In nature, every mammalian society combines elements of cooperation and competition among the members of a social group (zebra herd, wolf pack, baboon troop). More broadly, every ecosystem in dynamic balance comprises interlocking webs of cooperation and competition among the species living in it. It should come as no surprise, then, that humans in a civil society engage in a dynamic interplay of these two primal social forces. To comprehend the yin-yang dynamics of cooperation and competition in Slovenia, one has to view the present in the context of nearly a half-century (1945–1991) of Communist control while Slovenia was a state within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (hereafter referred to as Yugoslavia).

First, don’t confuse the form of Communism in the Soviet Union with the Communism that evolved in Yugoslavia under the remarkable leader Josip Broz. more commonly known as “Tito”. Indeed, the quality of life for the vast majority of Slovenes improved remarkably under Tito’s Communism. Slovenes with whom I discussed the implications of that period noted that everyone of working age in Communist Yugoslavia had a job. Job security was never an issue, and neither was old age (economic) security nor access to education and basic health care. Given the dire socioeconomic conditions in Slovenia at the end of World War I, together with the disastrous consequences of Great Power meddling, the Great Depression, and Fascist-Nazi occupation, one can see how life under Tito’s Communism was a big step up. The “brutalist architecture” from that period can be seen everywhere in Ljubljana. And while it’s now viewed as dull and ugly, most Slovenes also acknowledge that those buildings gave everyone a place to live, with far better living conditions for most than they had before.

When we talked about life in Yugoslavia with middle-aged Slovenes, many of them said their parents’ generation often felt nostalgic for those “good old days.” But even those who have happy childhood memories of many companions to play with, parents home from work early in the afternoon, and annual family vacations want nothing to do with a state-planned economy, the regimentation of collectivist society, or the constant and ominous threats to personal security from a paranoid and belligerent state security apparatus. As I will explore in my next post, Slovenes want to be free to seek their own, individual path to a better life. They dislike all the regulations and bureaucratic delays that impede pursuit of their dreams.

And yet, they understand far better than most of my countrymen the necessity of providing for—and paying for—what economists call “social goods.” An example is education. So far, Slovenia as a liberal democracy has retained the Yugoslav system of state-supported free education from prekindergarten through post-baccalaureate degrees in, for example, medicine, science, and engineering. But many Slovenians are critical of the rigid approach to learning that comes with this system. So there are calls for various reforms, including privatizing education and providing alternatives to exams that determine the fields a student can pursue. Others defend the fairness of the current system, where your access to society’s most rewarding jobs (in terms of financial or personal value, or both) is not handicapped by the net worth of your parents. And some rightly point out that the current Slovenian system of primary and secondary education, whatever its limitations, produces graduates who are far better prepared to participate in a global economy than does the U.S. educational process.

There are similar ranges of opinion on issues where the new market economy requires diverging from the collectivist policies in the Yugoslavia era, issues such as health care and economic security during working age and retirement. All in all, I found that their experience in a collectivist society has given Slovenians a healthy regard for the importance, and the difficulty, of seeking a proper balance of cooperation and competition.

On May 24, Andre Rieu brought his Johann Strauss Orchestra and Chorus to the Dvorana Stozice in Ljubljana. Jennifer and I were there, perched in side balcony seats we were lucky to snag online shortly before all of the huge hall’s 12,480 seats sold out. The Dutch conductor-violinist-raconteur is hugely popular here, as he is throughout Europe. Rieu and his troupe delivered a magnificent performance. I went prepared to be underwhelmed by something reminiscent of Lawrence Welk on steroids. But soon I was clapping and stomping, swaying and singing (and I cannot carry a tune—ask Jennifer) with my fellow 12,479 fans.

Rieu spent maybe a third of the show’s time talking to his audience or bantering with performers on stage. One piece of monologue struck me as intensely symbolic for both Rieu’s concerts and for the musical experiences Jennifer and I were having in Ljubljana.

That weekend, Britons were participating in European Parliament elections, which the media pundits and most politicians were interpreting as an opinion poll on whether the United Kingdom should proceed with leaving the European Union (Brexit) or stand down from that momentous decision (no Brexit). With some winks and twists of various parts of his face, Rieu said something like this:

“We may have Brexit (twisted grin); we may have no Brexit (grin twists to opposite side). We may have borders, or we may have no borders (2-beat pause)… But I know this: There are no borders in music.”

The crowd roared in approval. Rieu turned to his orchestra and led them into the next number, with the crowd still thundering. For the rest of the 3-hour evening—which included at least a half-dozen encores—Rieu, his troupe, and his audience lived the truth of his statement. He served up a rijsttafel (the Dutch equivalent of a smorgasbord) of songs from different musical genres and from countries around the globe. His audience devoured every morsel he served, and they kept him coming back with more.

