In my opinion, no. Democracy is a system that is difficult to implement and difficult to eradicate. This is what I thought when I read the interview of Alexander Kwasniewski in “Sobota Azor”, in which he is proud of the Polish constitution.
However, in my opinion, our constitution has major flaws, and Kwasniewski can say that the constitution was generally created during his presidency, but the social and political constitution in which the constitution operates has changed, and our constitution still remains. I consider its most significant weakness to be that it allowed PiS to make legal maneuvers to change the system.
The American Constitution, on which the Polish Constitution is modeled, already has about thirty amendments, and the first ones in the form of the so-called Bill of Rights were adopted four years after the adoption of the constitution. Our constitution was adopted in 1997 and until now nothing important has changed.
Joseph Schumpeter, who was considered one of the most important economists of the 20th century, is a scientist who is classified as a political scientist according to today's name, and his work “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy” includes political, sociological and economic approaches. . This book, published in 1976 (the only Polish edition – PWN 2009), contains chapters on democracy and the conditions that facilitate it, as well as factors that hinder and sometimes hinder the development of democracy.
I believe that in our region – I'm thinking about the geographical position – we face many problems, and therefore if one of the small neighboring countries is able to develop democracy – against all obstacles – the world will it cheers and inspires. that we join in this way. It works for a while, but at some point Orbán appears.
And what does he do? He explains to the nation that democracy is not an invention for him because it introduces chaos and uncertainty into organized life. This approach gradually gains supporters, democracy turns into a sovereign democracy. The democratic process, which requires effort, is replaced by the process of democratic decline.
So let's see what democracy leads.
The first favorable condition for democracy is the right human material. According to Schumpeter, “so that the human material of politics, that is, the people who make up the party mechanism, are elected to parliament or appointed to cabinet positions, represent a sufficient level of quality (…). The effective guarantee is the existence of a social stratum, which itself is the result of a strict selection process. Schumpeter believes that this layer “cannot be too hermetic or too easily accessible to outsiders”. Then it not only gives people for political positions, but also people who are useful and useful in other spheres of public life, because they have “a common professional code and a single point of view”.
Another necessary condition for the functioning of democracy – according to Schumpeter – is that the democratic government can have the services of a “well-trained bureaucracy”. This bureaucracy, according to Schumpeter, should be the bearer of appropriate traditions, should have a strong sense of duty and “no less esprit de corps”.
The next set of conditions can be described as “democratic self-representation”. Politicians in Parliament should resist the temptation to create problems for the government as much as possible. According to Schumpeter, this condition is often violated. And this unfortunately means the end of democracy.
The last condition for the proper functioning of democracy is the acceptance of tolerance towards differences of opinion in the struggle for leadership. It is difficult to come to the conclusion that the above-mentioned conditions have been fulfilled in Poland. Therefore, in my opinion, the democratic method does not have the opportunity to quickly settle in our country.
And that's what I'm really worried about.
As a consolation, I can add that so far none of my political predictions have come true. And as the text about democracy was a prediction – there is no place for democracy in Poland in the near future – I hope that this prediction will not come true and we will enjoy democracy after the elections.
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Maciej Wierzynski – TV journalist, publicist. After the introduction of martial law, he was released from TVP. He immigrated to the USA in 1984. He received scholarships from Stanford University and Penn State University. He founded the first multi-hour Polish-language channel Polvision on Group W cable TV in the USA. In 1992-2000, he was the head of the Polish branch of the Voice of America in Washington. Since 2000, editor-in-chief of New York “Novi Dziennik”. Since 2005, he has been associated with TVN24.
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