"You can have votes with the wheelbarrow..."

In the past few days, saying that I should go down among the people, I passed through the market. The market is a fascinating universe because it gathers all possible characters. There is a great effervescence these days because, finally, spring has come and many of the Romanian vegetables have already been brought from Turkey... you understand. Even so, passing through the market is a mandatory periodic exercise, so we don't end up like those dignitaries or commentators who don't know how much fruits, meat, gasoline, bread, or vegetables cost, as they don't do such worldly shopping at the store or in the market, being busy commenting on the affairs of the country. And they also know how things stand with the market economy, theoretically, of course. Luckily, during this walk through the market, a lady selling various things explained to me how prices appear in the market, and I swear that those people who wrote in the economics textbooks about how demand and supply contribute to price formation have been misled. She said this: if many people buy, you can raise the price. As it turns out, high demand, high price. Correct. But then she comes and says: if few people buy, you can still raise the price, because you have to take from those few who buy the money for all the goods, including the ones you don't sell. So whatever you do, the price goes up. I realized that this paradigm actually explains what has been happening to us for years. But not just for vegetables: energy, electricity, gasoline, cars, houses, mobile phones – the story applies to all of them. Meanwhile, a picturesque character was pushing a wheelbarrow through the market and singing "you can have votes with a wheelbarrow / when you have no character, it's useless". I didn't dare to ask him if he says that in general, from popular wisdom, or if he refers to the recently voted motion of censure and if he is lamenting against whom we believe, or if he understands something else from the whole episode with the motion.

But this text is not about the motion of censure that brought down the government. We, sociologists, do not deal with that. Or, I beg, not all of us... It is rather about the fact that at the intersection of these political struggles is ordinary life, which would need a bit of predictability. Of course, the public has its share of blame. How much they love emotions in the electoral campaign! How much they love to throw negative votes! But at some point, we all wake up and realize that fewer and fewer things are predictable in Romania.

At the end of last week, INSCOP published here some figures about general human values. It turns out that 88% of Romanians prefer a modest but secure life to a prosperous but uncertain one. 75% believe that most people try to take advantage of others. Of course, if you read the whole plan, you will see that the answers to some statements seem contradictory (https://www.inscop.ro/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/30.04.2026-Barometru-Informat.ro-Inscop-Valori-sociale.pdf). This says something about the public opinion climate in our country and about the contradictory signals that an ordinary person has to manage. Some are responses that refer to the idea of personal security, others are individual-aspirational, others are about how nice it would be. At times, it even seems like a value confusion: for example, I would like to invest, but I want to be sure that it will pay off. I would work more, but I want to be sure that I will become a millionaire in five years. Otherwise, it’s not worth it.

I prefer less, but secure, was a recurring theme in surveys from the 90s. Some analysts criticized such responses and explained how they show that Romanians do not have an entrepreneurial attitude, they are not willing to go the extra mile, as the Americans say. In reality, it is about something else. People perceive rather that society (not just the state, but society, including private companies, the market itself, the public, the buyers) does not reward effort, well-done work, does not distribute resources transparently, does not cushion potential shocks, etc. In other words, when you reach a point where you have nothing, you really have nothing. Often, however, more, with more work and more risks, is not really that much to justify the work and risks. And associations with others often put you in dubious situations and circumstances because, as it is, everyone has a story that others do not know.

And, after you are told to take risks, to invest, and to have confidence, you see that the budget for 2026 appears only in March-April and will gradually go down the hierarchical chain to smaller institutions until May-June, becoming somewhat operational only halfway through the year. And you also see that, three weeks after the painful adoption of the national budget, the government falls. An employee or entrepreneur, a young person who should start working, or an elderly person who should retire peacefully, cannot tell you well about such a combination. And here we are, instead of confidence votes, we have a political-electoral system primarily fueled by entire wheelbarrows, if not trucks of angry votes. Everyone brings them with what they have at home.