There is a broad interest, not only for politicians and analysts, but also for any person to understand how it was possible for what we currently call anti-Western parties or anti-Western candidates in the presidential elections to have the very great success that they had in the elections of November-December 2024. Essentially, what is of interest is to understand how a prosperous country could deviate, even if only temporarily, from its Western course.

The discussions have gone in all directions, but, in order to have a solid basis, we should start from the reality that, in the West, the social order is always overwhelmingly spontaneous order. I have brought arguments for this statement in my essay entitled “Letter to Augustine. Spontaneous Order: Interventionism Can Reduce Its Efficiency, but Not Its Overwhelming Weight in the West”, published on my blog. This order is produced by human action guided by the rules of good conduct that we have discovered in a long process of selective evolution. A practical and very important consequence for our topic of the fact that spontaneous social order is overwhelmingly preponderant is that political and economic freedom are generally in balance, society is prosperous and solidary, and the political constituency, or form of government, is liberal democracy.

However, this does not mean that the projected part of social order, i.e. that part that is not generated by discovered rules, but by rules that we use, most often unwisely, to replace discovered rules, is not important; on the contrary, it may be very important for several reasons: a) because it could explicitly aim, as it happened in communism, at suppressing spontaneous order by designing a rule (let us call it the rule of suspension of spontaneous order), adopted by a majority resulting from free elections or, at the opposite pole, the result of an autocratic imposition; b) because it could be so incoherent and corrupt that it could lead, in the name of eliminating or mitigating some unsatisfactory aspects inherent in spontaneous order, to the nefarious idea that adopting a rule of suspension of spontaneous order could be preferable; c) because it could be in line with the liberal tradition acquired through cultural evolution on which spontaneous order is based, so that there would be a high probability of contributing to the reduction of unsatisfactory aspects in society.

In the first case (letter a)), economic freedom is almost completely suppressed, the economic efficiency of the resulting order is minimal, the unsatisfactory aspects are extended, but no longer belong to the spontaneous order. At the opposite pole, in the third case (letter c)), economic freedom would be at the level necessary for economic power to be in balance with political power, the efficiency of the spontaneous order reaches the highest levels, and the unsatisfactory aspects of the spontaneous order are at the minimum level. The intermediate situation occurs in the second case (letter b)), when economic freedom is reduced, by purposefully designed rules, below the level necessary to be in balance and to counterbalance political power against abuses.

This latter situation is especially interesting in explaining the tendency of anti-Western parties and candidates to have increased success, not only in Romanian elections, but in many other elections in Western countries. The interest comes from the fact that, before it becomes obvious to everyone through certain acts of political power, such a situation, in which economic freedom decreases and comes to be in imbalance with political power, is very difficult or almost impossible to recognize/detect in the early stages, before it reaches too low levels and becomes an obvious fact. For example, through designed rules, the economic power of the private sector can be reduced if the designed rules divide it, so that the holders of that economic power would either have a coordination problem if they were to oppose political power, or the side favored by the designed rules would associate with political power, strengthening the latter.

To explain this early and dangerous situation and show how it is a serious trap for the ruling elite, it is convenient for me to start from a question regarding an extreme situation, namely: what if in December 1989 Emil Bobu, member of the Central Committee (CC) of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), a Ceaușescu acolyte, and/or friends of theirs, had come out to say: „I understood the message sent by the people to us” and assured them that they would gather at the CC of the PCR to see how to proceed from then on? It would have been impossible and, in any case, laughable, because it was clear that their entire socialist culture prevented them from understanding something essential: namely, that the system of central planning could not sustainably give more political freedom, as the people wanted, unless it restored the economic freedom that it had confiscated.

This condition could not be met without the system itself disappearing. And its disappearance would have meant, in essence, nothing more than the collapse of that rule that had suspended the spontaneous market order (the suspension rule), a rule that had been adopted by the communists and their allies after they came to power by falsifying the elections of November 1946, under the conditions of the Soviet occupation. In other words, what the political leaders of communism would not have understood was that, in order to restore political freedom, they would have had to abandon the rules that made up the centralized planning of the economy based on the intrinsically limited knowledge of some elites and return to the market order, i.e. to that complex order that is generated when, guided by the tradition of general rules, everyone makes free decisions, using the knowledge they have to carry out individual plans to prosper and accumulate the means with which to oppose the violation of political freedoms.

Similarly, in an intermediate situation, such as the one that interests us, in which, as in point b) above, the designed rules are deeply incoherent and corrupt in relation to the liberal tradition of spontaneous order, the elite that conceived them could not understand how much it had isolated itself from the spontaneous order and to what extent it violated, through the order it had designed, economic freedom based on the general rules of the culturally acquired tradition. They would not understand that if they do not implement what I called the suspension rule above, but implement rules aimed at limiting market freedom, the spontaneous order will remain permanently overwhelmingly preponderant, but the economic freedom of the private sector could be temporarily out of balance with political power. This temporary period is dangerous not only because it reduces the economic efficiency of the spontaneous order, but also because it makes room for the expansion of anti-Western conceptions, that is, those conceptions that are against the tradition of discovered/learned general rules, and can go to the extreme situation in which the suspension rule is adopted.

