As some of my readers may know, parliamentary elections are held in Austria today. (In fact, the title of this post is a lie since, due to an unexpected trip, I shall not be able to vote at all.) Following some vivid debate with friends and family, but also as an act of compensation for my inability to exercise my right to vote, I would like to share with you why I had decided to vote for the ruling conservative ÖVP of chancellor Schüssel even though I disagree with about 98% of their opinions. There is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is: because I disagree with even 99% of the opinions of the other parties. Here is the long answer.
As an advocate for an open society that values individual liberty and is based on free markets, I find it hard to place myself anywhere on the left-right spectrum (I even try to avoid referring to myself by other political labels such as “small-government conservative”, “free-market liberal”, “libertarian” or “Old Whig” even though they would describe me much better than “left-winger” or “right-winger”). Therefore, I have to look at all major parties.
What are the alternatives? On the right, we have got two appallingly xenophobic and populist parties that represent the remains of Jörg Haider's once infamous FPÖ (BZÖ and FPÖ). Obviously, I cannot vote for them. On a side note, I would like to point out to my left-wing friends that they share most of their economic agenda with these “far-right wackos”.
On the left, we have got the Social Democrats (SPÖ). I have never felt much sympathy for their vision of an over-protective government which uses money that it first stole from its citizens to incapacitate them and take decisions on their behalf. A free market provides better opportunities for all people, including the neediest, than this totalitarian ideal of some arbitrary “social justice”. It is the expression of an infinitely sad vision of human nature and a great deal of arrogance to have so little trust in individuals' ability to freely empathize and share with their fellow human beings, take the right decisions, provide for their future and act responsibly. This makes them completely ineligible to me, along with the communists (KPÖ) and Hans-Peter Martin, a former Social Democrat and would-be EU reformer who had gained fame and fortune writing a stupid book about (read: against) globalization.
So we are down to the Conservatives (ÖVP) and the Greens (Die Grünen). They have one nice feature in common: some of their exponents actually seem like intelligent, educated, interesting people. Although I do not share their views, it feels better to be ruled by people whose company you would also enjoy at dinner.
As a matter of fact, it is style, rather than substance, that has drawn a lot of people I know to the Greens. Their politicians stay calm, correct and tend to resist the temptations of populism at election time. I, too, appreciate this. They also boast a firm commitment to human rights and tolerance that I share and support. However, I abhor their economic and social approach that relies so much on state interventionism. It means more government, more bureaucracy, more inefficiencies. Founded out of respect for the environment, they ought to look at how communist countries destroyed their natural resources and re-think their radical left-leaning ideas. People who believe in government coercion rather than persuasion don't get my vote.
The issues that are dearest to my heart, apart from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are education, fair opportunities for all, health, and culture. While with regards to them I would therefore trust the most productive, creative and innovative force in the world – free competition under the rule of law –, the Greens, along with the rest of the left, would trust the most inefficient, counter-productive and monolithic agent – state, bureaucracy, interventionism.
Enter the Conservatives. In their favour, I have to say that they have cut taxes a little bit, even though not enough, their Christian roots do not allow them to stir up xenophobic feelings as other parties on the right like to do, they are committed to a reasonably open economy, they have made it easier to start a business, they have modernized health insurance, they are in favour of liberalizing Austria's very restrictive regulations on shopping hours, and they have successfully conducted some long over-due privatizations. On the downside, they have given Austria its most arrogant and most incompetent minister of education ever, they support the horrible European constitution as well as a lot of European policies that I consider useless or even dangerous, in particular the idea that the EU should be more than just a single market, they are too tough on immigration for my taste, they interfere far too much with people's private decisions on issues such as family policies and other, in principle they support the misguided European model of a rampant and incapacitating welfare state… After all, they are typical European conservatives, miles away from my small-government ideals.
What I would wish for in Austria during the next four years is this:
- Massive tax cuts, introduction of a flat tax as in Slovakia and Estonia
- Preparations for a gradual abolition of all public subsidies (agriculture, sports, culture, business, everything)
- Possibility to completely opt out of the public pension scheme as well as public health and unemployment insurance in favour of a private insurer.
- Preparations to gradually privatize all transport (including roads) in the long run
- In the EU: Opposition to all new policies, support for every kind of enlargement, support for a return to a single market without any political implications, abolition of all EU subsidies, abolition or at least reduction of tariffs and trade barriers towards the outside world, support for an EU constitution that limits central power instead of justifying it
- Open up to the world rather than the protectionist EU
- Free immigration for all foreigners that find an Austrian sponsor (prospective employer, friend, family member, charitable organization, etc.), no restrictions at all for new EU countries
- Reduction of public spending on welfare
- Full privatization of all universities, gradual privatization of entire education sector
As you can see, there is no party that would represent my ideas, so I am stuck with the Conservatives as the lesser evil. I do hope that they will listen more to free-marketeers like me during the next term, or else I might change my mind in four years' time. And they better drop the education minister, or I shall never ever vote for them again.
Finally, I would like to express my great disappointment with Liberales Forum, a small party, that once claimed to be inspired by classical liberalism and free-market economics. This time they engaged in an alliance with, of all parties, the Social Democrats, shamelessly betraying and mocking their long-time voters like me just to save their political careers. I am appalled, and, as many other people, wish I could go back in time to retroactively undo my vote for them in the past. Personally, I still find their politicians sympathetic, but politically they have irreversibly lost all their credibility. Have they gone crazy? Even if they ever go back to being an independent party, they have lost me forever.
Back to the top of this pageCategories: Free Thought, Free Markets Loose Talk
Keywords/tags: austria elections schüssel övp spö grüne greens fpö bzö martin libertarian conservative liberalism
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