gracchusdixit

Yesterday, the French people voted to elect their next President.  The French electoral system is complicated.  There were eight candidates in the race, and no single candidate won an absolute majority.  So, there will be a second, run-off election, the outcome of which is far from certain.  Nonetheless, the public opinion polls suggest strongly that the French may turn out the conservative, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose “reforms” have thus far failed to revitalize the French economy in the wake of the global financial collapse, and elect a socialist, Francois Hollande, in his place.

Hollande has vowed to raise both personal and corporate tax rates, to restore the social safety net that Sarkozy scaled back, and to renegotiate the treaties which have given substantial control over the French economy to a variety of international financial institutions like the European Central Bank.

Whether Hollande will actually do any of these things if he is elected, remains to be seen.  But the prospect terrifies the financial markets and has created an avalanche of apocalyptic commentary from pundits in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European economic and political establishment.  If the French elect a socialist, their decision could embolden other European or Latin American countries to do the same.  And that, of course, would be very bad for business.

The critics say that the French are living in a fool’s paradise.  They argue that the French welfare state—which protects unions and employees, guarantees retirement benefits, provides universal and free education, and has created what most observers believe to be the best health care system in the world—is unsustainable.  They claim that the pace of French economic growth is too slow, and the scale of French debt is too high.  The French, according to their critics, must face up to reality and change their way of life.  That way of life, they say, must become more “Anglo-Saxon” if the French expect to compete and thrive in the global economy.

But the French people aren’t so sure.  There is a genuine “left” in France rather than the tepid brand of “liberalism” that exists in the United States.  Hence, the French people are asking fundamental questions of their political leaders, which seldom arise in our own political debate.

They are asking, for example, why democratically elected governments should be made to do the bidding of the banks, the markets, and unelected financial elites.

They are asking why French citizens should be compelled to surrender hard-won rights in order to enrich rootless corporations and their shareholders.

They are asking why the wealthy should be allowed, even encouraged, to avoid taxation by moving their money to safe havens like Switzerland, Liechtenstein, or the Cayman Islands.

They are even asking whether the entire system of global capitalism is worth defending, let alone saving, when it cannot provide a decent and secure livelihood to ordinary men and women, all the while its endless pursuit of profit ships jobs offshore and drives down wages at home.

Of course, France is not the United States, and perhaps the French are in fact living in a fool’s paradise.   But at least they seem to understand the kind of paradise they want to live in.   After all, it was the French, not the American, revolution that beheaded a king, threw out an oppressive aristocracy, and threw off centuries of subservience to the privileged and the powerful.   Perhaps, two centuries later, it is the French who are once again asking the right questions.