Korwin-Mikke: Polish free-market legend

My name is Kelthuz and I speak to you from Poland. I will tell you about the father of modern Polish free market thought, the most radical and eccentric person in the European Parliament.

His name is Janusz Korwin-Mikke, he was born in 1942 and he has run numerous times for the president of Poland. He came to prominence as early as the late sixties, protesting against communist regime, expulsion of Jews (March 1968) etc., and he was imprisoned for that, as well as relegated from his university. He finally managed to graduate in philosophy, but his interests also included math and psychology. His academic area of expertise was sociocybernetics and decision-making theories.
For a while he worked as a scientist, but in the late 1970s he founded the underground publishing house, the Conservatives & Liberals' Printing House. He started to translate, print and distribute free market, classical liberal and libertarian classics among the free thought-hungry Polish citizens, tired of communist misery. Already knowing that communism had been bankrupt and there was little time left, Korwin-Mikke wanted to teach Poles the basics of capitalism and classical liberalism, otherwise after the inevitable fall of communism, they would be left at the mercy of manipulators and socialists turned social democrats. And that's what precisely happened later...

But even before 1989, Korwin-Mikke was trying to influence politics. From 1962 to 1982 he was formally a member of a party in communist Poland known as Democratic Party, of all names. It was a legal party, it had its members in the communist parliament - because, you know, communist Poland in fact had other parties sharing power with the communist United Polish Workers' Party. He left this Democratic Party after the infamous Anti-Parasite Bill got passed in the parliament in 1982 - this bill basically instituted forced labor and made private, black market entrepreneurship illegal. It was the middle of the Martial Law in Poland, dictatorship of the military junta, while the country was crumbling. Korwin-Mikke was not a member of Solidarity Movement. He considered them, and justly so, a bunch of commies who wanted to exchange authoritarian communism with democratic socialism. Korwin-Mikke preferred the Chinese way - keep the authorities in power, but lose all economic controls and repressions of trade, introduce capitalist reforms instead of political revolution. This was the main aspect of his radicalism, his conflict with the middle-of-the-road liberals like the current European President Donald Tusk.

At the end of the 1980s, when the switch of power from communists to Solidarity was sealed, Korwin-Mikke formed his political platform, the only free-market party in Poland, one of the first parties in post-communist Poland as well - the Union Of Realpolitics (UPR). That party reflected the worldview of Janusz Korwin-Mikke. He considers himself the only true Right-Winger - therefore Union of Realpolitics combined radically libertarian free-market economic platform with conservative social views, pragmatic 19th century-style approach to foreign affairs, strong republican spirit (despite Korwin being a monarchist), and a strong respect for the rule-of-law philosophy. Sounds eclectic? Not necessarily, if we analyze Korwin-Mikke's views more closely.

The key aspect here is his field of expertise - sociocybernetics.
Korwin is basically a social Darwinist, he rationally believes in the evolutionary process of selection and discarding of weaker individuals as well as of societies and polities. From this perspective he believes that monarchy is the best political system, as it has ruled for 99% of human history and always returned after the degenerate periods of democratic mob rule. As a sociocybernetician, he is not necessarily interested why is that so, because he says he is only interested in what comes out of the box, so to speak - not what happens in it. This is in contrast to, for instance, famous paleolibertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who wrote Democracy: The God That Failed to explain why democracy leads to degeneracy. Korwin-Mikke simply states that a system where two winos from the street have more voting power than a university professor necessarily leads to barbarism, that's why monarchy is the way because from a Darwinist perspective weak monarchs are weeded out by stronger and more enterprising monarchs who necessarily must pursue more free-market policies to strengthen their kingdoms.

As a social Darwinist, Korwin-Mikke, despite his conservatism, fully embraces total decriminalization of all drugs and total retreat of the government from regulating substance production, distribution and usage. He says that one should be allowed to take heroin, and evolution will take care of such a person, it will get rid of her with the benefit for the rest of humanity. Despite his conservatism, he is a bon-vivante and has recently fathered two additional children with a young party activist, despite his advanced age and marital status. His bon-mots about sex are very interesting, as all of them are. For instance, he considers cheating on one's wife to be quite normal and sexual polygamy a biological and evolutionary imperative. Despite chastizing the left for abusing sex, sexual imagery and so on, he often abuses sexual innuendos himself. For instance, quoting a supposed Russian proverb "You can't score every girl on the planet - but you should always try!" as a parable for the innovative spirit under capitalism or what not.

Is Korwin-Mikke a libertarian? Nope. Not in the American nor European sense, no. Not philosophically. He does not begin at the premise of liberty. But that's not a big problem at all - Ayn Rand did not begin at this premise either, and rightly so. But Korwin-Mikke does not even begin at the premise of reason. No. He actually quite scalds pure reason. He may be very Hayekian at this issue, which would put him at odds with Ayn Rand. Korwin-Mikke considers himself a deist, and theologically is often at odds with Catholic clergy, while calling them out and proclaiming himself to be THE REAL CATHOLIC unlike them! His uncompromising approach and individualist relation to the issue of God puts him close to Protestant sects - and the Founding Fathers of America.

