Modern Liberalism

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Edzo H. Toxopeus
(The Hague, 10 December 1981)

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Born:	In Amersfoort on 12 February 1918.
Education:	University of Utrecht (law, 1942).
1942-1959:	Lawyer at Breda
1949-1959:	Member of the municipal council, Breda.
1956-1959:	Member of the Lower House.
1959-1965:	Minister for Internal Affairs.
1965-1969:	Member of the Lower House.
1966-1970:	President of the Liberal International.
1970-1980:	Queen's Commissioner for the province of Groningen.
Since 1 November 1980:	Member of the Council of State.

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Interview with Edzo Toxopeus

1. Legislation

Bolkestein: We live in a time of increasingly detailed rules, which seem to confirm the law of diminishing returns. The results are a constipation of the legislature and of the judicial system. What is the cause?

Toxopeus: It is true. Every time there is a case which is not quite covered by a rule, a refinement is added. That is chiefly a tendency of Socialist politicians but now also of some Christian Democrats. It may also be enhanced by our Calvinist nature: we want to do everything precisely. Our income tax has become horribly complicated. All this increases the power of bureaucrats because they are the only ones who know the rules. The regulations that govern the subsidies which are supposed to induce employers to invest in underdeveloped regions are unknown to most of them. Large companies employ a ‘subsidiologist’ but smaller companies don't and it is to them that we look for the creation of jobs. Sometimes a company that has applied for a subsidy decides to give up when it realizes how many rules and regulations are involved. It is awful to realize that 36 years after the end of the war, there are municipalities where houses can be requisitioned and assigned. In some municipalities one can only obtain a residence permit when one can prove that one has economic and/or social ties with that municipality. One can only sell one's house to whomever is so qualified. It has made our whole housing policy rigid.

Bolkestein: Would it be possible to introduce what the Americans call ‘Sunset legislation’, i.e. laws that are taken off the statute book after a number of years?

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Toxopeus: In theory, yes; in practice, it would be very difficult. There would be a lot of resistance, both in the bureaucracy and among politicians - Ministers as well as Members of Parliament. I can remember only a few laws that were taken off the statute book. The ‘Moles, hedgehogs and frogs Act’ has gone but all the others stay or are amended. We now have three acts on Disturbance, which apply according to various dates. It is beyond the comprehension of a normal citizen.

Bolkestein: Is this caused by politicians who want to prove themselves and think they can only do so by legislating? Or by a civil service that behaves according to the laws of Parkinson?

Toxopeus: Both, I think. I don't want to speak ill of civil servants. They often come across a situation which is not as they think it ought to be. They then think up a remedy which they propose to their Minister or alderman, saying: ‘Here is something which we haven't foreseen. This is what we should do about it.’

It is also because a Minister is judged according to the number of bills he manages to get through Parliament. That has become a sort of fetish. If a Minister would say: ‘I don't think it is desirable that I should enact more bills’, he would be told that he is a weak or a lazy Minister.

When I was Minister of Home Affairs they asked me to enact legislation that would provide for greater control over municipal councils, for example with regard to the salary scales that applied to their officers. I didn't want to do that. I did not want to have that power. If I did, I would be forced to make use of it, perhaps against my will. Johan Witteveen and Jelle Zijlstra always agreed that in economic affairs one should stick to general measures. During one of the cabinet formations in which I participated, somebody said: ‘We have made an electoral promise that there will be tax relief for farmers and for the self-employed’. This upset Zijlstra, who said that it was completely impossible: ‘Fiscal measures are for everybody, and not for groups.’

Let me give you an example that illustrates both of these tendencies. Years ago my colleague for Economic Affairs discovered that a general law on prices did not allow him to intervene in specific instances. The owner of the pier at Scheveningen had increased his prices and people were upset. Therefore this minister wanted to be able to take a decision in a single case. I fought this idea. Our legal system only knows laws

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that bind in a general sense and not specifically. I thought it was abolutely wrong and I warned my colleague that if he got his way he would regret it. In the end he did get his way. What then happened was exactly what I expected. A decision was taken about the pier at Scheveningen and another one about a parking place in Wassenaar. They were of no importance to the Dutch economy but provided a good example of the inclination to regulate too much. His successor, a Socialist, rescinded that law.