There is quite a lot of confusion related to this tradition that defines the West. Therefore, before moving on to explain the electoral result of some anti-Western parties in Romania or in other Western countries, it is useful to clarify some aspects of this Western tradition. This will help us to have a good definition of what “anti-Western” means and to understand how a prosperous country can deviate from its Western course.

We need to say with the utmost clarity that this tradition based on learned general rules, acquired through selective cultural evolution first in Europe over thousands of years, and later extended to other countries that today can be defined as Western, is a liberal tradition. It is a tradition of discovering those rules that have allowed us to be free, and in this sense, it is a tradition of discovering and learning freedom. More precisely, it is a tradition of discovering those rules and beliefs that give us the freedom to choose our means (i.e. the goods and services we produce based on individual knowledge) and guide our actions to achieve our ends in order.

However, since the second half of the 18th century, when state intervention in the economy began to increase and has continued in all countries to the present day, the public no longer knows that our Western tradition is liberal and that the social order is predominantly the spontaneous order of the market, no matter how many designed rules there are. Many have come to believe that we owe our well-being to the expansion of state intervention in the economy. The truth is, however, that only our individual actions and the liberal tradition that guides them produce, together, the spontaneous order that ensures our prosperity and solidarity. It is essential to note that the liberal tradition refers to all freedoms and makes economic freedom a necessary condition of political freedom. Therefore, we can only be loyal to this order and the liberal tradition on which it is based. Anyone who tries to remove this order is anti-Western.

Policies and ideas that are in line with the liberal tradition give rise to (constitute) authentic liberalism, which we also call classical. This liberal tradition is the only one that, through periodic and free political voting and through continuous and free economic voting by the consumer, can ensure a good balance between political freedom and economic freedom, that is, liberal democracies, as they have emerged and multiplied only in Western culture. In all other cultures, this balance remains precarious.

Specifically, freedom of expression and religious freedom, freedom to choose and be chosen, equality between men and women, equality before the law (rule of law), separation of church and state, separation of powers in the state, are fundamental values ​​that the West has acquired and has been able to preserve because, in general, it manages to maintain economic freedom in a good balance with political power. In particular, because tradition guides individual actions, this balance is a good balance between the individual and the state. Whenever it seems to us that these freedoms are weakening, or that extremist or anti-Western approaches are emerging and expanding in Western society, it is because there is a weakening of economic freedom. This weakening usually occurs through excessive market regulation or through purposeful rules, which ultimately lead to excessive tax increases in relation to the public goods delivered. But usually, before economic freedom decreases too much, the private sector uses its resources to increase economic freedom and counterbalance political power.

Usually when we talk about the role of economic freedom in preserving political freedom we are referring to Western society, having in mind, without mentioning them, the other rules or beliefs that contribute to the same goal. We do this primarily because we are concerned with the Western society in which we live, but also because, usually, in this society, economic freedom is always „regulated” by regulations, while other rules in society are less exposed to the intervention of politicians, which does not mean that those features are not very important for the West. But we could not have the same discourse in another society, in which although we may have relatively extensive economic freedom, other rules of the tradition in that society are totally different from Western ones and equally important.

To understand how Western society is differentiated from other societies, it is necessary to clarify that the liberal tradition of the West consists of those rules that we have learned/discovered that serve us best and, very importantly, are compatible with each other in a way that allows man in Western society, as Hayek observed, to count in society as an individual, not as a member of a group. This is the result of the way in which the liberal tradition defines and shapes freedom. The traditions of other societies do not define and shape freedom in the same way, although any large society necessarily has rules included in its tradition that guarantee certain freedoms.

Indeed, regardless of the society in which they live, people are ignorant of the particular facts of that society, if that society is large enough, which makes its existence and progress dependent on the acceptance of certain freedoms, including economic freedom. Specific to Western society is the fact that the liberal tradition allows man to count in society as an individual in a much greater number of respects than the traditions of other societies allow. This advantage of Western society is possible because, among the central rules and beliefs that it discovered and selected, were Stoicism, Christianity, Roman law, and the conception that fundamental institutions are the fruit of human action, without being the fruit of human design.

All these traditions (rules) referred to the individual and to how he can count in society. They contributed to the refinement of the concept of private property, extending it to the ownership of one’s own body. The evolution of our tradition was to abandon the purposeful rules (purpose-dependent rules) that envisaged groups, towards general rules (purpose-independent rules, as Hayek put it) that guarantee and „discipline”, that is, define and shape the freedom of the individual. That is why we say that they are general rules of good individual conduct: because, by following them, the individual can act freely, without endangering his own freedom or that of others.

