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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1135
arguments behind private property defend the freedom of self¬
determination and the concomitant responsibility. Ihere is no need to
go into the details of the operation of large corporations, public
companies or international business networks, in order for us to see that
in them the freedom of individual choice is severely limited even for top
management and the decisions of the rest do not really have an impact.
‘The logic prevailing with inexorable necessity in the operation of the
system absolves (or robs, as one pleases) the participants of personal
responsibility for their actions. ‘Thus, in these cases, property is no longer
a means of self-determination but instead solely a means for the
determination of others. ‘This decisive difference was pointed out by
Istvan Bibó, who wrote about the meaning of European social
development.’** He held that ignoring this simple connection is what
leads the liberalism of our day into self-contradiction. He returned to
this thought in his last work, dictated into a recorder on his deathbed
in 1979: “The fetishism of property and the practice of linking it with
liberal democracy exists to this day ... Liberal democracy generally sees
it as its duty to put a stop to any attempts to interfere with the sanctity
of property. This means that the forms of property precluded by their
size from being property, simply become the means of power and come
under the protection of liberal democracy."
This recognition is of key importance for the proponents of
ecopolitics. For if they do not wish to live in authoritarian communes
isolated from one another and do not imagine the future of humanity
in primitive tribal communities, then sustainable society cannot do
without private property and profit-based exchange, which incentivises
the owner — whether an individual or a grouping of individuals — to use
his/her goods in a sparing, humane, long-term way — at least under
normal circumstances, namely if they are not unbearably poor or exposed
to external necessity. (Ihe latter two are usually connected.) Previously,
in the section Ecology and economy, I sought to clarify that Í must not
attribute this benevolent effect to the "free" market, but rather to the
market regulated by the political community, since uncontrolled
competition incentivises the participants precisely in removing
124 István Bibó: Az európai társadalomfejlődés értelme. (Ihe Meaning of European Social
Development) István Bibé: Valogatott tanulmänyok. (Selected Papers) vol.3. pp.110-111.
Magvető, Budapest, 1986.
15 István Bibó: A kapitalista liberalizmus és a szocializmus — kommunizmus állítólagos
kiegyenlíthetetlen ellentéte. (Ihe Supposed Irreconcilable Opposition Between Capitalist
Liberalism and Socialism-Communism) Istvan Bibó Jdid. vol. 4. pp. 780-781.