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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1135 arguments behind private property defend the freedom of selfdetermination 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.
