[BRIEF NOTE] Populism doesn't pay
Nov. 10th, 2005 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMathieu, a commenter at Crooked Timber, made some interesting observations about Gaullism, in the context of the French riots, that deserves repetition.
This sort of politics, engineered for short-term advantage without any thought as to how the longer-term consequences would be managed, is sadly believable. Arguably this is the Republican Party strategy in the United States. Almost certainly it is the strategy of Silvio Berlusconi, who is spectacularly mismanaging the Italian economy at the same time that it is facing major structural changes (impending demographic collapse and unbeatable competition from low-cost industrial producers) which require sound governance.
In our globalized world, bad policies will sooner or later affect everyone, outsiders and electorate alike. This was first illustrated in France in 1981, when François Mitterand, in first term as President at the head of a Socialist-Communist coalition government, failed in his program of nationalizations. France's may be a substantial two-trillion dollar post-industrial economy, but its is a decidedly open and permeable one. More, the continued development of the European Union has seen the migration of many of the powers once held by Paris to Brussels. Developments within France will influence the rest of Europe, whether one talks about the possibility of the French riots being imitated elsewhere in the European Union or about the impact of such public instability on the economy of the wider euro zone. Not unnaturally, France's partners and neighbours will demand a rethink. Gaullism just doesn't work.
The same goes with other populisms. Italy will doubtless pay for Berlusconi sooner rather than later, if, in fact, it isn't paying now. What could the trillion-dollar deficits of the United States, still the world's largest economy but one lacking functioning institutional ties to other world economies like France and Italy, end up doing to us all?
Unqualified national sovereignty is so out of date. Populists should come to terms with this reality. They won't, since to do so would either require them to abandon their platforms or entirely or to regear them for a global audience, but they should.
There is a form of historical retribution at work here. The Gaullist party of Chirac, Villepin and Sarkozy built its wealth on corrupt practices such as attributing building contracts in exchange for kickbacks. This started when De Gaulle was in power in the sixties and the gentrification of inner cities combined with the arrival of cheap immigrant labour led to the construction of the dismal blocks of estates which encircle all major French cities.
In terms of the population of these outlying working-class areas, it’s worth noting that the dominant force there in the sixties and early seventies was the (Stalinist) French communist party. So the question is: why did then-president Giscard d’Estaing, after the oil shock of 1973 and the ensuing economic downturn, enable the “regroupement familial” (allowing the families of the mostly male Algerians-Tunisians-Morrocans to join them in France), instead of facilitating their return to their countries of origin?
Some commentators (see Alain Soral for example) suggest that this could have been a machiavellian ploy to shatter the unity of the relatively multicultural (Italian, Portuguese, and don’t forget other Catholics like the Polish, etc.) “banlieues rouges” by bringing radically different peoples with very little in common with the others and – most important – in the context of globalisation and mechanisation – ie no job prospects for the less-well trained “truly disadvantaged” underclass.
This sort of politics, engineered for short-term advantage without any thought as to how the longer-term consequences would be managed, is sadly believable. Arguably this is the Republican Party strategy in the United States. Almost certainly it is the strategy of Silvio Berlusconi, who is spectacularly mismanaging the Italian economy at the same time that it is facing major structural changes (impending demographic collapse and unbeatable competition from low-cost industrial producers) which require sound governance.
In our globalized world, bad policies will sooner or later affect everyone, outsiders and electorate alike. This was first illustrated in France in 1981, when François Mitterand, in first term as President at the head of a Socialist-Communist coalition government, failed in his program of nationalizations. France's may be a substantial two-trillion dollar post-industrial economy, but its is a decidedly open and permeable one. More, the continued development of the European Union has seen the migration of many of the powers once held by Paris to Brussels. Developments within France will influence the rest of Europe, whether one talks about the possibility of the French riots being imitated elsewhere in the European Union or about the impact of such public instability on the economy of the wider euro zone. Not unnaturally, France's partners and neighbours will demand a rethink. Gaullism just doesn't work.
The same goes with other populisms. Italy will doubtless pay for Berlusconi sooner rather than later, if, in fact, it isn't paying now. What could the trillion-dollar deficits of the United States, still the world's largest economy but one lacking functioning institutional ties to other world economies like France and Italy, end up doing to us all?
Unqualified national sovereignty is so out of date. Populists should come to terms with this reality. They won't, since to do so would either require them to abandon their platforms or entirely or to regear them for a global audience, but they should.
