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Erzsébet Szalai: Transition in Eastern Europe and the Response of Intellectuals
If the current trend to globalisation continues, the problems the East European countries on the semi-periphery experience today could become future problems in the core countries. Rather than the core being the future for the semi-periphery, the semi-periphery may well be the future for the core.
In this paper I will discuss three interdependent sets of issues:
1. First, I pose what I believe were the great social questions which emerged with the disintegration of the socialist system and the emergence of new capitalism in Eastern Europe; and of these, which problems preoccupied the intellectuals and are reflected in their thoughts.
2. Next, I describe the characteristic behavioural patterns of intellectuals in the region.
3. Finally, I will outline a few general propositions and conclusions.
The salient questions of transition
During the early stages of transition, the central social questions were whether the power elite of the old regime would voluntarily give up its political privileges, and whether a peaceful political transformation was at all possible? And, from which social groups the new power elite would be recruited?
None of us predicted what actually happened:
the owners and leading managers of multinational
companies became the major owners of
economic power and their economic power
determines, even today, the activities of the
political and cultural elite.
Elemér Hankiss, Jadwiga Staniszkis, Iván Szelényi and I were the first to formulate hypothetical answers to these questions. Our views diverged in several important respects, but we also shared common ideas. We all believed that at least some members of the power elite of the former socialist system were capable of converting their political power into economic power. Hence, some members of the former "communist nomenclatura" would become part of the new power elite as a "nomenclatura bourgeoisie". Such a conversion of old into new privileges was seen as an important precondition for a peaceful transition, but it was not clear if the emergence of a "nomenclatura bourgeoisie" would be morally acceptable. It was also not clear which other groups would benefit from the transition and enter the new power elite. None of us predicted what actually happened: the owners and leading managers of multinational companies became the major owners of economic power and their economic power determines, even today, the activities of the political and cultural elite. This effect can also be felt in countries where the influence of the multinational sector is not significant. I will return to this later. The managers and owners of multinational companies represent global economic power because they belong to the international economic-financial superstructure.
The second important – and more concrete – question is that of privatisation. In the absence of a propertied domestic bourgeoisie who will become the new owners? What are the moral implications of such a property transfer?
Unlike the first set of issues, this latter question received little attention − it was only discussed in closed circles of the political elite and among economists (and, to a lesser extent, sociologists). In different countries of the region different privatisation strategies were followed. Hungary and the Czech Republic represent the two extreme cases in this respect.
In Hungary, formerly state property was sold fast and cheap to a small number of new proprietors, either to multinational corporations or to clients of the new political elite. Moral considerations were judged irrelevant to the choice of privatisation strategy to be followed.
The Czech Republic followed a very different path: the declared goal was to distribute former public property as broadly as possible among the population through a system of so-called “voucher privatisation”. But given the balance of international economic power, this path towards privatisation proved a dead-end, and today the structure of economic power, and in particular the dominant role of foreign capital in Czech Republic, is very similar to that in Hungary.
A third important question is about the role of the state in the transition and in the emerging system of new capitalism. There were variations among the countries of the region in this regard, too. Eventually, neo-liberalism became the ruling ideology among the intellectuals and to a lesser extent among political leaders. Neo-liberalism is an anti-state ideology: simply put, the less state there is the better it is. In the second stage of transformation, however, political practices deviated from this theory and this had an impact on ideology. First of all, the rapid increase of inequalities and the intensification of social conflicts called for the construction of a welfare state. Furthermore, the economic elite also demanded a continuation and even expansion of state protectionism, which led to growth in the state bureaucracy.
In the countries that have recently joined the European Union, the task of integration also contributed to the further expansion of state bureaucracy. Powerful new EU technocracies are on the rise.
Finally, with privatisation nearly completed, parties can no longer reward their clients with perks that are the product of the privatisation process; instead, well-paid jobs in the state bureaucracy are becoming the major vehicle to recruit and retain political clients.
