Plus ca change...

Will Nicholas Sarkozy really make any fundamental changes to the French economy? George Will is skeptical:

Sarkozy does know of Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, who was one of Margaret Thatcher's intellectual heroes. Sarkozy has, however, said, "I don't wake up every morning asking what Hayek or Adam Smith would have done." That is, unfortunately, obvious. A fountain of suspiciously opaque formulations (he advocates "regulated liberalism" and "humane globalization"), he is pleased that "the word 'protection' is no longer taboo." (When was it ever taboo in France?) He is committed to continuing protections of the most cosseted French faction, the farmers. When calling for a "genuine European industrial policy," he asks: "Competition as an ideology, as a dogma, what has it done for Europe?" Worse, he wants to curtail the independence of -- that is, politicize -- the one institution that can save France from itself, the European Central Bank, which can restrain France's ruinous preferences for a loose monetary policy and inflation as slow-motion repudiation of debt.

[...]

French leftism is perfectly reactionary. Wielding a word with semi-sacred connotations in France, socialists say they are "the resistance." They are not for anything; they are against surrendering any of their entitlements. They stand against three menaces. One is "neoliberalism" -- markets supplanting the state as the primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. The second is the Americanization of culture by imports of American entertainments (see the third). The third is globalization (see the first and second).

In May, in an election with the highest turnout (85 percent) since 1981, Sarkozy's socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, a princess of vagueness, won 47 percent of the vote for, essentially, "resistance." Remarkably, she defeated Sarkozy among voters ages 18 to 59 -- the working population. It does not bode well for reform that he won by winning huge majorities among those most dependent on the welfare state -- 61 percent among those 60 to 69, and 68 percent among those over 70.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at August 27, 2007 12:16 PM