 In 1977, he also wrote a short "samizdat" essay called "Parallel Polis" (), calling for his fellow dissidents to abandon hope that the repressive social, economic and political institutions in Czechoslovakia could be changed by protest.Instead, Benda called for new "parallel institutions" to be created, which would be more responsive to human needs and may someday replace the existing corrupt institutions.He argued that as the communist state would drain any efforts at reform, it was better to start new ones than expend energy fighting old ones.