Other societies did not have these ingredients coming from the individualistic morality of the Stoics, from the Christian teaching about man left free by God and about private property on which Roman law focused, so they had no way of making man count in society as an individual as much as Western society did. In general, most societies in Africa, the Middle East, or South Asia did not have and do not have all of these ingredients together, so although their traditions include rules and beliefs that allow for a certain amount of economic freedom, as well as a number of other freedoms, they do not guarantee that a person can count as an individual, not as a member of a group. Therefore, their traditions preserve some practices that flagrantly violate some individual rights and freedoms, such as, for example, the right of women to be equal to men or the freedom of women to dispose of their own bodies as they wish. In the absence of such freedoms, in these societies, the community can subjugate the individual in more or less important ways for the community, even if this means violating the individual’s fundamental freedoms and rights.

Among these traditions that put the individual at the disposal of the community are, for example, female genital mutilation or honor killings. Even in Europe, the French Penal Code of 1810, under Napoleon, was lenient in its punishments for honor killings and violence, and inspired legislation in many Arab countries, especially former French colonies. There are over 230 million cases of female genital mutilation in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (WHO, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation) and over 5,000 cases of honor killings, mainly in the Middle East and South Asia (https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/the-horror-of-honor-killings-even-in-us/). Although these practices violate women’s freedoms and human rights, in some countries in the aforementioned regions, the public does not generally support the enforcement of laws prohibiting these practices, thus favoring intimidation or pressure from practicing communities on the police or politicians.

Strictly speaking, but in terms of principles, the key element missing from the tradition in those societies is that the violation of individual freedoms should be seen as a crime against society, not the individual. People in those societies were unable to discover and make this tradition because they did not have the guidance that the West has had from Christianity, Roman law, and Stoic individualism. Under this guidance, the Western liberal tradition has refined itself so that society can exercise coercion, through specialized agencies, only when coercion is used to protect individual freedom and, consequently, spontaneous order, even if the latter is protected indirectly. In other societies, however, society cannot protect individual freedom in all cases. For example, in Pakistan, until December 2004, honor killings were considered crimes against the individual. Thus, the one who took a life could be forgiven by a member of that family, which helped to perpetuate the practice.

Returning to explaining the electoral success of some anti-Western parties, it is necessary to go back in time and realize that even voters, in general, did not understand much of the liberal tradition in Romania since the early 1990s, immediately after the fall of communism. If they had understood, they would have noted that almost all the speeches of the leaders, with small exceptions consisting of singular references to “free initiative”, referred to political freedom. For most voters, this seemed to be enough. Thus, no „emanated” leader had to refer to economic freedom and explain how he would develop it in order to provide a solid basis for political freedom, and when it came to privatization, a relatively new concept, used intensively during the government of Margaret Thatcher, but which had not even had a consecrated word in English before the 1920s, the slogan „we are not selling our country” immediately appeared, chanted in the streets by large groups and intensely publicized.

Later, it became clear that the slogan had a much deeper purpose and reflected the interest of a part of the former communist elite to increase economic freedom, but not under any conditions, but on the condition of trading the political capital of that elite into domestic economic capital. Such a trading would have transformed that elite, at least for a period, into the new business elite, without immediate competition, internal, but, especially, external. This interest of former communiste elite would have been more difficult to achieve if foreign investors, who had incomparably more resources than the new local business elite, had immediately and unrestrictedly proceeded with the privatization of certain enterprises.

The slogan „we are not selling our country” was not an innovation of those who aspired to be the new business elite and, consequently, was in no way original. It was merely an adaptation to the new circumstances, created by the fall of communism, of the constructivist ideas theorized by some Romanian economists (especially Vintilă Brătianu, Ștefan Zeletin and Mihail Manoilescu) since the early 1900s and applied especially in the 1920s by the „liberal” government, especially by the Minister of Finance Vintilă Brătianu, under the slogan „through ourselves”. Both slogans reflected the incomplete and deficient understanding by the political class and the business elite of the Western liberal tradition, especially with regard to economic freedom, which they did not see as a necessary condition for maintaining political freedoms.

Such slogans provided nationalism, that is, a modern form of tribalism, which is not part of the liberal tradition, with the acceptance of a large part of the population. With this accceptance, some rules that had once been eliminated, rather reminiscent of mercantilism, could take the place of some rules of good individual conduct of the tradition and limit the openness of the economy by prohibiting the entry of foreign capital into certain domestic economic affairs. Our economic nationalism was primarily anti-Western, because foreign capital came primarily from the West and, most importantly, came, to a large extent, with the rules of the liberal tradition. In interwar Romania, Eugen Lovinescu probably understood best that the essence of what had begun in the previous century and continued vigorously enough to frighten and generate very strong opposition was our adherence to the Western tradition, a tendency to abandon those rules that kept Romanian society relatively closed and to accept some that opened it up.

