I Was Paid To Read

The Message Of [fahernheit 9/11] Is Very Weak And Propagandistic ... We Were Used To Such Messages In The Communist Days. Everybody Has Open Eyes And Can Understand That This Is Propaganda. It Was A Weak Film That Tells Us Nothing New.

Being Often With Many Leading Politicians, I Feel Frustrated That They Do Not Listen. They Already Know. They Fully Subscribed To The Idea That Talking About 'saving The Planet' Is An Effective Way To Show Their 'caring' For Humanity And That It Is The Easiest Way To Maximize Votes Irrespective Of Any Relevant Activity Which Would Aim At The Real Needs Of People. The Global Warming Dogma Has Become A Very Easy Form Of Escapism From The Current Reality.

And Finally, There Is Another Danger: The Emergence Of Nonideological But Very Aggressive 'isms,' Which Are Really Quite New. Let Me At Least Name Them: We All Care About Human Rights, But I Am Afraid Of 'human Rightism.' We All Want To Have A Healthy Environment, But I See The Danger In Environmentalism. To Put It Politically Correctly, I Admire The Second Gender, But I Fear Feminism. We All Are Enriched By Other Cultures, But Not By Multiculturalism. I Am Aware Of The Importance Of Voluntary Associations, But I Fear Ngoism.

But How Can You Speed Up The Transformation Of Society In A Country As Large As Russia? Those Sounding The Moral Outcry Are The Ones Who Are Trying To Dictate Their Standards From The Outside. Of Course, That Isn't The Right Way To Go Either. One Cannot Impose Democracy From The Other Side Of National Borders, Which Is Something We Ourselves Experienced During The Communist Era. The West's Policies Toward Eastern Europe, The Helsinki Process - None Of That Really Helped Us.

I Was 25 Years Old And Pursuing My Doctorate In Economics When I Was Allowed To Spend Six Months Of Postgraduate Studies In Naples, Italy. I Read The Western Economic Textbooks And Also The More General Work Of People Like Hayek. By The Time I Returned To Czechoslovakia, I Had An Understanding Of The Principles Of The Market. In 1968, I Was Glad At The Political Liberalism Of The Dubcek Prague Spring, But I Was Very Critical Of The Third Way They Pursued In Economics.