Bolkestein: We also see that nowadays much legislation is given the form of a cadre while the issuing of the actual decrees is delegated. What do you think of that?

Toxopeus: In general it is a bad thing. There may be circumstances in which so many decrees of execution must be issued that one cannot put them all in the act itself. This is of course a result of the fact that we want to stipulate too much. As we cannot do that in the act we delegate the authority. What then happens is that Parliament wishes to see the decrees of execution before they become legally binding. In my view, that is not in accordance with the separation of powers between Parliament and Government. Parliament more and more tends to act as the municipal council of The Netherlands.

Certainly Parliament legislates, together with the Government. Therefore it is concerned with bills. For the rest it has a controlling, not an executory, function. This is changing, though. It more or less started with the affair of the three German war criminals who were held in Breda. Until the early seventies all Ministers of Justice had maintained that the granting of grace was a prerogative of the Crown and therefore ultra vires as far as Parliament was concerned. If Parliament did not agree with a particular act of grace, it could always pass a motion of censure against the Minister concerned. When the matter of the three war criminals came up again, however, the then Minister of Justice (now Prime Minister) said: ‘I shall not take a decision before Parliament has made up its mind’.

Give Parliament an inch and it will take a yard. At present you cannot even construct a provincial road without parliamentary interference. A Member of Parliament once said to me: ‘Government cannot take major decisions without Parliament.’ He forgot that nobody knows what is

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a major decision, nor who should be the judge thereof. The result is that Government can no longer take quite ordinary discretionary measures without parliamentary interference. That is wrong. It places both Parliament and Ministers under too great a stress. It paralyses government. One never knows what is going to be decided.

2. The Functioning of Parliament

Bolkestein: Complaints have been made both about the diminishing number of lawyers in Parliament and about the decreasing quality of the legislation which Parliament produces. Is this also your feeling?

Toxopeus: One should not idealize the past nor be overly critical of the present. Yet one gets the impression that general interest in constitutional affairs is close to zero. One does not really hear a fundamental discussion about these matters anymore, not as we used to. Perhaps in the Upper House there are people who bother about such things. But not in the Lower House. It is a sign of the times. It has also been stimulated by the rise of the Democratic Party. This party wanted to change everything. One had to think up new things. Nobody talks about the elected Prime Minister anymore. At the time it got this Party a lot of votes, though. It was such an attractive idea. In a public debate I once put forward my objections: once a Prime Minister has been elected, Parliament must accept him as such; Parliament is therefore emasculated; you get a mixture of a parliamentary system with a constitutional monarch and a presidential system. The people of the Democratic Party had to agree with me. ‘But you see, we want something different’, they said. They seemed to think that constitutional law consists of a number of trenches behind which conservatives retreat and that one could just step over those trenches and not spare the other people a second thought. It was even deemed to be conservative to draw attention to this impression they were creating. If you do want to change a constitutional rule, then do it by act of Parliament. Unwritten rules also ought to be fully and openly discussed in Parliament before being changed. Constitutional law is, after all, the basis of our state.

Bolkestein: Those full and open discussions, however, are attended by a handful of members. Almost all Parliamentarians vote according to the advice of the specialists.

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Toxopeus: It has been like that for a long time. I remember the time Zijlstra and I had to defend the Financial Relations Act in 1962. We had worked hard at it. The debates lasted quite a long time. They were attended by eleven members. Only at voting time were they all there, most of them asking their colleagues how they should vote. I found that frustrating. But it is unavoidable because those poor parliamentarians also have to do a lot of other things. It is boring to attend a debate for the whole day which you cannot follow. It is also annoying for the Minister not to be able to persuade his audience. The specialists are seldom to be persuaded. They have their opinions and it is difficult to get them to change their minds, especially in public. In the instance of the Financial Relations Act a certain MP had introduced an amendment which was legally impossible. I told him so but he would not believe me. I therefore asked for suspension of proceedings. We went to the Ministers' room and I explained it to him once more, in the presence of the civil servants. There he took our word for it. In the plenary session he withdrew his amendment. That happened twice. The Speaker told me not to make a habit of it but I had no other method. This way he did not lose face.