These factors led – at least in Hungary – to the extensive growth of the state bureaucracy. So far, however, the ideologically hegemonic neo-liberal intellectuals have not confronted these facts. Instead, they remain committed to their anti-state rhetoric. Intellectuals on the political left, with social democratic convictions, have begun to formulate an alternative position about the role of the state, but for the time being they are rather marginal.
The most comprehensive and general question of the transition addresses the sovereignty of the societies during the transition to new capitalism, and their place within global capitalism. To put it as succinctly as possible: what are the effects of globalisation on the processes of transformation in these countries?
After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, globalisation revealed the unrivalled and unrestricted expansion of international capital. This process could be observed in the core capitalist countries, but its implications for the countries of the former Soviet Empire are even more pronounced and powerful. Two reasons account for this: First, the disintegration of the former socialist system was in itself linked to the process of globalisation. The decline in international capital profits from the early 1970s onwards penetrated the economies of the former Soviet bloc and the freedoms of their political and cultural elites were limited to counter this trend. This can be seen in the articulated ideological expressions of the intellectuals.
International capital and its ideologues faced
little resistance to the implementation of their
"reforms," "reforms" that are met, even today,
with strong resistance in the core capitalist
countries where democratic traditions are strong.
Furthermore, the countries of the former Soviet bloc did not have much of a tradition in grassroots democratic politics and their civil society was underdeveloped. This was aggravated by experiences with actually existing socialism. Therefore, the mechanisms and institutions of collective self-defence were weak. As a result, international capital and its ideologues faced little resistance to the implementation of their "reforms," "reforms" that are met, even today, with strong resistance in the core capitalist countries where democratic traditions are strong.
The new capitalist societies, which emerged on the ruins of the Soviet Empire are located on the semi-periphery of the world system. They are particularly sensitive to and dependent on changes in the world market; their economies and societies have a dual structure; and their social inequalities are great. International capital, or to use a different terminology, the international economic-financial superstructure exploits the new capitalist semi-periphery, the countries of Eastern Europe, as a weapon in its fight against the working class of the core countries of the West. It tries to suppress the social demands of the working class in the core countries by shifting their resources to Eastern Europe. The international economic financial superstructure is beginning to face the welfare demands of East European workers as well and respond by threatening to move further eastward.
In the countries of the semi-periphery the local economic and political elite do not have many choices. They can only decide who is to bear the costs of the transition and the demands of international capital for profits: the middle classes or the poorest of the poor.
Iván Szelényi and his research team used survey data from the entire region when they reported that in countries in which the economic elite did not implement neo-liberal reforms, poverty rates were higher and increased faster than in more reform-oriented countries. In my view, this was the result of the attack of the international economic-financial superstructure against the political and economic elite which resisted neo-liberal reform. International capital did not invest in these countries and they suffered from a perilous shortage of capital. As a result, they were "forced" to drain resources from the majority of society to be able to launch the process of capital accumulation, which resulted in high poverty rates.
Relatively few intellectuals articulated the detrimental effects of globalisation on the new capitalist countries and so far their social impact has been rather limited. Neo-liberal intellectuals use various weapons against such critics of globalisation. First they try to ignore their intellectual achievements and/or they stigmatise them as being on the extreme right or on the extreme left or by being right-wing and left-wing extremists at the same time.
The behavioral patterns of intellectuals
The themes for intellectual discourse
are usually set by the political parties
and not by the intellectuals themselves.
This intellectual hegemony ignores some of the fundamental problems of societies, such as the consequences of globalisation, and instead intellectuals tend to thematize social problems in terms of a rivalry between political parties. Most intellectuals ally themselves with one of the political parties and this offers us the key to understanding their behavioral patterns.
The themes for intellectual discourse are usually set by the political parties and not by the intellectuals themselves. The political and the intellectual elite overlap and this explains the crucial role the political elite plays in setting the intellectual agenda for public debates.
Though intellectuals never held power for
long, they have an eternal yearning for and
ambivalence about power and therefore
they rarely try to mobilise the population.
