation to reflect the same buying power).  The highest tax rate in the USA
around 1960 was 90% of one’s income; in 2010, it was 30%, which sheds more light on the
aforementioned distribution of household incomes.  The Cold War was at its height in the 1960s,
however, and the rich did not protest against high taxes, because they realized that the money was
going to armaments, and, if they lost against the Soviet Union, they would lose all of their
property.

      If the socialized state focuses on health care, education, and benefits for the elderly --
without interference in the private economy, and by financing its programs with higher taxes -- it
brings no danger.  (Data from 2009 show that tax revenues in the USA are 28% of GDP, but in the
United Kingdom 39%, in Belgium 47%, in Austria 43%, in Denmark 50%, in Finland 44%, in France 46%,
in Germany 40%, and in Sweden 49%.)  In view of the environment, population growth, and limited
energy resources, emphasis on economic growth is not without controversy.  The relationship between
the amount of income and the satisfaction index in the USA in 1973 rose sharply up through an
income of 10,000 dollars annually per capita, and then stagnated.  The differences between an
income of 10,000 dollars and 25,000 dollars were minimal.^^[14]  Much more important is a sense of
safety and security.  Income is definitely an engine of progress, but not the only one.  People
whose creative works have contributed most to the advancement of society have not been among the
poorest; but, with few exceptions, neither have they belonged to the wealthiest groups.

      Some poorer nations in South America have gotten into trouble, however, because they have
placed emphasis on state enterprises, on protectionist policies of high customs duties, and on
intervention in the financial sector.  The result was stagflation:  high inflation with
imperceptible growth.  This is a disadvantageous approach.  The right thing is for the state to
just collect taxes and intervene against speculators.  If companies are producing to obtain a
profit, there is no need for economic interference by the state, though the participation of labor
unions in the management of the companies -- as we know it, for example, in the Federal Republic of
Germany -- is desirable.  If, however, the owners attempt to influence government policy in their
favor -- for example, before elections they halt the delivery of medicine to harm the socialist
government -- the state has a responsibility to intervene on behalf of its citizens by imposing
temporary receivership.  Moreover, the state should not relent in its intervention against
speculators.  The American crisis of 2008 was caused by a crisis in the mortgage market.  This
crisis would never have occurred if the government had reacted to the fact that the price of real
estate was rising so high that the difference between investment costs and sale prices were
reaching tens of percentage points.  A proper reaction for communities in this situation is to
start developing and selling real estate for a profit of about 10%.  The home building industry can
only react by reducing its prices as well to an acceptable level in relation to the builders'
costs.  The state should intervene as little as possible; but in some cases intervention is its
responsibility.  The proposal I offer is, for now, from the realm of science fiction.  On the other
hand, I am familiar with a practical case with which I became acquainted during my first trip to
Sweden in 1964.  At that time, the largest Swedish labor organization owned a chain of shopping
centers and a number of industrial firms that supplied them.  This was when the use of household
automatic washing machines was getting started, and they needed new powder detergent.  Foreign
firms were selling the detergents in Sweden at a high markup, though it could not be proven that
there was a price-fixing agreement.  The labor unions established their own industrial firm that
began to manufacture the detergents and sell them at a much lower price.  The foreign firms reacted
by setting their prices even lower, and the labor unions' firm went bankrupt.  This loss was
compensated, however, by a savings for all Swedish households.

      The socialized state, as it occurs in various forms in developed European countries, has
three main tasks:  to ensure quality, modern health care to meet the needs of all, regardless of
income; to ensure education for all, regardless of income, who have skill and determination to
apply themselves; and to ensure a dignified life for the elderly, and for those with medical
problems.  The rest will be taken care of by the market economy that, through taxation, is a source
of financing for the state’s tasks.  As for other interventions in the economy -- for example,
support for research, infrastructure improvements, agricultural subsidies, subsidies for culture,
for urban renewal and for environmental cleanup -- a democratic discourse must occur to select the
path of compromise which leaves all participants equally dissatisfied.  Everyone wants security and
rights; everyone knows that these areas must be financially covered by taxes; but each person wants
those taxes to be paid by others.

      If nations select American liberal democracy as their model, it will lead to ecological
catastrophe.  The planet does not have energy resources for everyone on the scale that they are
consumed per capita in the USA.  On the other hand, if the model is the Swedish socialized state,
where the 50% poorest inhabitants -- more than three times lower GDP per capita than in the USA --
have a higher standard of living than the 50% poorest Americans, then the victory of liberal
democracy on our planet is possible.

      My conclusion is thus a conditional end of history.