Bolkestein: It all goes to show that once the plenary debate has started, the die is cast. One does not engage in a real exchange of opinions but goes through a series of obligatory gestures.

Toxopeus: When I began as a Member of Parliament I had to deal with a proposal to allow policemen to collect fines on the spot. That worried me. Was it right to place these temptations in their way? In the first reading I said I was against. The Minister, however, defended it very well. He stressed it was an experiment. I thought it over and in the second reading I said that although I had kept my reservations I was prepared to follow the Minister. A Socialist colleague came to compliment me. I was a young and inexperienced Member. What had I done? I had let myself be persuaded. I said I thought that was one of the reasons why one was in Parliament but this turned out not to be so. I must admit it has not often happened to me thereafter. The press makes it nearly impossible. Afterwards they write that you are weak, that you can not stick to your guns, that you have no backbone. This, in turn, is a consequence of the fact that the old breed of parliamentary journalists,

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who knew a lot of what went on, has practically disappeared. All this makes for the show business we see today, which is not really very constructive.

3. Decentralisation

Bolkestein: There is no a priori reason why regulations must centralize but in practice they almost always do. Whatever central government has made its own it is extremely loath to let go of.

Toxopeus: Quite true. The first cabinet of which I was a member wanted to decentralize. I asked my secretary-general to make a list of all regional and local subsidies and to indicate which of these could be paid directly to the provinces or the municipalities for them to spend as they wished - whether it be for a swimming pool or tennis courts or whatever. Nothing doing. My colleague for Social Work said it might indeed be a good thing but that the local councils had not yet reached that stage, that they lacked the necessary staff, that they lacked a correct understanding of the problems - perhaps later. The net result was, and still is, nil. I admit television has not made things easier. People in the North can see what those in the South get and they want the same thing.

Bolkestein: It appears that two Liberal principles - decentralization and the importance of general, not specific, measures and rules - are under attack. How can we defend them?

Toxopeus: It is very difficult. It needs a more or less general consensus, which I do not see as yet. I think our Liberal Party should develop a sort of vision of the future. At the same time we should say which laws and regulations would have to be adopted, abolished or changed because they are incompatible with that vision. Only then could people opt clearly and consciously for it. At the moment it does not yet exist.

Bolkestein: Is it possible for Liberals to offer a vision?

Toxopeus: I think so. We plan just as much as the other parties, but Liberals are more realistic than politicians of other currents. We see people simply as people. We don't think as the Socialists do that every-

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body is good and that if you take away the external reasons why some are bad you will see they are good after all. We are realistic enough to see that models are no more than an aid to thinking. They only indicate a direction. We do not believe in blueprints. What I mean by vision is a certain concept of society. Every political party must have one. Responsibility is one of our principles. Therefore people must be given a chance to carry that responsibility. This means that a number of certainties must be done away with. I don't mean that we should abolish the welfare state, of course not, but we must diminish the number of rules and regulations.

4. ‘Credit-for-Merit’

Bolkestein: Is ‘credit-for-merit’ a Liberal principle?

Toxopeus: I think it is. It results from freedom and responsibility. If one wants to have these, one should also be able to enjoy the material and immaterial advantages that are conferred upon responsibility and effort. Our marginal income tax discourages extra effort. That is wrong for any society. In the end everyone looks to the state for instructions and for a solution to his problems.

Bolkestein: The connection between effort and compensation is not so straightforward. It is simple where the work is simple. There compensation is a spur to achievement. But in the case of work that is more highly valued the ‘psychic income’, as it is called, is also higher. The nexus between pay and performance becomes more nebulous. Although income differentials have narrowed considerably, there is no lack of candidates for the jobs of professor or mayor, for example.