But, however much it seemed oriented to make room for internal economic affairs by limiting foreign competition, economic nationalism was, in fact, primarily a rule that limited internal economic freedom: by limiting foreign competition, it allowed a small internal group to expand business, but limited the freedom of others to benefit from those opportunities that would have arisen only if the economy had opened up more and earlier to receive all the rules of the liberal tradition. Even though, in the meantime, Romania became a member of the EU and NATO and the factors of production circulate freely, the growth of opportunities for free enterprise continued to be slowed down by policies that made too many dependent on redistribution from the public budget. In this way, like other countries in the West, we continued, through our economic policies, to move away or remain relatively far from the Western liberal tradition.

In Romania, the standard of living has risen to levels never before reached in the past, including due to membership in the EU and NATO, but it has remained relatively low compared to other countries. Many have seen a cause for this in our membership in the EU itself, fueling nationalist and “sovereignist” sentiments. Signs that a notably large part of the voters have been or are open to an anti-Western vision have appeared continuously over the past 35 years. They were first identified in polls or in the approvals received by the speeches of those political leaders concerned with bringing that vision into economic policies. Then they became a certainty shown by the surprising results in the 2020 parliamentary elections of some anti-Western political formations that promised policies that would keep us away or move us even further away from the classical liberal tradition.

In what followed, we saw how, by the 2024 elections, the share of voters open to embracing and bringing to power anti-Western political formations increased. It is very likely that this result has its deep cause in the fact that, after the 2008 crisis, the left-wing philosophy of economic and cultural progressivism gained momentum in many Western countries. For the sake of clarity, it is necessary to say that neither economic progressivism nor cultural progressivism, especially in the form of cultural liberalism, are part of the liberal tradition and do not define the West. In particular, cultural liberalism relativizes the role of traditional cultural norms in guiding behavior in society, making the latter unpredictable and, possibly, conflictual, by promoting the freedom to choose or not to conform to cultural traditions. Gradually, it became evident that economic and social policies deviate from the liberal tradition, both through economic and cultural components. The latter were especially exploited by anti-Western parties in Romania.

While progressive economic policies are relatively familiar to the Romanian public, cultural liberalism had the effect of an adverse shock for a large part of the population. For example, because heterosexuality is the traditional norm and because there is no pro-gay or pro-trans theology in Romania, a large part of the population does not appreciate the pro-gay and pro-trans policies promoted in Western countries by governments, but also by large corporations, the entertainment industry or the courts. The condemnation by anti-Western parties of cultural liberalism, including by reference to neo-Marxism, was not, if and only if we view it in isolation from other statements of these parties, an anti-Western attitude, in the context in which cultural liberalism, as we have already mentioned, is not defining for the West. Consequently, the respective condemnation was perceived by a significant part of the population as an endorsement of traditional morality and, by an extrapolation that rather reflects a cognitive shift, that is, by an error of interpretation, as an endorsement of the entire classical liberal tradition.

Once the confusion set in that those parties supported tradition in general, the word “tradition” in their propaganda was automatically translated by the words “just” and “true” in almost all their proposals regarding economic and social policies. Thus, it was possible for the respective parties, through positive formulations or by mixing these formulations with values ​​that truly belong to the liberal tradition, to promote in their political programs anti-liberal measures in beautiful packaging such as „support for traditional Romanian industries”, „national identity”, „tradition as a guideline for cultural institutions”, „support for local producers”, „promoting local businesses by creating Romanian banks”, support for institutions that bear the names of prominent personalities of Romanian science and culture, etc. All of this was understood by a significant part of the population as support for the classical liberal tradition or, at least, was accepted or tolerated, if this was a condition for rejecting cultural liberalism.

Having clarified these things, we can better understand how the Romanian political class responded to the phenomenon, which can only be temporary, of the expansion of progressive philosophy in the economic and social policies of developed countries. Left-wing parties strengthened the goal of economic equality after the 2008 crisis, in order to align themselves with the economic progressivism of developed countries, especially EU countries. Because these Romanian political parties, which have been in power for the most part since then, could not accept the leftist philosophy of cultural liberalism, but also did not want to conflict with the policies of many EU countries, they gave way to the emergence of parties that we refer to as “anti-Western”, which, as we have shown, declared themselves opponents to and included in their political agenda objectives against this philosophy and clearly stated their hostility to any deviation from true Christian culture based on sexual criteria. Finally, space was created for parties that embrace progressivism as a whole, parties that introduced objectives of cultural progressivism into their agenda. This was the political structure before the winter elections of 2024.

The results of the presidential elections of November 24 and the parliamentary elections of December 1, 2024 were a shock to the political class as a whole, but especially to the ruling parties. They saw that, in a proportion that exceeded expectations, votes were given to parties, in the case of the parliamentary elections, but especially to a candidate, in the case of the presidential elections, that embraced anti-Western values, including authoritarianism. The surprise was all the greater since, in the last decade, only pro-Western parties were in power, which, when necessary, dislodged their leaders with autocratic tendencies, which seemed to show a firm attachment of ours to the West to which we belong, even if in the opposition there were both pro-Western and anti-Western parties.

