Global Economic Intersection
Advertisement
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitIQ
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitIQ
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
Global Economic Intersection
No Result
View All Result

Hollande Out of the Closet

admin by admin
November 20, 2012
in Uncategorized
0
0
SHARES
14
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

“Social Democracy” – The Hollande Way

Written by Hilary Barnes

Psst! Our President’s A Social Democrat!

Something important, even revolutionary, took place at the press conference held by President Francois Hollande at the Elysée Palace to mark his first sixmonths in office on November 13, but if you did not happen to notice you were not the only one. It was concealed by the subtlety of the language used by the president and was more readily apparent to the French themselves than to outsiders such as myself.

It was summed up in these these sentence from his speech (translated by
your blogger, a bit too literally to make it good English):

There have always been two conceptions (of socialism),  a conception productive – one has even spoken about a socialism of supply – and a more traditional conception where one speaks of the socialism of demand….

Today we have to make an effort to consolidate our supply, to be more competitive – and I accept responsibility for this. At the same time we must try to maintain the demand and make the change, that is to say to understand that the world is changing, that a transformation to a new way to produce, to consume, to transport is taking place. We must undertake this revolution.

Hollande himself referred to a Copernican revolution, but the label he perhaps should have put on this packet of verbiage was: We are all social democrats now, even in France.

Actually to call himself a social democrat was a step too far, but that is what he meant, and by social democrat (or social liberal) we are talking about a social democrat as it would be understood in Germany, the UK and the Nordic countries, to name the most obvious.

The difference is that in these countries the socialist parties, which either call themselves Labour or Social Democratic, shrugged off Marxist hostility to the private enterprise sector as a doctrinaire principle of their policies a long time ago.

They recognise that capital and labour are all in the same boat together and national prosperity depends on a degree co-operation between them, even if their will always be differences of interest.

While there are and always have been many French socialists who think this way, it is not something they stand up and say on plain language at party meetings. Hostility to the business sector has been taken as a defining characteristic of anyone who wanted to be known as a socialist. Hollande himself is and appears always to have been a social democrat by conviction, but during his 11 years as secretary general of the Parti Socialist he carefully avoided acquiring the label.

He was known as the great synthesiser, skilfully holding the party together around anodine statements of principle. No one disagreed so strongly with these that they refused to put a signature to them, but they were not the stuff of which a realistic policy programme could be put in place with everyone’s agreement.

To the real left, of course, social democracy is a betrayal, or as Jen-Luc Melenchon, the left’s leading candidate in France’s spring’s the presidential election (he won about 11 % of the vote in the first round), said of Hollande’s statements at his press conference: unconditional surrender in the face of liberalism.

Several political scientists were on hand to explained that Hollande’s stance is a real break, a rupture with the history of French socialism, and Hollande the first socialist leader openly to accept the interests of those who generate the nation’s wealth must be taken into account by a socialist leader.

And there is was for all to see, Exhibit A – the Pact on Competitivity, Growth and Employment, with a substantial three-year tax credit for enterprises, announced on November 6, and what’s more with no conditions attached.

Once the president has conceded that the interests of business must be considered, the debate on the national debt, the budget deficit, the role of public expenditure, competitivity, labour costs, labour market flexibility and related fiscal policy begins to fall into place.

The rank and file are not enthusiastic. Hollande promised change, but the policies he is following to bring down the budget deficit and stop the steady increase in the government debt, now around 90 % of GDP, were not the change of which they dreamed.

Symptomatic of this disillusion is the importance that is being attached in the media to Hollande’s decision to increase the value added tax by 0.4% points to 20% in 2014 to help finance the tax credits. One might think this was much ado about very little, but in his presidential campaign Hollande took a strong stand against an increase in v.a.t. (which Sarkozy was contemplating) as a way to alleviate the social charges (payroll taxes) paid by the employers.

His change of mind is the symbol of a great and much broader betrayal for many on the left, who cannot see much difference between Hollande’s policies and Sarkozy’s – and in this they are right, of course.