Toxopeus: Of course there are all sorts of reasons why one should want a certain job, even though it may not offer a higher salary. The evaluation of what a certain job is worth will have to be done by the market. One can, of course, say of a heart surgeon: ‘That man is very qualified for his job and takes a lot of satisfaction in it. Why should he also earn a lot of money?’ I think the market will have to decide that. What never ceases to amaze me is that nobody complains when soccer players like Cruyff or tennisplayers like Borg earn a lot of money. At the moment

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civil servants are reasonably well paid, although you never know whether the quality of the people you get is sufficient. At a given moment you may notice that this is no longer the case. That is what happened in 1959. My colleagues and I noticed that able civil servants left the government in order to earn three or four times as much in industry. If the present government continues to level income differentials, we shall get a repeat of that situation. At the moment even the unions are complaining. A skilled labourer hardly earns more than an unskilled one. Even if they stop narrowing the lower income scales, they will still continue to level the upper ones. It is not at all clear what will be the result. What I do know is that any more levelling will be bad for the economy and therefore for the country. I do not want to reach a system where people are paid according to their needs. Who would determine those needs? This narrowing of wage differentials has done nothing to diminish envy.

5. Equity versus Certainty

Bolkestein: As is well known, there has always been a dilemma between equity and certainty. In the last 50 years there has been a movement in the direction of equity. The therapeutic quality of much of our criminology is an example of that tendency. As a result we seem to have lost sight of the advantages of legal certainty, of being certain of one's rights. Take the case of squatters that illegally occupy empty houses in Amsterdam or Berlin. They damage property rights yet the courts approach them with hesitation.

Toxopeus: As with all problems one should differentiate. I can understand squatters who have problems with their housing, who see a house that has been standing empty for a long time and move in. But there also exists a different sort of squatter, who does not squat because of housing problems but because he wants to change society. ‘I occupy this building in protest’ - that sort of thing. With those people one should have no consideration. Now the law does not provide for all this. Squatting is not theft. Nor is it disturbance of the peace because nobody lives in the house. Sometimes the judge orders the squatters to leave the building but the authorities do not dare to execute the order - not out of compassion but out of fear. The police gets into trouble because they

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are insufficiently backed. The first requirement for a properly functioning police force is that the police know they are backed by the mayor and the other authorities, as long as they stay within the regulations. In Amsterdam that was not the case in the mid-sixties. One day they were told to carry out a charge, the next day they were reproached for hitting people. Those policemen did not know where they stood any longer. The authorities were also afraid of the media, which cheerfully reported every happening. Sometimes they knew what was going to happen before the mayor or the police were aware of it. Another aspect is that we are now discussing the right to housing for eighteen year olds. In that respect we have gone much too far. It is a result of political parties that vie for the support of the youthful electorate. One now gets the vote at eighteen. Perhaps that was a mistake, perhaps the vote should have been reserved for those over twenty-one.

Bolkestein: We have now discussed two instances of courage civil, or rather the lack thereof. People that earn up to, say, f 50.000 per year don't want income differentials to be levelled. Yet they are being levelled because politicians are afraid of increasing them. Secondly, the people in Amsterdam want to be certain of their rights, on the streetcars or with regard to their property. Yet the police, who alone can provide that certainty, are insufficiently supported by the authorities. It seems as if politicians are not so much afraid of what people think - because they would not really stand in their way - as of what it is assumed that people think: of an idea, in fact.

Toxopeus: True, but they have reason to be afraid. The Socialist councillors in Amsterdam would not tolerate any strong measures from the (Socialist) mayor. He once gave orders that a building was to be cleared. Unbeknown to him one of the aldermen had also stuck his nose into the matter. The squatters said that they had come to an arrangement with this alderman. The mayor should have stuck to his guns but he began to negotiate with the squatters, hoping to avoid a confrontation. Perhaps he could do nothing else but the confrontation still came. Every squatter cheerfully makes use of a division within the local government. How is the mayor to know that the majority of the Amsterdam electorate wants him to take moderate and justified, but serious and decided, measures? That can only happen through the polls.