This relationship between the political and intellectual elite has deep historical roots. Though there were significant revolutionary movements in the region, they were usually suppressed by external powers. Given the memories of such oppressions and the historical weakness of civil society, it is not surprising that people tend to believe that individual bargaining with members of the power elite may be more effective than collective action.
Under these circumstances intellectuals who would like to have an impact on social processes cannot, and still do not, rely on civil society in their struggle. As a result intellectuals rather try to directly influence, or even manipulate members of the power elite.
Furthermore, given the historical weakness of the propertied bourgeoisie in the region, intellectuals often had to act as the driving force of modernisation in society. Though intellectuals never held power for long, they have an eternal yearning for and ambivalence about power and therefore they rarely try to mobilise the population. This was demonstrated clearly in 1989, when in the initial stages of the transformation intellectuals played a crucial role, but they tried and succeeded in demobilising civil movements that often started on their own initiative.
Self-interest in part explains why so many intellectuals are affiliated in various ways with political parties. After the political change many intellectual activities were commodified and many were economically devalued. Some intellectuals compensated for such a loss of income by using indirectly, and occasionally even directly, party funds as sources for personal income. In 2003 in Hungary the political party-based financing of intellectual clients became public and institutionalised. At the same time that government expenditures on culture and education were cut, political parties agreed to create party foundations to financially support their intellectual followers.
Intellectuals increasingly overlap not only with
the political, but also with the economic elite.
Consulting fees paid by parties to intellectuals
are increasing and this reinforces the interaction
between the various segments of the elite.
As time goes by, intellectuals increasingly overlap not only with the political, but also with the economic elite. Consulting fees paid by parties to intellectuals are increasing and this reinforces the interaction between the various segments of the elite. This also explains why competition among parties is so central to the intellectual agenda and why so little attention is paid to the analysis of the interests, aspirations and role of the economic elite. There is not much, as I pointed out earlier, that political parties can do about the economic elite.
The commodification of intellectual activity leads to the disorganisation of the earlier system based on rank. This process serves the interests of the strongest elite group and the economic elite. There are three sub-markets within the market for intellectual products and activities. One such sub-market is the mass media, the market of media stars. The media deals with all sorts of problems, but it does not offer a complex and detailed empirical analysis of social problems. The media is insensitive to details and does not strive for empirical verification of theoretical statements.
The universities constitute another sub-market. The main function of universities is to produce specialists for the political and economic elite. The knowledge they produce is partial; there is excessive emphasis on disciplinary boundaries and social problems are rarely approached in a complex, interdisciplinary way.
There is a third sub-market for what I call service intellectuals. Service intellectuals conduct research funded by grants provided to them by political or economic elites. In most cases, the results of such research are not even made public.
Though there are occasional conflicts between groups of intellectuals operating in the various sub-markets, generally their relationship is one of peaceful coexistence. They certainly all agree that intellectuals who aim at empirical verification of their hypotheses and who try to generate new theories should be banned from all three markets. Intellectuals who try to achieve a synthesis of empirical research and theories are branded as too abstract and complicated by the representatives of the media; they are regarded as unscientific by the university sub-market actors; and are despised by service intellectuals.
Though there are occasional conflicts between
groups of intellectuals operating in the various
sub-markets, generally their relationship is one
of peaceful coexistence. They certainly all agree
that intellectuals who aim at empirical verification
of their hypotheses and who try to generate new
theories should be banned from all three markets.
Intellectuals who would like to be creative, scholarly and earn a good income wear three hats at the same time. They write provocative essays for daily newspapers; they analyse data for professional journals and act as management consultants for large firms. But are these actors really intellectuals?
In order to answer this question we need to define what an intellectual is. I use here the definition elaborated by György Konrád and Iván Szelényi: intellectuals are social actors who possess trans-contextual knowledge and whose power and privileges are based exclusively on their claim that they possess such knowledge. According to this definition, only the actors in the first sub-market, hence the media qualify as intellectuals. Neither specialist nor service intellectuals claim to possess trans-contextual knowledge. And even the media stars only partly fit the Konrád and Szelényi definition. They claim to have trans-contextual knowledge, but their actual knowledge is not as specific and their vision of society is not as broad as one would expect from intellectuals according to the Konrád-Szelényi definition. Furthermore, they are intellectuals not because of but despite working in the media market. Since media stars perform in the market, their definition as intellectuals is rather dubious.
