Vojtěch Sedláček

“In 1990 American and British experts in risky economic transitions came in here, for instance from the London School of Economics. We have had remarkable debates with them. One of them I would like to recall here because it is still in my head. The economist said that if we did the privatization without a proper legal framework, it would all happen much faster but then there will be mess for two generations. No way to get around it. After all we know that when the ‘clean hands’ campaign started in Italy, it was suddenly impossible to build a road or whatever because nobody knew anymore whom to bribe and where to send the money. The so-called corruption is but a setting we agreed on. The way it went underway was set up this way and was more favorable than other available options on the market.”

“Two of the people influenced me the most – philosophers Jiří Němec and Jan Sokol. Both of them were – and I do not want to put anybody on airs or compare them with the others – an apparition for me. And both of them, Jan Sokol to this day, Jiří Němec passed away a couple years ago, remain an apparition. They were extraordinarily educated and smart people who had a remarkable competence to communicate and put the others together. Such a number of skills concentrated in a single person I hadn’t seen before. Jiří Němec and Jan Sokol were capable of talking not only with intellectuals but with people from out there as well – with workers.”