Vaclav Klaus Quotes.
EU didn’t advance our [Eastern Europe] democracy by a single millimeter.
Environmentalism is a dangerous ideology endangering human freedom.
The attempts to command the climate and decide about the temperature on our planet are wrong and arrogant. I wrote a book about it which was published in English under the title ‘Blue Planet in Green Shackles.’
Privatization of the state-owned economy is not yet on the agenda. We cannot do it immediately; my colleagues would not agree to it. But we must put all forms of ownership on an equal footing immediately and let different types of ownership compete with the state firms.
We served on the editorial board of a literary monthly called Face in 1968 and 1969. He was a young writer, and I was also interested in broad cultural issues. We agreed on all major issues and became friends.
As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.
I was paid to read Western economic texts. In a way, the regime paid for their own undermining.
What is concisely referred to as global warming, is a fatal mistake of the present time.
I don’t think there is any global warming. I don’t see the statistical data for that.
It is what makes the reform process an art, not just a science. You have to develop a strategy that tells you what reform measures you should follow and in what sequence.
I also helped write the five-page statement of principles that Civic Forum issued in late November. That was the first public expression of what the new government wanted to do.
What we want is to establish the rules of a market economy – not to plan its outcome.
The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity, is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism.
By the time I returned to Czechoslovakia, I had an understanding of the principles of the market.
“not a scientific body capable of accurately assessing the facts about global warming”.
We must have the time to create strict rules so that property is not sold by Communist managers for a low price. They often get payments under the table to sell to the first bidder. This does not build public support for a market economy.
I live in Europe and care about democracy and sovereignty of nation states there.
Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming.
The attempts to command the climate and decide about the temperature on our planet are wrong and arrogant. I wrote a book about it which was published in English under the title “Blue Planet in Green Shackles.”
Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.
I do not consider the Lisbon Treaty to be a good thing for Europe, for the freedom of Europe, or for the Czech Republic.
We will also allow state companies to sell shares to their workers and will pass a law allowing citizens to start companies of their own with no limits on the number of employees or on the firm’s output.
You cannot have democratic accountability in anything bigger than a nation state.
That means following a very restrictive fiscal and monetary policy which will squeeze the monopolies and cut their subsidies. On the micro level we will allow other economic agents, both domestic and foreign, to compete with them.
EU expansion is, unfortunately, continuing without a constitution, as a gradual process of standardization – and that’s far more dangerous. It is very difficult to slow down this process, which is being pushed forward without significant public participation.
