What Serbs Must Do to Survive, Second Edition: What Serbs Must Do to Survive

By Djordje Teofilovic

"What Serbs Must Do to Survive", second edition, is the book written by Djordje Teofilovic. It outlines strategies Serbia and Serbs must adopt in order to survive and thrive. The book offers unique approach to public policy and it details impact of these policies on society and crucial ministries in the Serbian government.

The pivotal concept of the book is regulation that limits public service to 8 years in the lifetime for most of professions. The concept applied in case of Serbia could be easily replicated in any country in the world; this makes this book unique and applicable.

This edition offers theoretical background of the proposed solutions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eleon Publishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990546068

Book preview

What Serbs Must Do to Survive

Second Edition

Toronto, 2021.

Copyright © 2020, 2021 Eleon Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a database, shared or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Translation and authorization under the license of Jovan D. Savic

First Printing:   April 2021

ISBN:   978-1-990546-06-8

Cover image:   PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek

Editor:  Liz Saucedo

Publisher:   Eleon Publishing

Introductory Remarks

The book What Serbs Must Do to Survive is intended for Serbs. The book is not the author’s personal promotional tool but a set of solutions to problems that Serbs are allegedly seeking. The author often encountered the question: How are you going to accomplish that? And the answer was always: I do not plan to do anything beyond what I have already done. If this book comes down to one person designing and implementing systems while others oversee and provide moral support, it will experience the proclamation of Listen, Serbs! Take care of yourself that was published back in 1928 by the famous Dr. Archibald Reiss (hereinafter Reiss).

Reiss explained the problem, but he did not offer any solutions. A hundred years later, we find ourselves in the same situation. It seems like we are waiting for that Russian Tsar to liberate us and deliver overall happiness that we cannot fight for. If we accept that we are slaves and allow someone else to liberate us, we will continue to be slaves owned by different masters. If we do not free ourselves, we will remain slaves.

One political activist and allegedly a patriot from the heart of Šumadija sent an interesting comment after reading the book. This was his response: Hello, I read the book. There are lots of interesting ideas. They could be used once we have a normal government. It is good that you are thinking about it; any good idea can greatly benefit the reconstruction of the country. Keep up the good work, and feel free to send your ideas in the future. Best regards! The young gentleman said, Once we have a normal government. Well, if we keep working as we have done so far, it is unlikely we will ever get a normal government; those normal governments do not emerge out of nowhere.

On a positive note, this book may be an innuendo of some better times. This edition is the work of several individuals. First, we should mention Mile Arnaut, an entrepreneur from Vrlika, Republika Srpska Krajina. Mr. Arnaut processed the part about the polygraph examination within the Ministry of Justice. Like other mechanisms mentioned in the book, polygraph examination would be an obstacle to creating corruptive ties in public institutions. The part related to industrial hemp was contributed by members of the National Hemp Association of Serbia (NAKS) and the Humanitarian Hemp Association (HUK). Miloš Simić contributed to the medical part of the Social Cannabis Club of Belgrade (SKK Belgrade).

About the Author

The author of this book is an ordinary Serb who got tired of hearing remarks, analyses, and suggestions on how to solve every Serbian problem.

After watching numerous political podcasts and reading countless analytical texts, the author realized that everyone is aware of the existing problems but unaware of meaningful solutions. Those who offer solutions speak as if they have absolute political power in their hands. They mostly offer some impossible outcomes from a position of absolute power. Such people offer solutions from the view of if I were in power now, I would regulate, set, replace, build.

These people were in the position of power a few years ago but did not do much during their tenures. Today, they are offering their solutions through social media. They point to the problems of Serbian society and offer ideas on how to solve them. Sadly, while they had the opportunity to change something, they failed to do so. But today, they are raising awareness and precisely pointing to the issues they did not know how to resolve. Unlike them, this book offers the ideas and the necessary steps on how to achieve power and govern the country afterward. This system is not based on a single person but on the approach in which diligent individuals would progress and work for the benefit of the people, while the incompetent would be removed from the positions that make important decisions.

Between the two editions of the book, the author forwarded free copies to the addresses of nearly all political movements that claim to be fighting for Serbia and the Serbian people. Additionally, the book was offered and forwarded to several of those who claim to be intellectuals and several thousand professors at Serbian colleges and universities. The book has reached many recipients, but the interest from their end was mostly negligible. For that reason, the author decided to publish the comments received from Serbian intellectuals so that readers could understand the intellectual capacity of those that read the book.

At the end of January 2021, while reading the news on a portal, the author came across a quote from Archibald Reiss. Although it was 1:30 a.m., the author was curious and searched online finally. He read it until about 3:00 a.m. and realized that what he’d published in his book coincided with what Reiss had noticed 90 years ago. Reiss warned us nicely, but we did not administer the system according to his recommendations. It is never too late to create a system that could turn the Serbian future in the right direction.

The second edition of this book, which deals with the economy and the government, is published in that name. It is important not to forget that every government is blinded by power. And that is why this book offers a solution that prevents anyone within the government or public job from getting blinded by the power. The solution will reject any possibility of acquiring lifelong authority and privileges and will turn every public job into a genuine transitory service in the best interests of the people and the state.

Introduction

At the mercy of our own stupidity and historical and political circumstances, we, as Serbs, have put ourselves in a situation where we risk our biological survival. While the author of this book has read thousands of articles and suggestions on how to turn the situation in our favor in the last fifteen years, unfortunately, no one had written a single proposal on exactly how to make a dynamic change. All of the suggestions are without mechanisms that would ensure the Serbian revival regardless of who is in the position of power (e.g., police officer, the judge in the courthouse, Minister of Finance, etc.) Each proposal was based on the best intentions but without a systemic approach to the problem. If the individual who proposed those solutions could not implement them, nobody else would be able to do so. Well, that is exactly what Serbs need: the system would function even once certain individuals leave the system.