The results of the parliamentary elections were approved by the Constitutional Court, but the results of the first round of the presidential elections were annulled because a foreign “state actor” interfered with them, with the first round of the presidential elections to take place on May 4, 2025, and the second round on May 18, 2025. Thus, starting in the winter of 2024, for the first time since 1989, the pro-Western vs. anti-Western dichotomy has been needed more than ever to refer to political parties and candidates for the presidency of Romania. Even if, as I suggested earlier, this dichotomy does not operate with sufficient precision if we refer to cultural progressivism, it operates with the necessary precision, as I will show immediately, if we consider the attitude towards what I have called the suspension rule.

Against this background, some political leaders of pro-Western parties emerged, who said that they understood the message received from the people on the occasion of those elections. What particularly attracted attention and made something exceptional out of that message was the fact that some of the leaders of these pro-Western parties conveyed to us through the media that they understood how important tradition is and that they would take it into account. But, from their subsequent statements and from the economic measures evoked or approved, it quickly became clear that those leaders and their advisors have a deficient or incomplete understanding of what tradition is, even if, as I will show immediately, less deficient compared to the leaders of the anti-Western parties.

What, this time too, as on other occasions in the past, was not understood by the leaders of the pro-Western parties is that in order to maintain our political freedoms it is strictly necessary, although not sufficient, to manage to ensure the conditions for political power to be permanently counterbalanced by the economic power of the private sector. And this can only be achieved if, as we have shown above, we realize that our tradition is liberal in the classical sense, and if we let it guide us. Proof that the liberal tradition is insufficiently understood by a large part of pro-Western politicians and analysts, not only in Romania, but also in other Western countries, is the very emergence of anti-Western parties, followed by the expansion of their influence, as well as the fact that these developments come as a surprise to them (pro-Westerners).

To emphasize the differential-deficient understanding of tradition, but also to show that the „pro-Western-anti-Western” dichotomy operates quite well with reference to the attitude towards the suspension rule, suffice it to say that both some and others of the leaders of pro- or anti-Western parties discuss tradition mainly by referring to some practices or dogmas that were rather eliminated from tradition because they hindered our progress.For example, in anti-Western formations, the myth of the “supreme/providential/enlightened leader” operates, which is not part of the tradition. This myth operated in Nazi Germany, or in Italy, among others. In Romania, it has been brought back into the limelight by both the Legionary Movement and the communists, but recently, more allusively than through clear statements, also by formations or members and followers of these formations that supported a certain presidential candidate in the winter of 2024. It is easy, starting from this myth, for the adoption of the rule of suspension of the spontaneous order, to which I referred above, to become a goal. Once this goal were achieved, our society would no longer be overwhelmingly a predominantly spontaneous order and in line with the liberal tradition, but would become an order based on authoritarianism.

In pro-Western parties, the idea of ​​”social justice”, which in its extreme form means economic equality, is also present, especially after the 2008 crisis, and has been translated into politics. However, this is nothing more than a superstition that periodically re-enters society, although, in practice, society has progressed the most and welfare has grown the fastest precisely in those periods when this goal of social justice was recognized as false and counterproductive and has been moved down the list of priorities of governments. Although it is unachievable within the spontaneous order, the idea of ​​social justice does not automatically lead to the emergence of the goal of implementing the rule of suspension of the spontaneous order, if the economic power of the private sector is in balance with political power.

Until now, in Western countries, this objective of social justice has been recurrent, but the alternation in power between social democratic parties and parties with more liberal orientations, such as those of the Thatcher-Reagan period, or the period in which parties reflecting the ideology called The Third Way dominated, limited its harmful effects on free enterprise. However, this danger arises if too many times, intensely and continuously, an unachievable objective, such as that of social justice, is attempted, to the point that the economic power of the private sector is substantially weakened in relation to political power. Thus, if we define the pro-Westernism of some political formations by the fact that they do not have as their direct aim the suspension of the spontaneous order, this does not exclude that through their policies that significantly conflict with the liberal tradition they create the conditions for anti-Western political formations to appear, grow and come to hold power, and then, possibly or even probably, make a goal of the suspension of the spontaneous order.

Through practices or dogmas of the type we have just mentioned as examples (the supreme/enlightened/providential leader or social justice), both the leaders of anti-Western parties and those of pro-Western parties ideologize tradition, as Edward Shils would say, because they refer to elements that are no longer transmitted, but only sought in the form of a “useful” past, meaning that an affirmation is made without reception of tradition (E. Shils, “Tradition and Liberty: Antinomy and Interdependence”, in Ethics, Vol. 68, No. 3, Apr. 1958, pp. 153-165, The University of Chicago Press).

