One of the most difficult tasks in the social sciences is to classify objects into groups in a way that makes sense. There is a whole class of statistical procedures for determining that these people and these businesses are more similar to each other and some other is less similar to them. Why are Paul and Thomas more similar than Paul and John or than John and Thomas?
Even more difficult is the classification of states and political systems. Take these three, for example:
- Communist Czechoslovakia
- West Germany of the 1980s
- Contemporary Czech Republic
Which two belong together? The official liberal position is that West Germany and the current Czech Republic belong together. Both members of the EU, both members of NATO, both under US supervision, and residents are free to leave the country.
But are these the defining characteristics? Is it not more significant that communist Czechoslovakia and West Germany were conceived as industrial states with a high degree of economic self-sufficiency? Both states were united by their rapid development of infrastructure, their emphasis on industry and technical education, their massive improvement in living standards, and their systematic cultivation of national cohesion. Are these factors less important?
If we include in the picture the observation of the West German political scientist Leo Strauss, according to whom the prevailing social customs and patterns of everyday life (including views of the family, the role of men and women, attitudes towards sexual minorities, etc.) must be factored into the “political regime”, it emerges quite clearly that communist Czechoslovakia and the then West Germany were two versions of regimes opposite to what we live in today.