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Bolkestein: It means there is something wrong with the representativity of elected bodies. The Municipal Council of Amsterdam does not always represent the real opinions of the people that have elected it. They - or rather its majority - represent certain ideologies or concepts that do not necessarily correspond with what the people want.

Toxopeus: I think it is the result of radicalism in the left-wing parties, especially the largest one: the Labour Party. The trouble with radicals is that they think they are right and that they therefore must enact their policies whenever they have the votes to do so. It is also an example of ends justifying means, which in a democracy should never be the case.

Let me give an example from Groningen. The present chairman of the Labour Party, who used to be alderman there, had appointed a committee that was supposed to come up with a traffic scheme. This committee consisted only of people who shared his ideology. They developed an extremely rigorous traffic scheme that was, in effect, directed against cars. The inner city was divided into 4 zones. One could not drive from one zone into the other; one had to return first to a ringroad. That was the plan as it was presented to the municipal council, where the left had a majority of one or two votes. Every amendment which the other parties proposed, in order to aid shopkeepers, for example, was thrown out. In politics, radicals only think in terms of power: I have one more vote than you, therefore I do not have to reason with you. Certainly at the local level a substantial majority should have its views taken into consideration. The result is now that this traffic scheme is detested by a large part of the city's population.

6. The Welfare State

Bolkestein: Is there a connection between football riots and the welfare state?

Toxopeus: I think so. I grew up in a time when things were not so simple, when you had to wait for many things you wanted. Nobody is now hit by unemployment in the way people were in the thirties, fortunately. The welfare state has made an enormous difference for the better. It has also fostered egocentrism, however.

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People have lost their points of reference. The Catholic Church had a great influence on the way people lived. It is difficult now to realize how pervasive that influence was. When my daughter was young she came home one day screaming with delight because a little girl she knew took her bath with pants on. That must have been around 1948. This sort of influence has disappeared very suddenly. Catholics have suddenly lost their supports. The blow was less severe for the Protestants. Still, I remember that a student pastor denied, in a television programme, that there is life after death. That is a bit odd for a minister of the Christian religion and a great blow to those who still believe. So all those Protestants and Catholics have lost a considerable part of their certainties. What remained for them? The churches did not offer them a higher ideal any longer. Holiness existed no more. Norms disappeared. Nothing barred the road to egoism. I know that the extent to which people used to be restricted was absurd. But things have changed not gradually but suddenly and no new norms have taken the place of the old ones. There are clergymen who deny that some acts are good and others are evil: it is all a matter of relativity. That point of view fosters materialism among people who until very recently have had to live according to extremely strict rules. Then you also get those football riots.

Bolkestein: I can see the connection between football riots and the sudden loss of religion but what has the welfare state got to do with it?

Toxopeus: Those boys can afford to travel. They can pay for an airline ticket to see a match abroad. In my youth that was impossible. And there is no moral code - only the criminal code. People don't go to confession any longer and they no longer listen to a sermon in which they are told what is right and what is wrong.

The psychological consequences of the welfare state are much more serious than the economic or the administrative ones. To lose one's belief is one thing but getting something in its place is quite another. Also, we have had peace for a long time. During World War II we were united against a common enemy. After the war we had the period of reconstruction. I don't remember any of the phenomena we have been discussing from that period. Nobody remembers them. There was a lot of consensus and cooperation. Young people don't seem to be interested in those experiences. The longer ago it is, the less it means to them.

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Bolkestein: Football riots, boredom, unnecessary polarisation, the welfare syndrome - are we perhaps talking about human nature itself, about ‘man's estate’? The value of the obstacle as such is no longer recognised as it used to be.