Ljubljana is a city alive with music, all kinds of music, music from everywhere and anywhere. We’ve gone to jazz concerts, classical music concerts, singer-songwriter gigs, and sidewalk buskers. We’ve heard every form of pop, rock, and rap emanating from bistros, clubs, and street corners as we walk or bike around the city. I believe that what Rieu said applies to all music everywhere, but it’s especially true of the musical life of Ljubljana and Slovenia. And perhaps this is my oft-hidden idealism showing, but I see this abundant musical life helping Slovenes to transform and transcend the conflicts and limitations facing their civil society.

You see, it was a 2013 performance in Washington, DC, by an a cappella singing group of young Slovenes, Perpetuum Jazzile, that got me interested in Slovenian civil society. I heard many resonances—undertones and overtones—of that group’s youthful joy, optimism, and community spirit in Ljubljana’s musical life on this trip. So even as we learn more about the challenges and issues in this society, I’m still betting on the sound of music winning out.

Individual Slovenians are, of course, as diverse as the land they call home. Still, certain personality traits characterize many of the acquaintances we’ve made. One such trait, which seems important for Slovenia’s future as well as for understanding its past and present, is that many Slovenians exhibit a noteworthy degree of individual enterprise, often involving multiple family members from two or more generations. Here are three examples:

MartaStudio. Our studio apartment throughout the first month is owned and operated by Gorazd, his wife Marta, and their son Simon. Gorazd is a civil engineer by day; Marta works at a Mexican-inspired restaurant the family owns and operates. Simon serves as resident manager and jack-of-all-trades caretaker for the handful of rooms and apartments called MartaStudio. They plan to buy more apartments in this four-story building as units come on the market. Throughout our stay, Simon was our point of contact and provider for daily needs. We heard the pride in Simon’s voice as he showed us around the units he and his father had worked on renovating together. And once he told us that he expects this family venture to become the “best hotel in Ljubljana.”

Primož Žgajnar. Primož Žgajnar, our tour guide for the visit to Lipica and Piran, runs his own guide business, Vagabond in Slovenia, while also working as a tour guide for travel services companies based in Ljubljana. Along with tours within Ljubljana and out to the standard Slovenian sightseeing destinations, Primož’s personal guide business offers hands-on opportunities for visitors to make potica—Slovenia’s traditional holiday nut roll cake—at his home in the hills southwest of the city.

Jarc (pronounced “yartz”) family farm. Our first weekend excursion beyond Ljubljana took us to the Jarc family’s vineyard and winery, which also advertises as a tourist farm. Vino Jarc is nestled in the hills of the Štajerska region north of Maribor, less than a kilometer from the Austrian border. More than a “bed and breakfast,” a tourist farm encourages guests to experience the daily life of the farm. Maksimiljan (Miljan) heads this family business now. His wife Marjeta plans and prepares the superb meals laid before guests while also attending to the many other chores accompanying life on a family farm. Miljan’s 86-year-old father still helps out with farm work; he inherited the farm from his father after World War II and focused it on wine-making.

Along with expanding the original land under viniculture to 72 hectares (178 acres), the Jarc family decided a decade ago to add the “tourist farm” component to the family business, mainly to get their wines more widely known. Daughter Ana proudly shared her photo album depicting the stages of constructing the new “guest house” facility where we stayed, under which is their modern wine cellar. Son Pavel, who has studied viniculture and winemaking at the University of Maribor, gave us a tour of the cellar and described their plans for growing this family business.

It seems every adult Slovene whom we get to know is pursuing some kind of enterprise (more examples here). I’ve chosen the term “enterprising” to distinguish this Slovenian trait from the usual meaning Americans give to our adopted French cognate “entrepreneurial.” In conversations about Slovenian economic growth and participation in a global economy, several Ljubljana residents claimed that Slovenes lack what Americans would call “entrepreneurial drive.” In their view, their countrymen are too satisfied with a small “local” business and aren’t adept at seizing opportunities that would grow a business or “close the deal” on international ventures. I don’t know whether such criticisms have broad validity or just reflect dissatisfaction with the recent pace of commercial growth. Certainly, some Slovenian-based businesses have had substantial international success. This is an issue I want to explore further.

What I do know is that, in the personal and family enterprises we encountered, Slovenes take immense personal pride in the quality of the goods and services they offer. They would rather uphold their values for doing business with integrity than make a few more euros. When I compare my experiences of Slovene private enterprise with the way business in the U.S. is too often conducted, particularly by our large corporations, I hope that Slovenia holds onto its business culture and resists going “the American way.”

