World/Letters

Let’s end this lionizing

MOSCOW — Adam Smith would have
been proud.

This, at least, was the phrase proposed
by one doting journalist who interviewed
Lech Grobelny in his Warsaw money-
changing establishment last December.

Grobelny was the best-known of that
new class of protagonist invading the pages
of Western newspapers since last winter’s

big change in Eastern Europe: the hero- |

entrepreneur. As the archetype of this new
breed, Grobelny was painted somehow lar-
ger than life — a pioneer, a swashbuckling
adventurer with a golden vision of Poland’s
future, about which he effused in expansive,
glowing terms.

The myth is becoming tediously familiar:
harnessing the forces of enlightened self-in-
terest, and channelling them into a newly
liberated market, Grobelny and his ilk would
overcome the stultifying legacy of decades
of bureaucratic communist mismanage-
ment. They would start creating real wealth,
for themselves in the first place — why
shouldn’t those who take all the initiative
and the risks be rewarded? — but prosperity
would soon spread to’ those around them.
The greatest good for the greatest number,
the only sensible way.

Realizing, in those winter days, that his
compatriots hungered for dollars as a hedge
against inflation, Grobelny opened a string

‘of currency-exchange shops, and became

almost instantly rich. Then he started up the
“Safe Savings Bank,” offering high rates of
interest on term deposits, and people came
flocking to him. In the first few months of

‘this year, some 10,000 Poles deposited ap-

proximately 32 billion zlotys ($3.2 million
U.S.) with Grobelny, and waited for those
dividends to come rolling in. The universe
was unfolding just as Adam Smith had pre-
dicted, and boy, would he have been proud.

The real, historical Adam Smith—rather
than the free-market Lancelot of economic
and journalistic comic books — might have
been faintly disgusted but would probably
have grimaced knowingly at what happened
next: Grobelny absconded.

As the Washington Post reports, Grobel-
ny told his employees in June that he was

taking a two-week vacation abroad. Abouta ~

month later, with thousands of depositors
clamouring for their money, the staff ad-
mitted they had no idea where their boss
was. It seems that Grobelny sold his three
Mercedes cars, scooped about $3 million out
of the till and took off, probably to South
Africa.

Grobelny’s escapade would not have sur-
prised Adam Smith, nor would he have tried
to dismiss it as an exception to the rule.
Unlike most of his modem apostles, the
acclaimed author of The Wealth of Nations,
who died exactly two centuries ago, was
positively scathing on the subject of bus-
inessmen. He was one of the first to describe
capitalists as “mean and rapacious” and
wrote that “they seldom meet together, even
for merriment and diversion, but the conver-

sation ends in a conspiracy against the pub-

lic, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Smith knew exactly what he was dealing
with, hence he bequeathed us no written
celebrations of noble entrepreneurs cham-
pioning progress against the forces of dark-
ness. From his vantage point at the dawn of
the capitalist era, he argued that private
greed hamessed to the market would gen-
erate public benefits which outweighed its
negative consequences. He recognized the
dynamism of the system, and in this he was
absolutely correct.

However, each generation would be wise
to ask itself anew whether the benefits out-

of East European gougers

Fred Weir

weigh the consequences. Adam Smith was
of course well acquainted with the Lech
Grobelny type, but he knew nothing of
ozone depletion, global warming, nuclear
power, automation, underdevelopment,
planetary corporations ..:.

It’s hard to guess how he might advise
today’s Eastern Europeans, who have
reached a rather high level of industrial and
scientific development without significant
private ownership or the offices of a free
market. Yet it seems doubtful that even he
would propose exposing accumulated social
assets to a feeding-frenzy by shadow econ-
omy crooks and foreign sharks, as Poland
has done.

One of the most shocking things about
the Grobelny story is that he apparently did
nothing illegal: in its mad dash to adopt the
“free market” model being pressed upon it
by Western consultants, Poland forgot to

Eastern European societies have
got to find their way out of the
ruins of the command economy
and toward something that will
answer to the aspirations of their
people. When will the Western
media stop pretending, in fables
larded with constant, misplaced -
references to Adam Smith, that
the hucksters and sharpies, the
swarming black marketeers and
money-changers, the wheelers
and dealers are fit to be lionized
as the builders of some brave
new world?

pass any laws covering this sort of abuse.

Late capitalism has not, despite asser-
tions to the contrary, evolved itself out of the
swindler-syndrome. Lech Grobelny is an
infant compared to Michael Milken or Ivan
Boesky; his “Safe Savings Bank” is dif-
ferent only in scale from Drexel Burnham
Lambert or Silverado Savings and Loan. As
the United States today struggles to climb
out from under a staggering, unprecedented
mountain of overhanging debt — entirely
generated by private greed — the only cer-
tainty is that solutions will have to come at
public expense.