In order to progress, we need to recognize that what has been happening in the West for some time, especially after the 2008 crisis, that is, economic and cultural progressivism, as well as the opposition in extreme forms to it, constitutes an unprecedented attack on the tradition whose content is formed by the totality of those individual rules of good conduct, as Hayek calls them, that we have discovered over thousands of years, in all fields; general rules, or abstract, as Popper calls them, that is, equally valid for all, without any specific purpose, which do not attempt to divide society into groups to protect various purposes. To use a comparison with the human body and a medical term, the attack on liberal tradition is like an autoimmune disease, in which the public temporarily favors those politicians who, instead of fighting to preserve the liberal tradition of discovered rules, fight to destroy it by introducing invented rules, just as antibodies produced by the immune system attack the human body instead of fighting the infection.

Under attack is that set of rules that guide us in our individual actions and that help us achieve our goals without violating the freedoms and rights of others. Tradition means the continuous transmission and reception of these rules (basically, they are beliefs and knowledge) that enhance our freedom of action while clearly delimiting it from what could be a violation of the freedom of others. We do not need tradition in personal relationships to have respect for the freedoms of others, but we cannot do without it in impersonal relationships in society (Shils, op. cit). Tradition is not actively sought; each one receives it and, in turn, affirms it.

How is the liberal tradition attacked? By introducing invented rules, which fail to be coherent with the rules of tradition, and which, therefore, slow down our progress, because this, as Hayek insistently tells us, is based on tradition. This tendency of democratic authorities, or not, to introduce invented rules has permanently created stress in society. The basis of these interventions has always been the conviction that society is created and/or improved by an elite that aims for this purpose. In the 12th-14th centuries, the objective was social justice, promoted by the authorities and the church and implemented by imposing the “just price” by secular or religious authorities. Later, this conception was opposed by mercantilism, that regulatory practice aimed at closing businesses within a nation and based on granting economic privileges to well-defined groups, so that the balance of external payments is in surplus. It was only in the 19th century that there was a global orientation towards liberalism, in which not the constructivist rationalism of the ruling elite, but the rationality of spontaneous order and liberalism prevailed. After that, in the 20th century, the conception that the state, now more economically powerful and more democratic than political authorities in the past, could achieve social justice by inventing and imposing purposeful rules in society for a growing number of groups competing for access to resources greater than they could produce, became prevalent again. The rise of groups and the intensification of their struggle for resources have led to high taxes and debts as a percentage of GDP in all developed countries in the West. After the 2008 crisis, this struggle against the tradition that underpins liberalism has intensified in all areas.

With this approach, Romania is also on the same path. In Romania, this practice of constructivism through rules dedicated to achieving the goals of some groups defined the System, against which many more people voted than in other presidential or parliamentary elections. In our society, there are many groups that benefit from such rules. But the most obvious and most disappointing for voters were generally those that favored the System itself, a System that, in the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections, was personified by the people of the parties that have been permanently in power since the previous elections.

It is useful to say that when we refer to the System, if we leave aside the personification that it has acquired at one time or another in the last 35 years, and consider the abstract form, by the System that was voted against I understand a combination of rules with a purpose and the people who designed and supported those rules. More precisely, the System is constituted by all the rules that conflict with our image of justice and truth, but which are maintained and justified by a ruling elite. Such rules, against the tradition on which freedom is based, cannot help but conflict with the images that each of us has, guided by tradition, of justice and truth. One of the basic functions of tradition is to guide the formation of images of justice and truth in society (Shils, op cit.).

The idea of ​​voting against the System was clear and came to the minds of many people precisely because a discrepancy arose between, on the one hand, their images of justice and truth and, on the other hand, what they perceived, based on the purposeful rules, to be the image that those who form the System have. Voting against the System is both against the people of the System, and against the unjust rules that they generate. It was also clear that people wanted politicians in power who would promote justice and truth according to their own images of these concepts.

But here came the big problem. On the one hand, the people who were perceived as perpetuating the System lost their credibility in the eyes of the public as having a correct image of what fairness/justice and truth meant. This was the profound meaning of the anti-System vote: the System no longer knows what justice and truth mean, because instead of being guided by tradition, it tends to ideologize tradition. On the other hand, almost everyone needs to formulate their own images of justice and truth. In this regard, as we have already recalled, the transmitted and received rules – the true content of tradition – play a key role: although we do not necessarily need them in interpersonal relationships, where we know clearly what is just and true, we strictly need them in order to be able to know what is just and true and thus remain free in impersonal social, economic and political interactions.