His most often repeated principle for political system is the Roman maxim VOLENTI NON FIT INIURIA, that is, the willing may claim no injury - whatever you do, you take responsibility for it, but nobody may stop you legally from doing something which might only hurt yourself. Yes, that is his basis for free society. No big philosophy, just pure Roman legalism for taking risks and suffering the consequences.

Where Korwin-Mikke is most interesting at are his views on the dynamics of civilization. He considers the European civilization already dead, and taken over by the Union Civilization, that is the anticivilization of European Union, which is an antithesis of the genuine Western, European Civilization. The European Union, this Soviet Union of Europe, has inverted all the virtues of the West and turned them into vices, while elevating the elements widely scorned just only 100 years ago to the new virtues of the New European Man. For instance, as Korwin explains, the boys are now taught by the education authorities that aggression is bad, is a no-no. You have to be peaceful, mild, passive about your fate, you cannot fight nor have strong emotions. Aggression and fighting spirit is being eradicated by the school system and ideology, so they may create spineless slaves who would never even consider rebellion. Would never rise arms against their oppressors and their new taxes and regulations. Here Korwin sees the ominous influence of the leftist social ideal - the spineless, passive hippie - in the school systems of Europe. The effects are easy to behold - European kids in school are defenceless against the aggressive, dynamic Muslim kids who were not taught passivity nor peacefulness. Korwin explains that the Islamic civilization is currently better than the Union civilization in Europe, because at least Muslims are taught to be warrior-like and aggressive, so they are equipped with the will to conquer and submit others to their command, while the Europeans are not. They are only taught to follow orders of authorities blindly and passively, and behave like pigs in a sty in other circumstances. Yes, live and pig out - this is another aspect of the Union civilization Korwin-Mikke despises. Despite capitalism creating all this wealth to consume, the Union civilization hates capitalism and its virtues of business, entrepreneurship, innovation and striving. It only craves goods, so it may consume and consume in a degenerative spiral down the drain. A huge pig out in a sty, while the others provide the means to do that, somehow. The essence of socialism - and the spiritual essence of the Union civilization. The Muslims, Korwin-Mikke says, hate this mockery of civilization mostly because of this degenerated, wanton consumption and the mentality of entitlement. The Muslims, Korwin says, will cut our throats and we will passively allow them to, because we in this EUnion civilization are no better than cattle for slaughter, we forgot how to fight for our lives. We won't have anyone to fight this fight for us. The Muslims will take over because they despise us for what we are - weak, passive pigs with swollen bellies and no spine.

Instead, Korwin says, the true European civilization was the civilization of the conquering White man. The colonizer. The fighter. The builder. The executioner. The pioneer. The tycoon. The captain of industry. The astronaut. We need to get back to the stars, to reach for the skies and the space beyond. True capitalism will allow for that, because there are always bold, risking individuals who will put everything on the stake to achieve the unachievable. To do impossible. That is where the real innovations come from. Risk, boldness, daring. This is the Western civilization and this is what capitalism is based on. The left destroyed it, they took our boldness away - and took our future with it also. The left must be crushed - says Korwin-Mikke. When he says that - you know he means that. No compromise. No fucking compromise with the leftist subhuman scum!

That is why Korwin-Mikke is so appealing to young sympathizers of liberty in Poland. He gives them hope. No dry data about the advantages of a freer economy, or of lower taxes, or of fewer regulations. These are obvious for anyone with half a brain. He shows them how that translates into life and reality. He shows them the meaning of the pursuit of happiness. His vision inspires to take arms, to act and to fight for capitalism, with the feeling of pride and purpose in their guts. Despite lack of philosophical depth, Korwin-Mikke's gospel hits notes so close to the heroic prose of Ayn Rand that it has a similar effect - a profound exaltation, an epic loftiness in one's spirits. Alas, without philosophy of reason and egoism, this leads to pretty disastrous consequences for the logical cohesion of Korwin-Mikke's message. His current supporters, young korwinists, believers in the conservative-liberal ideology of their master, are braindead sycophants incapable of thinking outside the box of Korwin's slogans. As they never read his earlier, more elaborated books and articles, they rely on his recent, scant but regular ramblings and musings on his blog, which are but a curious blend of personal observations, bon-mots, strange deductions, random quotes from different famous persons and shocking statements to garner attention from the press. Is Korwin-Mikke acting as an ideologue? Politician? Father-figure? Publicist? Satirist? Looney?
Nobody knows.

His recent political success was to invade European Parliament with 3 other members of his party as Europarliamentaries in the new term. It was 21 years since he served as a publicly elected member of any body in politics, all thanks to the support garnered through the relentless and steady propaganda spread through the internet in distributing the korwinist ideology of classical liberalism, Darwinism, sociocybernetics and critique of Eurosocialism. Just like under communism Korwin printed freedom classics underground and spread them among the liberty-starved communist serfs, now under Eurosocialism Korwin inspires millions with his ideologizing by the much-better suited medium for such an activity.
All hail Korwin-Mikke!