Toxopeus: We owe that to Dr. Spock, among other people. He now recognizes that he has been wrong. A bit late in the day. The obligations have disappeared at the same time as the constraints. Some people think that you cannot buck the trend. I think one ought to try. Children like it when they are given a sense of direction. They tell you, afterwards, that they appreciated leadership. They want to hear from people with more experience what is sensible. It still remains up to them - it remains their responsibility - but they are entitled to clear advice and these days they are not getting it in many instances.

It would be useful if Ministers and other people in authority would set an example. A good example is more effective than all sorts of lessons. One can set standards for people but if one is not prepared to live according to those precepts oneself then of course nobody will. In the 1950s Sydney van den Bergh resigned as Minister of Defence because he was cited in a divorce case. Nowadays people would consider that idiotic. After him there was another Minister who resigned because he had had an accident in a car while under the influence of alcohol. But that one was the last to resign because of what was considered ‘not done’. If one should now insist upon standards of behaviour for people in official positions one would be accused of being a moralising hypocrite. People don't dare to do that anymore. The press would call you a law-and-order fanatic but not a modern person.

Bolkestein: Liberals always talk of equal chances. That is difficult to achieve for children from radically different backgrounds. What do you think of positive discrimination?

Toxopeus: We have always limited those equal chances to schools and universities. Equal opportunities at the start, not equal results at the finish. It is true that background make a lot of difference. Some people who are reckoned to belong to the so-called intellectual elite do not seem to have integrated their academic knowledge very well. Some politicians have learnt a number of techniques - how to debate, what vocabulary to

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use - but are unable to use those techniques in a harmonious way. You see that a lot in the Labour Party, where discussions very quickly become personal and acrimonious, while those same techniques keep the real working people at a distance because they can not keep up with the new party members. I suppose it will take another generation before this pseudo-emancipation becomes a true one. This should not prevent one from creating equal chances, of course, but it would be an illusion to expect too much too quickly.

Bolkestein: The Netherlands have been characterised since the war by three great social currents. The first was the tremendous increase in affluence, which we discussed. The second was the loss of religion. That we have also discussed. The third was democratisation. Is this third current as strong as it once was? Take the recent act that opens official files to the public. Little use is made of its provisions. Many people now express concern over the effects democratisation has had on the quality of our universities. Lastly, how many employees in commercial undertakings are keen to take on the extra responsibility that goes together with - or should go together with - democratisation?

Toxopeus: I don't think one can apply the term ‘democratisation’ to universities or to companies. Democracy can only apply to forms of government, at national or local level. If one uses the term with regard to education, one risks confusing two things: firstly, the participation of teachers, students and the cleaning staff in the running of the school or university; and secondly, increasing everybody's chances of partaking of that education. I am in favour of opening up education to all and sundry - as long as they have shown they have the capacity. In companies there is indeed less enthusiasm for democratisation, so-called, mainly because of the economic situation in which we find ourselves. People in works councils do not like to participate in decisions about who ought to be sacked and I can't blame them. They do not want to carry that responsibility.

I find that works councils function well in general. Too many employers still look at them askance. The more one involves works councils in the running of companies the more support they will give. The members of works councils whom I know personally are all very reasonable people. Of course, it should be clear which matters can and which

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cannot be discussed in works councils. I would not want a Yugaslav-type system of self-management and I dare say most workers wouldn't either. In that case they would have to decide about dismissals. They would not want that - they prefer to leave that to management.

As far as universities are concerned it is evident that at long last students find that they do not get proper instruction. That has been the case for years. Here too the change in economic climate has made them think of the chances of finding a job: it has reinforced the achievement principle. The recession has helped to redress the balance - that is about the only benefit it has brought, though.

Now as to your question: is this wish for democratisation still as strong as it was? I think we went too fast and too far along that road. Take the so-called participation. People are fed up with it. They have neither the time nor the inclination to discuss government plans in abstracto. They will do it when it comes nearer home. For the rest they leave all that to action groups.

