Patriotism should now be the unification of everyone in the fight for the European identity of Montenegro

During the twentieth century, various theories were created whose aim was to explain why some countries are economically successful and prosperous, while others are unsuccessful and poor. Some theories explained this by geographical and climatic reasons, others - by religious and cultural ones. In 2012, two American economists, Daron Acemoglu from MIT University and James Robinson from the University of Chicago, published a book entitled Why Some Countries Fail, presenting a theory that is today considered the final answer to this question. Following the example of Newtonian mechanics, based on experimental material, they formulated the concepts and laws of the theory. The basic concepts are political: inclusiveness and extractivity of society.

Inclusive societies are those characterized by the transferability of power, the rule of law (laws apply to all members of society equally), the security of private property is guaranteed by law (only an independent judiciary can seize property), political power is not concentrated in the hands of a small group, and there is an institutional incentive for innovation. Extractive societies are those in which power is concentrated in a small circle in whose hands the political and economic control of society is exercised. A legal order may exist, but the laws are not applied equally to all members of society.

The basic law of the theory is simple: economically prosperous are those societies that have been politically transformed into inclusive ones over the course of history. This is accompanied by the clarification that in extractive societies the majority is exploited because a small layer that has political power carries out a forced distribution of social wealth. The economy is controlled by the privileged, talent and effort are not enough without "networking" with the powerful. Extractiveness was a characteristic of all societies before the English Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Today, prosperous societies are called Western, although a significant number of such societies are found in East Asia, which testifies that the geographical, cultural, and religious theories are only partial approximations of the universal theory of the two authors.

Just as Newton tested his universal theory on all known mechanical phenomena, so Aczemoglu and Robinson (in about 600 pages of the book) tested their theory on all societies that have existed in the last ten thousand years of human history.

In 2019, the authors rounded out the theory in their second book, which they called The Narrow Corridor, proving that inclusivity can only be maintained in the long term by a balance between the government that enforces the laws and the civil society that controls it so that it does not become authoritarian and despotic. If we plot the power of the government on one coordinate axis and the power of civil society on the other, the narrow corridor is a narrow strip in which these two forces are approximately equal. The mechanisms of control of the powerful are independent media, non-governmental organizations and institutions established by law. For their contribution to social theory, Aczemoglu and Robinson received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Their theory also addresses the issue of transforming an extractive society into an inclusive one. The greatest opportunity for such a breakthrough appears at a time of great historical change. However, most states that emerged from colonialism or seceded from a (failed) state, as was the case with the breakup of Yugoslavia, have not created an inclusive society and prosperity. The reason for this is the "iron law of oligarchy": one elite is replaced by another, which takes over political and economic power and control over society.

In the recent past, Montenegro has missed two chances to become an inclusive society and experience democratic and economic prosperity. When communism collapsed in 1989, the Yugoslav republics rejected the EU's offer to join Yugoslavia to the West through membership in the European Union, and went to war. Slovenia and Croatia were saved because their confession and culture cannot seek the Asian anti-European identity that Orthodox Serbia seeks, ignoring the fact that out of fourteen Orthodox countries, only three can be considered successful, which are members of the European Union.

The second opportunity was when Montenegro regained its independence. Djukanovic abused the independence movement and turned Montenegro into the ugliest form of extractive society - an order that provided privileges to a small social class headed by his family. Due to injustice and lack of freedom, tens of thousands of citizens, largely the most creative part of the nation, left such a Montenegro.

It is paradoxical that the man under whose leadership Montenegro regained its independence in 2006, spent the next decade and a half dismantling it like no one else in its history. I will look back at the role played by the intelligentsia in this.

According to the iron law of dictatorship, the creative intelligentsia, in order to be realized, had to cooperate with the DPS. What did not have to happen, but did happen, is that a part of the pro-independence intelligentsia exchanged the status of intelligentsia for the status of guardian of the authoritarian regime. An illustrative example is the DPS rector.

She set out to bring the university into order by combining physics as a science of the real world with mathematics, which has several axioms that cannot be modeled either in the real world or in classical logic. She was, however, sufficiently educated to fight for the destruction of independent media. The former member of the Board of Directors of Monitor helped organize an exhibition called "Word, Image, Enemy" and rounded off the regime's philosophy of fighting against independent media with the motto "Not a grain of wheat for the enemy", which was supposed to "inspire" ministers and businessmen not to cooperate with independent media. To put the will of the ruling party above market laws and prevent Montenegro from slipping into an inclusive society.

The former president of CANU, who was one of the few independentists in that institution, published a brochure in 2007 in which he moved the beginning of Đukanović's transformation into an independentist back almost to the time when he had not yet regained his sight. When he said that Milošević was a great statesman and the best thing that could have happened to us, and as one of the creators of the "war for peace" he declared that "we are attacking the Ustasha formations in order to liberate Dubrovnik".

One illustration concerns the Montenegrin National Academy of Sciences and my smallness. At the Assembly at which Božina Ivanović was appointed president of the Academy, Mrs. Kana Radević and I were appointed vice-presidents. At the beginning of the 2000s, Matica members peddled the information that I had left Matica because I was allegedly not on good terms with Božina, while the two of us had had excellent relations ever since the time when I worked on the establishment of the Faculty of Science and Mathematics and he was the Minister of Education. This story, of course, is not important in itself, but it illustrates the fact that a part of the pro-independence intelligentsia, which always belonged to the leadership of Matica, after 1997 was intolerant of its "renegades" who did not approve of the lucrative personal regime that was being formed.

Despite the metamorphosis of the intelligentsia, the Đukanović regime could not last forever, nor could Orbán's in Hungary. In 2020, Montenegro gained a new political elite for whom independence is less important than it should be at this historical moment. However, this event was of historical importance, because Montenegro won the most important institute of an inclusive society - it learned to change power in elections.

The new government has accepted Montenegro's accession to the European Union as a priority task, which has become feasible due to the weakening of EU criteria after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. It is not currently attacking its critics and political opponents, although it is led by fighters from the seventh battalion, who still dream of clerical-national engineering. It has a loyal and obedient media and is putting pressure on independent ones, but it is looking to meet the conditions of the European Union, which considers the media an essential element of Montenegro's transformation into an inclusive society.

Unfortunately, it does not change the character of society, but rather continues to divide society into "ours and theirs" in a party-based manner, and prefers to employ "its own" rather than the talented and capable.

Despite all these anomalies, Montenegro does not have to remain in the company of eternal losers. The latest public opinion polls show that after the fall of Đukanović's dictatorship, the number of independence supporters has increased. Today, 75% of citizens would vote for independence in a referendum. And they prefer to build relations with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania while preserving that status. A significant majority wants Montenegro to join the European Union, which means that citizens are ahead of the political elite, considering solving life's problems more important than national exclusivity, and that they are ready for the end of the dream of their nation's victory over other nations.

They are prevented from doing so by intelligence of both provenances, because intelligence is a largely important factor in the creation or destruction of authoritarian structures.

Some of Djukanovic's followers foolishly call the third of citizens who identify as Serbs traitors, forgetting that DPS is the main culprit for Montenegro's failure to seize two historic opportunities to join the European Union.

To conclude. I think that patriotism at this moment should be the fight for an inclusive society and the unification of all citizens in the fight for the European identity of Montenegro. This goes beyond Montenegrin interests in importance because the European Union would gain a member in which diversity lives in harmony. This is why Europeans do not define Europe as a Christian civilization, but as a civilization based on equality, solidarity and freedom.