But many people do not know that tradition, as Shils says, is received and affirmed continuously, not sought. And here there is room for a lot of manipulation, and those who understand things and want to manipulate can do it by ideologizing tradition, that is, bringing back to the public attention a “useful” past. Thus, instead of accepting guidance from the tradition of general rules, many people accept guidance from an ideologized “tradition”, that is, from moral beliefs and rules that are no longer really transmitted and received, but are only affirmed. They probably do this out of the need to protect their feelings and emotions, if we consider that the perfection of tradition was done by acquiring general rules that we discovered and learned, including abstract rules that teach us how not to allow impulses and emotions to affect reason. Although it is not a clear fact for everyone, we learned freedom and progressed materially by giving up those values ​​that satisfied emotions, but closed society by defining values ​​or groups for which we adopted rules with a purpose: economic equality (it hurts to see that some people fare relatively worse, even if no one is to blame for that); nationalism (the feeling that we are better, overall, than other nations and we must guard against external influence); chauvinism (the feeling of superiority regarding sex, race, etc., by virtue of which we justify discrimination), etc.

We have seen that, in the Romanian society, some political formations or some apparently independent candidates have identified and legitimized themselves by claiming that, unlike the System, they understand tradition, which they have invoked through ideologizing in protochronist, nationalist, populist, anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist, authoritarian, anti-individualist discourses. In other words, they have presented the return to tradition as the return to emotional and sentimental justifications of certain policies. Thus, in reality, compared to the ideologizing that the System had already done, those political formations have only ideologized tradition even more, by explicitly or implicitly presenting even more serious practices and conceptions, such as, for example, anti-Semitism and authoritarianism, as part of tradition. Thus, values ​​once promoted by, for example, the Legionary Movement were, in the period up to the presidential and parliamentary elections of November-December 2024, presented as a tradition transmitted and affirmed, just as the Legionary Movement had ideologized tradition and had presented itself, at the time, falsely, as a movement to return to the lost tradition. At that time, the Legionary Movement aimed, like fascism and communism, at creating a new man, who had to get rid of the liberal tradition based on general rules, and, thus, even of democracy. In essence, both aimed to implement what I called above the “suspension rule” of the liberal tradition resulting from spontaneous order.

But here is an enormous paradox, which many people do not understand: our authentic European tradition, being liberal in the classical sense, cannot have a prototype of man. It does not suggest that we should have as an ideal an educated, religious man and, above all, a man interested in the public good, this nominal concept whose real content always remains debatable. Where, then, would the man without special education, but hardworking, be, like the educated man, the atheist or agnostic man, the man interested in his own good and that of his loved ones? The tradition of discovered general rules has the extraordinary capacity to show everyone, as unique as he is, how to behave when using his knowledge to achieve his individual plans to prosper. It is the only way in which, in the most democratic way possible, namely through purchases, sales, investments, that is, through economic voting, we all prosper and have a contribution to the distribution of results in society. In this way, although it seems paradoxical, classical liberalism is much more interested in the “working class” and in reducing inequalities than any other economic and political philosophy that aims to give the right to a political majority to decide for all of us, through political voting, on the way in which economic results are distributed in society. In essence, liberalism means both free economic voting and free political voting. Social-democratic political philosophies want only the political vote to be free, not the economic one.

Unfortunately, because they did not have better alternatives at hand, when they voted against the System in the presidential and parliamentary elections of November-December 2024, people could only choose worse solutions. This fact becomes obvious if we look at those elections from the perspective of the criterion against which, as we have already shown, the pro-Western/anti-Western dichotomy operates quite precisely, namely regarding what we have called the suspension rule.

This is one of the lessons of the recent elections: people did not have alternatives to vote for. What was available were artificial political constructions, prepared in advance, in the image and likeness of the System, which created the favored groups that disappointed the voters. What the two have in common – the System and the political constructions that hypocritically point the finger at it – is the hostility towards classical liberalism, especially towards economic liberalism. What distinguishes them is their position towards the suspension rule: the parties that have come to be called pro-Western do not explicitly or implicitly aim to implement the suspension rule of the spontaneous order. These parties designed rules with a purpose on the basis of which they were perceived as the System.

In contrast, political constructs seen as anti-Western and mistakenly identified as anti-System have even more of the idea of ​​introducing rules with the aim of favoring various groups, instead of recentering society by eliminating these rules and refraining from replacing them with others, which would also be rules with a purpose. Moreover, although they do not explicitly admit this, parties seen as anti-Western operate with an artificial hierarchy of values ​​in the sense that it is not culturally acquired, based on which they can reach the erroneous conclusion that the rule of suspending spontaneous orders is necessary. This danger is real. But most, including a large mass of the clergy, did not understand this perspective. It was necessary for the patriarch to come out publicly and affirm the Western path of the Church, thereby emphasizing, with the authority he has, that although the „stage culture” promotes values ​​alien to the Christian tradition, the West is deeply defined by the tradition culturally acquired over two millennia. In the context of the administration of the democratic and free voting process, it was necessary for the CSAT (the Supreme Council of National Defense) to declassify the documents that claimed the interference of a “state actor” in the presidential elections, in order to see that these were not exclusively the will of the voters.