The rich farmland of the Ljubljana marshes flowed past both sides of the tour van as we headed for the pass between the ancient limestone hills of the Karst region to the south and the newer limestone strata of the Julian Alps to the north. Our driver and guide, Primož Žgajnor, announced his theme for our tour would be “in a little space, a big diversity.” Primož began by applying his theme to the contrasting geography of the marshes—in prehistoric times a shallow lake—and the surrounding hills. Soon, though, he was describing the diversity of Slovenian microclimates and the ways that terrain, climate, and ecology influenced the traditional patterns of life for Slovenians in its diverse regions. Next he added the larger forces of human history that have shaped Slovenia. Greeks and Romans arrived from the Mediterranean. Large-scale migrations from the east and north ended the Roman era and brought one branch of the southern Slavic people, the Slovenes, to settle in these forested hills and fertile valleys. Then a succession of larger, more powerful neighbors ended that initial period of Slovene local autonomy, first with feudal overlords and then with provincial governors sent by the Hapsburg dynasty and the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Slovenia is about the size of Massachusetts, the sixth smallest state in the United States. Put another way, 485 Slovenias would fit into the same area as America. From Ljubljana, roughly in the center, you can drive to any corner in an hour and a half. Yet, if you Google “Slovenia regions map,” you get a bewildering array of ways to subdivide this land of just 7,827 square miles (20,273 square kilometers). The mostly well-written and extremely informative guide in English published by the Government Communications Office, I Feel Slovenia, includes five pages of region-by-region highlights. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include a map showing where in the country these eight “regions” are or the locations of the other regional names used in the highlights. As an aid for readers, here is a regional map from the Cooperative Union of Slovenia, which appears to use the same regional names and locations as the highlights section of I Feel Slovenia. Jennifer and I will refer to the regions shown in this map in our posts.

But Slovenia’s diversity extends into more dimensions than space and geography. For example, it had a largely agrarian economy in the centuries before 1800. Since then, the traditional crafts and interregional trading occupations, with roots tracing back to the Roman era and earlier, have grown into thriving industrial and commercial sectors within a diversified modern economy. In 2017, agriculture accounted for less than 2% of Slovenia’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 5% of total employment, whereas industry contributed 29% to GDP and employed about a third of the workforce. The services sector accounted for over half of GDP and nearly two-thirds of employment. (GDP and employment values are based on statistics on the website Statistica 2019.)

According to the World Population Review, at least two-thirds of Slovenians live in urban areas. Ljubljana, the capital and largest city, holds 13% (275,000) of Slovenia’s population of just over 2 million. One of the few cultural dimensions in which Slovenia is relatively homogeneous is in ethnic identity; 83% of Slovenia’s people identify as ethnic Slovenes, with no other ethnic identity contributing more than 2%. In a later blog, I will return to this ethnic homogeneity as a source of both strengths and challenges for democracy in Slovenia.

For me, this question has two parts. First, why did we choose to spend so much time (7 weeks of a 2-month trip in Central Europe) in just one small country? Second, why Slovenia instead of another country in this part of the world? The first question is easy to answer. I wanted enough time in one place to get to know the people, their culture, how they see their past, present, and future—and most important, what their civil society is like. By civil society, I don’t mean the political system or how the government functions (or doesn’t). I mean the full complexity of how people live with and relate to one another, day by day. Civil society is what Alexis de Tocqueville focused on when he wrote Democracy in America (more about Alexis below and in future posts).

As Jennifer notes in her post, we visited Slovenia for 3 days in June 2015. That trip convinced me that an extended stay, based from Ljubljana, could be a good way to explore Slovenian civil society.

But why Slovenia? A quarter-century ago, I began pondering where the next quantum step forward in civil society might emerge. I believe de Tocqueville was right when, in 1825, he identified the 13 newly united former colonies of Great Britain in North America as a major step forward in civil society. The United States gave the world a beacon for improving civil society for the next century and a half. But by 1994, the U.S. seemed to me to have lost its way. Civil society in my country was no longer improving. The “equality of condition” that de Tocqueville saw as the defining character of a young America was rapidly succumbing to increasing disparities of condition. The two-party “system,” lauded as an American strength in my high school American history courses, was degenerating into a culture war between uncompromising partisan extremes, which prevents confronting and resolving any real problem.

From studying political philosophy, as well as social psychology as an expression of primate behavior, I view every form of civil society as a particular answer to achieving (and trying to maintain) a dynamic equilibrium between humans as self-conscious individuals and as social animals. Evolving environmental, societal, and economic conditions—including the evolution of civil society itself—drive changes in the dynamic interaction of individual and society. Even a highly successful civil society must adapt to changing conditions or fall into dysfunction. The U.S. in 1825 represented a new approach to dynamic equilibrium at that time. But by 1994, our civil society was too dominated by beliefs in the individual as the sole foundation of civil society and by the conflicting views of reality and values preached by our two established political factions. The dynamic balance had been lost.

So I began looking for a civil society elsewhere that might offer a new and better way to balance the needs of individuals and social order as they exist in today’s world. The countries of Central Europe recently freed from Communist dominance seemed promising candidates. They combine decades-long experience of overemphasizing the social side of being human with recent success in opening opportunity for individual expression and self-development. By happenstance (a story for another time), I discovered that a new answer to the problem of dynamic equilibrium may be emerging in little Slovenia. Our 3-day visit in 2015 confirmed that this new republic—almost the same age as the American republic was in 1825—was worth a closer look. This extended stay is my way to study democracy in Slovenia.