The author tried to offer a solution that would involve reputable individuals uniting around the idea to help the people and the state. Several years ago, he devised a plan, worked out the details, and started talking to people interested in serious social change. Unfortunately, even though those individuals were known to the public and acted in the media with clear, decisive, and reasonable messages, it soon became evident that they did not have the capacity to initiate anything. The whole plan collapsed like a house of cards—the hope in people who did not live up to the task was in vain. There is no doubt about their patriotism and readiness to work for Serbia, but their abilities to truly contribute were limited.

Many years later, it became clear that some criticized the government for themselves and not for Serbia. They quickly took advantage of the change of political parties in power and managed to profit from their roles in the attacks on the previous government. Then, from the position of associates of the new authorities, they began to praise the decisions of the new rulers, which were the same decisions they criticized a few weeks before.

If we try to make a system of people, we can expect the same people to tear it down. There are many examples. When a promising politician comes to power, he does the opposite of what he promised from the first day. Those who helped him ascend to power are the ones with control over him and the entire country. If the people trust in one person, the overthrow of that person destroys both the government and the state. Politicians who present themselves as saviors always suggest the same thing: unlimited faith in them and their abilities. They are looking for support in the political campaign and promise to be better, smarter, and more honest than those already in power.

These politicians offer a system that boils down to their enthronement and unreserved support in the hope that their work will bring us what they promised. Unfortunately, they do not offer to change the system but offer to replace the individuals in the system instead. Therefore, they must be in a position of power to implement their ideas since what they have visualized and offered to the people cannot be executed by anyone else. No one else can put their ideas into practice. Unfortunately, these politicians cannot achieve it either. The difference between public speaking and designing and implementing a new system is enormous. Anyone can learn existing information and recite it in political campaigns. But not everyone can set up a system that could work without those who designed it.

In the West, this has been resolved a little differently. For instance, in case a disaster wipes out a group of 500 leaders in the country, after two days, other people would replace them, and life would go on as if nothing had happened before. One would say that we are not the West. I agree, and there is an example in the East, specifically in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces are organized relatively well and resiliently; the death of the Taliban leader is just one piece of news. Perhaps unknown to the general public, someone else has taken his place, and everything resumes in the same direction, without any administrative or ideological trouble. It is probably a pure coincidence that the second edition of this book was a little late. The Taliban re-established power on the territory of Afghanistan for a few weeks in August 2021.

We are neither the West nor the Taliban, but at least we can recognize the truth in which people are perishable goods, and the state functions better on a system than a state with leaders. Remember that only the Serbs thought Josip Broz Tito’s death was the end of the world, but wiser ones saw his death as a golden opportunity.

Current Situation

The accumulation of political and economic power by the state inevitably undermines the individual’s political and economic freedom.

Friedrich Hayek explained the connection between political and economic power in the following way: while the government uses the political system to maintain the division into left, right, and those in between, at the same time, it tries to centralize political and economic power in its hands. Political life itself intends to distract people into relinquishing the fruits of their labor to those who have political power. The economic freedom of each individual is inseparable from his political freedom. When the political system takes control of economic freedoms, the individual loses economic and political freedom. Political freedom is reduced to a struggle for a personal position within a corrupt political system, and the possibility of an individual or a group changing anything in that system is minimized.

The overflow of economic goods with political levers of power is achieved at different rates depending on the circumstances. However, it often leads in the end to the strengthening of those who are at the top of the government, to the detriment of those who are outside political structures. And as political and economic power accumulates over time, those in power begin to lose their sense of reality and try to maintain the existing system as long as possible. A system in which the government should serve the citizens becomes a system in which the citizens serve the authorities.

Such a system run by individuals without life and work experience leads to economic inefficiency, often covered by significant state influence in the economy. Greater state influence also leads to even greater inefficiency and bigger problems. The futile outcome can be compared to the legendary quote about the definition of insanity and repeating the same mistake in anticipation of different results (a phrase attributed to Albert Einstein even though he never stated it). And so, step by step, we come to the situation we are in today. We live in a system with a systemic error, and we cannot fix it without entering the system itself. And by entering the system, we become part of the problem. In general, people with suggestions have nominated themselves to solve the problems, but they could only do so if they become part of the government. Unfortunately, their solutions are not transferable, meaning nobody would know what to do and how to improve the system without those very people. The solutions provided in this book can be implemented by anybody, even if they have no experience working with the government.

The biggest problem with this system comes at the end of the story. Namely, some economic thinkers claim that many historical examples reveal the state is the bad organizer of the economy. Allegedly, when a state places 50% of the economy under its control, that state is doomed. The collapse of the state leads to the growth of the economy’s inefficiency and attempts to recover the weak economy at the expense of the efficient part that is efficient. That efficient part cannot withstand the burden imposed on it by an inefficient state and is slowly failing. This increases inefficiency, and the state tries to take even more out of the private sector, making it harder for the economy to function. Step by step, the system created in this way destroys

Reviews for What Serbs Must Do to Survive, Second Edition

[PAVLE STANIMIROVIĆ · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Teofilovic great job , we need more writers writing about this subject and let's not have history forget great people who just happen to be Serbian and should be celebrated and studied written about .
Shocking that just recently no one knew who was
Nikola Tesla , Mihalo Pupin , or Novak Djokovic was ?