On Saturday I had the honour of teaching a joint seminar with Professor Krejci again. And again, he made a lot of clever remarks, just in passing. Like this one: Every time you clear a space, the space doesn’t stay empty. Someone else fills it. And they’re gonna fill it in a way that you might not like.
And it really does.
- For years we have heard that the state is a bad owner. So it has stopped owning businesses, and we find that investment funds are a much worse owner than the state.
- The state has stopped influencing a lot of things in the public space, and we find that it has been replaced by non-profits. Just as aggressive, but with an agenda hostile to national development.
- The colonial powers have withdrawn from the colonies. Instead of freedom came mad dictators. And British power was mostly replaced by American power – less visible, but just as hard.
And so on.
In short, clearing out space is not an option. We need to sort out who takes over. Often that means helping someone grow up and providing protection for a temporary period. Remember this when someone shouts again (from the current government or the opposition) about shrinking the state in the style of “the flood is upon us”.