All of which makes it correct for us to

FROM MOSCOW

sharply question the current Westem en-
thusiasm for ramming a highly idealized
version of our system down the throats of
Eastem Europeans who are searching for
ways out of their own crisis. These pressures
emanate from the pinnacle, at Group of
Seven meetings, as well as from the depths
of the mainstream media.

The former may be shrewd geopolitics,
but the latter is sometimes downright mor-
onic. Street hustlers and con artists are com-
pared to Christopher Columbus and Marco
Polo, or depicted in “Wild West” garb, as
Wyatt Earp facing down the bad guys.

For instance, the new joint American-
Soviet magazine, Moscow Intemational
Business, recently ran a particularly dizzy
piece about Soviet entrepreneurs entitled
“The New Pioneers.” It described co-opera-
tives — which so far, unfortunately, have
amounted to little more than a legalized
black market — as the realm of “co-op
cowboys ... They have dared to step out into
the unknown, risking the scom of their
neighbours, their own security, and what
few assets they have to brave a new frontier”

One such “cowboy” is Andrei Fyodorov,
Director of “Kropotkinskaya 36,” the first of
Moscow’s co-operative restaurants. Prices
there are sufficiently exorbitant to exclude
99.9 per cent of his fellow Soviets, while
really good service can be had only by for-
eigners paying in dollars. This servant of the
people was approvingly quoted in a recent
issue of Fortune magazine, heaping scom on
the very idea of co-operatives: “Some 80 per
cent of our so-called co-operatives are pure
private businesses,” he said. “A handful of
clever people organize them and hire any-
where from 20 to 1,000. workers. These
people pay their workers well, but they don’t
ask the workers how they should divide the
profits. They’re owners. I’m an owner.”

Never mind the law, which Fyodorov is
arrogantly subverting — that is not the issue
here. This man says that the workers are
entitled to neither a democratic say in the
business they helped to create, nor any share
of the profits of their labour. It’s a familiar
story, but what is there to admire?

Eastern European societies have got to
find their way out of the ruins of the com-
mand economy and toward something that
will answer to the aspirations of their people.
Undoubtedly market mechanisms will play
a big role in their future arrangements, but
intelligent people realize they cannot return
to the 18th century, to begin again from the
terrain sketched out by Adam Smith.

It’s probably time we all agreed that most
of our received ideological wisdom is ir-
relevant to their needs in this situation. In
particular, when will the Western media stop
pretending, in fables larded with constant,
misplaced references to Adam Smith, that
the hucksters and sharpies, the swarming
fartsovchiks (black marketeers) and money-
changers, the wheelers and dealers are fit to
be lionized as the builders of some brave
new world?

And by the way, where is Lech Grobel-
ny? Hundreds of Warsaw pensioners would
like to know.

Safety
cenires’s
service
still free

The Canadian Centre for Occupa-
tional Health and Safety, created by
Parliament in 1978, provides occupa-
tional health and safety information
through its Inquiries Service, publica-
tion program, and computerized in-
formation service (CCINFO).
CCOHS’ tripartite Council of Gover-
nors represents labour, employers,
and governments.

During the past year there have
been concerns about the future of
CCOHS’s free information service as
CCOHS moves toward financial self-
sufficiency. The Council of Gover-
nors is committed to the continuation
of the free confidential Inquiries Ser-
vice.

In fact, the council gives high pri-
ority toa program of outreach, promo-
tion, and publicity for the Inquiries
Service. The service is free, and con-
fidential and is available on a toll-free
line across Canada. We have informa-
tion on computer terminals, indoor air
quality, health and safety committees,
shift work, pregnancy and work,

__ workplace chemicals, AIDS, occupa-

tional stress and safe lifting.

Call, write or fax: Inquiries Ser-
vice, Canadian Centre for Occupa-
tional Health and Safety, 250 Main

Street East, Hamilton Ontario, L8N
1H6. Phone (416) 572-4400, toll-free:

1-800-263-8466, fax: (416) 572-4500

Wendy Newman, Director
Information Response Services

Selective

logging
boon to
_ union

Open Letter to Jack Munro,
President of the IWA-Canada:

I have been guilty of ignoring the
terrible pain that the [WA collective
has been going through for the last 20
years. The move from men and
women workers to machines in the
forest industry has brought the proud,
powerful union, the IWA, to its knees.
The history of the IWA is one of real
class struggle and determination in the
face of the most powerful monied
group in the province of B.C. — the
forest companies.

But I think, Brother Munro, that
there is a silver lining on the more
recent clouds that have beset your
union in the form of demands for en-
vironmental consideration. Sustain-
able, sensible forest harvest is labour
intensive. A shift to the type of forest
management that environmentalists
are demanding will mean a mighty
step forward for forest workers. The
ranks of your union will swell — and
the bosses know it.

Liz Thor-Larsen
Vancouver

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Pacific Tribune, August 20, 1990 « 5

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