10  Summary

      From the perspective of the natural sciences, humans are animals living in a group.  Thus, in
addition to forms of behavior common to all animals -- obtaining food, fear of death and pain,
sexual behavior -- we find with humans those forms of behavior allowing us to live in a group, and
which facilitate the success of the group in the struggle for survival.  These are:  respect for
property that prevents constant fighting between members of the group over food; the desire for
freedom that makes it possible for individuals to search for food and relocate to new areas; the
need to take refuge under authority in the case of danger; the attempt to be accepted by the group;
the willingness to risk one’s life in the interest of defending the group; envy that motivates
individuals to activity beyond that which is essential for simply staying alive; and the effort to
develop one’s own talent.  Because talent varies among different members of the group, the
development of talent is a positive when there are changes in life’s circumstances and a different
situation calls for different skills.  All of these forms of behavior have been observed in animals
living in groups, with chimpanzees being closest to humans.  All of the aforementioned forms of
behavior have developed over the course of millions of years of evolution through natural selection
of mutations that influenced the arrangement of neurons in the brain.  At the same time, all of
these methods of behavior are applied in politics.  Respect for ownership requires an ideology that
established reasons for confiscating property (e.g., religious ideology, or the ideology of class
struggle).  The desire for freedom leads to a preference for liberal democracy, the desire for
protection to dictatorship.  The effort to be accepted by the group leads to reactions of the
masses.  The willingness to risk for the group leads to heroic deeds, and to suicidal terrorist
attacks.  Envy and the hatred that flows from it are the driving engine of the proletarian
revolution.  One talent, political talent, is a talent also observed among some chimpanzees.
Individuals with this talent take advantage of it to persuade the group of their abilities to lead,
whether in a dictatorship or a democracy.

      A dictatorship is justified by the existence of a threat, and for its survival there are four
essential conditions.  There must be an ideology emphasizing the need for ownership transfers and
for protection against real or imaginary enemies.  The declaration of successes is necessary for
justifying the individual actions of the leading group in the dictatorship (Lenin’s wheels of the
revolution that must not stop).  Rewarding followers is an essential condition, because without it
the supporters of the dictatorship would become the advocates of freedom.  The last condition is
the suppression of alternative ideas in the ruling group.  The formulation of alternative ideas
always occurs upon the death of the dictator, because the struggle for the leading position in the
ruling group is conducted as arguments about alternative ideas.  The fall of a dictatorship is only
possible militarily (the fall of fascism in Germany) or when the condition of suppressing
alternative ideas is not respected (the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, and also the Prague
Spring of 1968).  Thus, from the outside, the fall of a dictatorship can be orchestrated
militarily, or by clandestine support for alternative ideas in the ruling group (promoting the
American way of life in films and books).

      Political decisions are determined by three principles.  The principle of efficiency has been
applied since the onset of agriculture, when surpluses had to be protected.  Armed forces are most
efficiently used for attack, and for the seizure of property from neighboring groups.  The result
is the rise of empires.  The principle of timing is used by the ruling group when a judgment is
made that an opponent is temporarily weak (campaigns into neighboring empires, such those of the
Egyptians, the Persians, the Macedonians or the Romans, predated today’s quick-strike warfare).
The principle of erroneous quantitative estimation explains the failure of a number of political
steps (assuming weakness of the enemy in the case of Napoleon’s and Hitler’s campaigns; the
inability to develop without living space and without raw materials in the case of Germany and
Japan at the end of the first half of the 20th century; the assumption that the redistribution of
the wealth of the rich will lead to wealth for all as a basis for the communist revolution).

      In the future, it is possible that there will be a world without wars if there is a halt to
rapid population growth, and if there is support for a system of liberal democracy allowing more
equality in the distribution of pensions.


________________________________

^^[1] Jared Diamond: The third Chimpanzee, HarperCollins New York 1993.

^^[2] Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel, W. W. Norton New York 1997.

^^[3] Jared Diamond: Collapse, Penquin Group, New York 2005.

^^[4] Pierre Vidal-Naquet: Histoire de l´humanité, Hachette, Paris 1992.

^^[5] Oxford Atlas of Modern World History, Oxford University Press 1989.

^^[6] Paul Johnson: A History of 20th Century, 1991.

^^[7] Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002.

^^[8] John M. Keynes: The general Tudory of employment interest and money, Macmillan, London 1936.

^^[9] Nanda Herbermann: The Blessed Abyss, Wayne State University Press, Detroit 2000.

^^[10] George Soros: The Alchemy of Finance, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey 1987.

^^[11] Francis Fukuyama: The End of History and The Last Man, Avon Books, New York 1993.

^^[12] Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilization, Touchstone, New York 1997.

^^[13] Jane Goodall: In the Shadow of Man, Houghton Miffling Company, New York 1988.

^^[14] William J. Bernstein: The Birth of Plenty, The McGraw-Hill Companies, New York 2004.