For as long as Hollande is president, one presumes that the Parti Socialist in the National Assembly and the Senate will fall in behind, but the parties to the left of the PS, including the Communists, the Ecologists and sundry others, who backed the formation of the present government with their votes (the Ecologists have a couple of ministers in the government), are already showing signs of falling out.

 

Read more by Hilary Barnes.


About the Author

Hilary Barnes is a veteran economics and business writer. He was for 25 years the Copenhagen Correspondent of the Financial Times, Nordic Correspondent of The Economist for part of that time, and published a paper newsletter, sold to international companies in the Nordic countries, called The Scandinavian Economies for over 30 years.


Previous Post

Treasury is Using Most of QE3 Dollars This Week

Next Post

Marc Faber, Gold and a Special Picture of Ben Bernanke

Related Posts

Sam Bankman-Fried Gave $16M To Super PACs In April, Became One Of The Biggest Donors
Finance

Sam Bankman-Fried Gave $16M To Super PACs In April, Became One Of The Biggest Donors

by John Wanguba
May 24, 2022
Weaker Dollar Keeps Bitcoin Above $30K As Analysts Target 60% BTC Dominance
Economics

Weaker Dollar Keeps Bitcoin Above $30K As Analysts Target 60% BTC Dominance

by John Wanguba
May 20, 2022
Ethereum Developers Tip The Merge Might Happen In August ‘If All Goes As Planned’
Business

Ethereum Developers Tip The Merge Might Happen In August ‘If All Goes As Planned’

by John Wanguba
May 20, 2022
Commonwealth Bank Puts Crypto Trading Test On Ice As Regulators Hesitate
Business

Commonwealth Bank Puts Crypto Trading Test On Ice As Regulators Hesitate

by John Wanguba
May 20, 2022
Musk Hints He Could Reprice Twitter Deal As He Looks At Fake Accounts
Business

Musk Hints He Could Reprice Twitter Deal As He Looks At Fake Accounts

by John Wanguba
May 18, 2022
Next Post

Marc Faber, Gold and a Special Picture of Ben Bernanke

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tags

adoption altcoins banking Binance Bitcoin Bitcoin adoption Bitcoin market Bitcoin mining blockchain BTC business Coinbase crypto crypto adoption cryptocurrency crypto exchange crypto market crypto regulation decentralized finance DeFi digital assets Elon Musk ETH Ethereum Ethereum blockchain finance funding government investment market analysis Metaverse mining NFT NFT marketplace NFTs nonfungible tokens nonfungible tokens (NFTs) price analysis regulation Russia social media technology Tesla the US Twitter

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • August 2010
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized
Global Economic Intersection

After nearly 11 years of 24/7/365 operation, Global Economic Intersection co-founders Steven Hansen and John Lounsbury are retiring. The new owner, a global media company in London, is in the process of completing the set-up of Global Economic Intersection files in their system and publishing platform. The official website ownership transfer took place on 24 August.

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Sam Bankman-Fried Gave $16M To Super PACs In April, Became One Of The Biggest Donors
  • Weaker Dollar Keeps Bitcoin Above $30K As Analysts Target 60% BTC Dominance
  • Ethereum Developers Tip The Merge Might Happen In August ‘If All Goes As Planned’

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Bitcoin Robot
    • Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Code
    • Quantum AI
    • eKrona Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Up
    • Bitcoin Prime
    • Yuan Pay Group
    • Immediate Profit
    • BitIQ
    • Bitcoin Loophole
    • Crypto Boom
    • Bitcoin Era
    • Bitcoin Treasure
    • Bitcoin Lucro
    • Bitcoin System
    • Oil Profit
    • The News Spy
    • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Trader
  • Bitcoin Reddit

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

en English
ar Arabicbg Bulgarianda Danishnl Dutchen Englishfi Finnishfr Frenchde Germanel Greekit Italianja Japaneselv Latvianno Norwegianpl Polishpt Portuguesero Romanianes Spanishsv Swedish