To the extent intellectuals act in the three sub-markets described earlier they cease to be intellectuals.
Nevertheless, there are indications that a small circle of critical intellectuals is in the making. Critical intellectuals have three distinguishing characteristics. First, to the extent that this is possible, they stand above existing power relations. Second, they possess a rich knowledge of society and are rigorously committed to their theoretical work. As a result, they are banned from all three sub-markets. Finally, by definition, and in the spirit of Gunnar Myrdal, the critical intellectual rejects value-free science. A scholar must make his or her values explicit, so his/her audience will be aware of the values which have guided the researcher.
Critical theory cannot be limited to local problems and conflicts. As the state socialist collectivist project collapsed and globalisation progressed, the institutions of the welfare state and multi-party democracy were shaken, and illusions about free market were lost. Just a few years ago, it appeared that ideologies of the left, liberalism and conservativism were simultaneously in crisis. This crisis has already hit bottom and the revival of critical theory is under way within each of these systems of political thought.
In Eastern Europe, certainly in Hungary, liberals articulate the most forceful critical analysis. They mainly target political institutions in their critical analysis. Their critical vantage point is the idea of a multi-party democracy, the rule of law, transparency and respect for human rights.
The critical conservative intellectuals go further in criticising the status quo. They attribute the crisis of multi-party parliamentary democracy to the massive concentration of economic power globally (and in particular in Eastern Europe) and the hegemony of the economic elite over the political elite. They want to counter globalisation with a stronger nation state. They also advocate free markets for small and medium-sized businesses.
Critical intellectuals on the political left also trace the main social problems back to the globalisation of capital. They are particularly concerned with the rapid growth of inequality in the world and in Eastern Europe, with the ecological crisis, and with increasing alienation. They believe these global problems call for global answers, formulated by an international movement which is critical of the globalization process. Nation states are not capable of adequately addressing these global issues. Critical intellectuals with left-wing political beliefs do not believe that self-regulating markets within national states can offer a real alternative to the hegemony of global capitalism. Nor do they regard this alternative desirable. Some left-wing intellectuals advocate international civil control over global capital. Some of them believe that the capitalist system – and the antagonism between capital and labour − can and ought to be overcome.
These critical trends exist in Eastern Europe and in Hungary only in embryonic form. For historic reasons none of these trends has yet found a real social base. Critical theorists tend to blame society for this. The liberals are upset, since they believe people value security over freedom. The conservatives complain that people do not appreciate national values sufficiently and are under the spell of mass consumption. Theorists on the political left wonder why people do not revolt against their exploiters.
Summary
Rather than the core being the future for
the semi-periphery, the semi-periphery
may well be the future of the core.
East European intellectuals rarely confront the key issues of transformation, and they usually marginalize those theorists who do so. This is unfortunate since the social scientists of Eastern Europe have a unique opportunity to study the making of new capitalism on the semi-periphery of the world system. This new capitalism demonstrates with exceptional clarity the contradictions of the world capitalist system. The social scientists of Eastern Europe are therefore in a better position to theorise the general crisis of capitalism – the tendency towards over-production, the devaluation of human capital and the ecological crisis: in one word the trend to “over-expansion” – than social scientists working in core countries.
If the current trend to globalisation continues, the problems the East European countries on the semi-periphery experience today could become future problems in the core countries. Rather than the core being the future for the semi-periphery, the semi-periphery may well be the future of the core. Theories formulated by social scientists on the former socialist semi-periphery may not only speak to the question of “transition from socialism to capitalism”, but may also contribute to our general understanding of capitalism as a global system.
Paper presented at the 2004 Annual Convention of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, August 14, 2004.