However, the claim remained to be proven. On the one hand, the lack of evidence cannot be excused by the argument that an anti-Western president together with anti-Western parties could decide to suspend the spontaneous order. As long as the spontaneous order resulting from individual actions guided by the liberal tradition is overwhelmingly preponderant in the social order, this would mean accepting an appeal to motive instead of proof. Without evidence, the suspicion will remain that the CCR’s decision to annul the result of the first round of the presidential elections had no real basis, which would make the decision just another rule with a purpose, namely to favor the System, which would erode trust in elections and democracy. On the other hand, the moment at which the evidence is offered must be chosen so as not to make the Romanian state vulnerable and not to potentiate the strategy of the “state actor” to interfere with the elections in Romania in order to destroy trust in democracy and, possibly, to reach the result that we could elect an anti-Western president.

Special attention must be paid to the fact that, considering the public dissatisfaction with the System, no strong party has emerged as an alternative to fight for classical liberalism. It has not emerged, because there is no longer enough demand for it. Too many people have come to believe in the superstition that only more state intervention can reduce economic inequalities. Most have preferred the System, which is more moderate, being centered on this superstition, on this untrue idea, according to which there can be social (distributive) justice, an idea that has come to be considered true by public opinion. Others, just as many, preferred those political formations and candidates who, being ambiguous towards the idea of ​​social justice, have authoritarian ideas of increasing the role of the state, encouraged by the fact that, relatively recently, support for authoritarianism has also increased in other developed Western countries. The conclusion, which might seem at first glance offensive to some liberal politicians, is that this is how we have come to the point where the vote of those who want more liberalism is given not for a party defined as liberal in accordance with the tradition of discovered general rules, because in Romania such a party must first be built, but for the System, which, compared to the anti-System, appeared to them as the “lesser evil”.

Relatively few people truly realize that the “lesser evil” is represented, as I mentioned above, by a full political democracy, but not by a full economic democracy. A full understanding can only be had by those who are not blinded by the superstition of social justice. Only they deeply understand that without economic democracy (freedom), political freedom cannot last and that repeated attempts to achieve the unattainable goal of social justice produce negative effects, including the emergence of authoritarian ideas, especially visible in recent years. The emergence and expansion of those ideas in several Western countries is a sign that economic freedom is below the level necessary to support political freedom without weakness.

There is really no reason to hope that a large part of the politicians who want to preserve our Western orientation have understood the essence of the Western tradition, which is liberal in the classical sense, and how far they have distanced themselves from it. In the absence of a truly liberal alternative, the task of finding a solution that dissolves that system-specific approach, an approach sanctioned in 2024 more than usual by voters, was left by the voters, as the latest elections show, to those who can be easily identified, through their conceptions, as the people of the System. It is difficult for those who built the system to sincerely want to eliminate it and understand how to do it. A System that, although it maintained a pro-NATO and EU orientation, was not able to understand liberalism, or which, if it understood it, either considered it an enemy or did not have the courage to practice it because it would have contradicted public opinion.

But liberalism is the only philosophy that reflects the tradition that is made up of discovered general rules, a tradition that is constantly disrupted by constructivist approaches that degenerate into excessive deficits, ever-increasing public debts, and populism. People do not seem to believe those politicians guided by constructivist conceptions who have come out and said that they understand how important tradition is, when they criticize liberalism and distance themselves from it. The public has noticed that, in the electoral campaign, as well as outside it, the word „liberalism” was uttered very few times, and the values ​​of classical economic liberalism were mentioned and promoted by people who had no chance of being the next president or of being in parliament.

In conclusion, I need to mention that we have two problems to solve: 1. to find a political solution so that we do not have an anti-Western president; 2. to find a balance between power and opposition that would introduce more liberalism into economic policies, because otherwise, from time to time, we will have the problem of the anti-System vote, which risks degenerating into an anti-Western vote. I believe that, in the end, we will find a short-term solution to the first problem. However, I do not think that we are ready to find a solution to the second problem soon, since tradition is under attack throughout the West. In the early 1990s, there was an orientation towards liberalism in the West incomparably greater than the one that exists today. Back then, we were not in NATO and the EU, but that liberal orientation helped us get on the right path. Now, with less liberalism in the West and with the ongoing attack on tradition, our chances of practicing liberalism in public policies are much smaller, although we are in the EU and NATO. This diminishes our chances of finding a correct solution to the budget problem, a problem which, in essence, consists in the fact that various groups in society already benefit from rules or continue to obtain rules with a purpose that can cause the government to increase spending too quickly. Only a return to liberal policies will stop this trend. Otherwise, it will result in ever-increasing taxes and public debts. It is easy to imagine what it would have meant, under these conditions, not to have been members of NATO or the EU. We will also return to a democracy with more liberalism when, sooner or later, in countries with a long liberal-democratic tradition, the liberal component of public policies will be revived.