Polish statesman Lech Walesa, the Cold War-era Nobel Prize laureate union organizer, believes that working-class people around the world soon will revolt against the wealthy.
“They will shortly demand all the citizens, worldwide, to declare their possessions; whoever will fail to do that will be deprived of their possessions,” Walesa told the Washington Examiner. “‘Just give us your assets, and we’ll know what to do with it.’”
Walesa based his prediction on income inequality and a fraying of the various ties that have bound western societies together, including religious beliefs and the fear of communism. He argued that while “communism is out of the question” as a governing ideology, U.S. and European nations must reform their political and economic systems to avoid mass civil discontent.
“Bear in mind this forecast of mine, unless we do something about democracy as such, in 20 to 30 years from now, only those running for offices will turn out at the election,” he said through a translator. People who are frustrated with politics and corruption will not vote, he said. “And worse and worse leaders will be elected. Which actually means that no matter where we look, no matter what institution, organization, agency we look at, none of it is suitable to serve in the twenty-first century.”
Walesa, a mechanic and electrician by trade, emerged as one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th century when he led the Gdansk shipyard strike of 1980 that forced the communist-controlled Polish government to allow independent trade unions. Walesa continued to lead the Solidarity movement in a non-violent demand for elections, which the anti-communist bloc won in 1989.
Thirty years later, he believes that “the old concept of capitalism” is failing — although “the market economy” remains essential — and that democratic systems of government need to be reformed to counter the corrupt oligarchies denounced by protesters around the world.
“And actually, among all the protesters, no matter where, including the United States, there are two major claims. In all of them, the two major claims, ‘We don’t want this type of democracy that we have.’ And, ‘We don’t want this type of capitalism that we have.’ ”
Protests, he said, could be addressed by term limits for politicians, “transparency when it comes to the financing of the political parties,” and other shifts, including an agreement to allow workers own as much as half of the business in order to avoid conflicts between management and labor.
In the absence of such reforms, he warned, working-class people will turn on the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. But he stopped short of echoing the traditional Marxist rallying cry. “I wouldn’t phrase it, ‘Revolution of the proletariat,’” he said in response to a question from the Washington Examiner. “But people just seek justice, and they will be asking why do you have so much and I don’t?”
