Another bunch of economists and managers issued a proclamation on how the Czech economy should change. When one reads the aforementioned proclamation, one has the feeling that one is once again in the times just after the Velvet Revolution. Back then, one could believe that if we fully participated in the global economy and provided services to the largest corporations, if we won the competition to see who could contribute the most to their profits, well, we would be the winners of it all. We’ll have a great time and others will work for us. Who wouldn’t want that!
If we won the competition to see who could contribute the most to corporate profits, well, we will have a great time…
We could retell the same story a little differently. First, the idea that we’ll introduce slavery and thousands of people will work for us. We’ll drink drinks on the terrace, go hunting and command slaves. A few years later the man finds out that slavery has indeed been introduced, but he has an iron ball on his foot and is working in a mine or on a plantation. And gradually he gets the feeling that slavery isn’t exactly the right thing. But he is at least richer for the experience.
When someone repeats the same phrases they did in the early 90s, they owe us answers to a few questions.
Does anyone else remember that engineers from communist Czechoslovakia could design and build a nuclear power plant on their own?
First. Global players have forced us to stop doing smart, high value-added things. Does anyone else remember that engineers from communist Czechoslovakia could design and build a nuclear power plant on their own? Our facilities are still in operation in dozens of countries, including Finland. Does anyone know that we used to make our own satellites? The global market has forced us to throw away that knowledge and switch to simple components (often not only by economic pressure, but by harsh power-political methods). How are economists going to make the global players newly well-intentioned with us?
Or are they perhaps proposing a revolt? Just how do you deliver services to someone and at the same time rebel against them? And how do you reconcile that with the fact that most of them work for multinational groups in roles as sort of overseers of Czech serfs.
Or are the authors hoping that this time we will break through by reciting lessons about climate change and the correct number of sexes?
They propose such changes as improving education. But they are the ones who have supported its devastation for years. Are we to return to the late 1980s, when we had an education system with a uniquely high level of teaching of technical disciplines and science? Or are the authors hoping that this time we will break through by reciting lessons about climate change and the correct number of sexes?
In short, the global economy is desperately disadvantageous for us. But it is disadvantageous for everyone else too. For the UK, the last 30 years have been one huge economic disaster. American workers have a lower standard of living than their parents. Only a very narrow class of owners and top managers make money. And they still have the gall to say that if we try harder, we’ll be better off. Wrong! If we try harder, they will have a better life.