7. The New Conformity

Bolkestein: The Netherlands is a country with a great density of communications. This is one of the factors that have led to a new conformity, which consists of two basic ideas. The first is the idea of guilt, which has been powerfully reinforced by the loss of religion. The second is the idea that man is good. It means an optimistic view of humanity which is at variance with the catechism of Heidelberg. I wonder what caused the change.

Toxopeus: It is an old Socialist thought: man is good, circumstances make him bad. A well-known Dutch columnist once wrote that Liberals have the same optimistic view of humanity. In that case I would not be a good Liberal. Man is capable of both good and evil. After the war I saw some very nasty things in Dutch camps where collaborators had been interned. It may have been understandable, given what happened during the war, but it was evil all the same. No, we are not all good. I would not know how to explain a certain number of things, if that were so. A lot of things, in the world and in this country happen because people are capable of evil.

What about television? I cannot see what good can result from a

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programme like ‘Dallas’. If I were American I would not export that sort of stuff. I would never forbid it, mind you. No censorship. Apart from a few programmes - and how many people watch them? - there is little of educational value on television. All those damn quizzes and their expensive prizes revolt me.

Bolkestein: Back to the catechism of Heidelberg. Before the war, Christian Democrats like Colijn and Gerbrandy were of the opinion that people had to be governed by clear and strict laws. We no longer think in the same way. ‘If you only leave people to do their own thing they will better both themselves and society’. What has caused the change?

Toxopeus: It may be a reaction against the way things used to be, in the same way as the wave of democratisation in the sixties was a reaction against the manner in which officialdom used to run things. There was too little openness, too little discussion. Nobody knew how decisions were really arrived at. The old style officials wanted to be held accountable as little as possible. They were abruptly followed by the advocates of openness and democracy. It was a reaction.

In the same way people reacted against the strict norms that were applied before, during and immediately after the war. If one lets go of all norms because one feels that none is needed, one is driven to the conclusion that people are good. If they weren't good, you see, they would need those norms. But since we don't want them, people must intrinsically be good. Therefore, if we were only nice to each other and said that we were all good - all beautiful people - the world would get better. Let us trust the Russians! They forget that the Russians want to gain the world for Communism and that they are an entirely different people. Perhaps Sacharov and a few other dissidents think like us but that is all and, compared to the population of the Soviet Union, it is negligeable. I doubt whether a single farmer in the Ukraine has ever heard of Sacharov and his Liza.

8. To Govern is to Wait

Bolkestein: A.M. Donner, who used to be President of the European Court of Justice and now teaches constitutional law at the University of Groningen, has said that to govern is not to foresee, in the famous

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French phrase, but to wait until the problems are acknowledged and the needs have become so urgent that the solutions are evident and inescapable. Now to put forward an idea whose time has not yet come, is one of the deadly sins of politics. You will suffer twice: the first time because nobody agrees with you, the second time because people cannot forgive you for having been right after all. On the other hand, Donner forgets that politicians have the duty to bring about a situation where problems are acknowledged and solutions are debated.

Toxopeus: I think Donner is only correct when one takes government to mean legislation. For legislation one needs popular support. The traffic scheme in Groningen needed popular support. A law that governs the behaviour of citizens needs more than a one-vote majority. But government is much more than legislation. Government also consists of deciding about police activities. It also consists of making statements about affairs of current interest. People in government have the duty to gain acceptance for the direction in which they think society ought to be moving. Politicians in all sorts of positions have that duty.

Liberalism is too much identified with libertinism. Moral norms can very well go together with Liberalism. They do not have to stem from religion, of course. A journalist once wrote that I represented the code of conduct of the tennis court. Well, better that than no code of conduct at all. At least on the tennis court one behaves reasonably and one does not knife people in the back. I don't see why a Liberal Party should not be able to stand up for that sort of behaviour.

Our modern society disparages excellence. This tendency corresponds to the financial levelling we discussed. We live in a time of social levelling, except for sport and the arts. Elsewhere, somebody who is exceptional is cut down to size. The media in particular encourage this. It is a pity. Outstanding people are out of fashion. Yet we need them more than ever.