France wont reform, wont improve, for now

Regardless of the result of the French Presidential election the outcome will, at best, see little difference to the structural sclerosis that contains the French economy, nor will it see a reform in terms of support for basic freedoms and individual liberty that France also needs.

As appealing as anti-Islamism of Marine Le Pen is, the bottom-line is that she is not from a tradition of liberty, but one of collaborationist fascism.  The facade slipped when she went into denial over the actions of the Vichy regime, which not only appeased, but collaborated and worked hand in glove with the Nazis to terrorise France, deport and execute Jews.  The fight against Islamism is not won by handing power to one who channels fascists, even though she had made significant efforts to distance herself from it (including, to be fair, rejecting the explicit anti-semitism of her vile father).

Some conservatives and even some libertarians regard her as a hero, and are cheering her on.  I'm not and I cannot see how anyone, ANYONE, with a critical mind and appreciation of individual liberty can give her support.  Even if you accept that France needs to contain and confront Islamism (and it does), to then hand it over to a fascist, nationalist, protectionist movement is figuratively cutting off your nose etc, but is more counterproductive.

Nothing will play more into the hands of France's Islamists than Marine Le Pen making it difficult for  non-Islamist and moderate Muslims to go about their daily lives, for it will recruit thousands to the Islamist cause.  Similarly, whilst she would admirably likely defend the likes of Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoons lampooning Mohammed, she is adamantly opposed to Charlie Hebdo depicting her the same way or depicting Christianity in an offensive manner. 

Notwithstanding that her economic policies would be as ruinous to France as similar policies have been to Venezuela.  She is, very much, a national socialist.  Having said that, it is likely that if she were elected, the UK would be better off, at least in respect of the Brexit negotiations, because she would be friendlier to the UK.

Macron on the other hand, is pablum.  He may deliver some modest tax cuts and a "sinking lid" civil service (not replacing those who retire or leave, in net terms), but will not address France's sclerotic attitude to free enterprise and new business.  France needs the level of reforms Fillon was advocating, as a bare minimum, but his own corruption ruined his campaign.   Macron wont seriously confront Islamism, he will embrace the EU and move too little too late.  Worse, he will seek to punish the UK for leaving the EU, and will continue the main stream dirigiste economics of glacial reform that France has experienced for years (in part because the EU pushed it along).

France's fundamental problem lies in its civil service and the closed system by which the only people who advise the French government, by and large, are those qualified by a school that teaches one philosophy of government.   Until a President is elected that takes that system on, that breaks out of the single ideological domination of French domestic policy, France will remain unable to confront the primary causes of unemployment, regional stagnation and relative decline compared to northern Europe.  

I expect Macron to win, and France to continue to muddle through, but unless he has a secret agenda of serious reform, he will make little difference.  Le Pen at best will provide a distraction and a shock, but she not only would stagnate France, she would chase away private enterprise, reduce individual freedom and make her supporters poorer.

Neither is worth voting for, but I think the majority of French voters, who dislike Macron, would rather not have a President who is an apologist for Vichy.  They would be right to make that choice, to vote against opportunist blood and soil nationalist socialism.

Je Suis Parisien de nouveau

You all know what happened on Friday the 13th, for the second time this year, Islamofascists (a bit more descriptive than the "neutral" term Islamist) murdered their way across Paris.  This time instead of "just" being offended by cartoons or people being Jewish, they were "offended" by people at a concert, at a football match, at a restaurant. 

France has responded by bombing Raqqa, capital of "Islamic State", because as the Socialist President of France, Francois Hollande pointed out, France is at war.  The attacks were claimed by ISIS, and for now it appears they were at least incited by, if not funded and armed (and partly manned) by ISIS.   It is war, against Western civilisation, against the modern, tolerant, diverse society of people who simply LOVE LIFE.  For that is what Islamofascists (and indeed all totalitarians) despise for the people they enslave.

However, the West is fundamentally weakened in response.  Because the dominant philosophical influence in the West is one of self-hatred, guilt and identity politics driven cowardice of the left, and the opposition to this is dominated by "conservatives" who are so tied-up in philosophical contradictions and embrace of the guilt and self-loathing expounded by the left, that they are impotent, and the only other discourse that occasionally emerges is kneejerk racism - i.e. those who just want to deport all Muslims.

Brendan O'Neill in Spiked has written about the hand-wringing apologists.  The whole article is worth a read, he are excerpts:

It’s in the already emerging handwringing about a possible Islamophobic response to the attacks, with observers fretting that ‘there could be a backlash, largely driven by confusion and anxiety’. This has become routine after every terror attack: the first response of concerned observers is not with the actual victims of actual terrorism but with possible victims of a moronic mob uprising that exists entirely in their imaginations. This, too, speaks to a profound self-loathing in the West, where the media and political elite’s fear is always how their own societies, and what they see as their inscrutable fellow citizens, a ‘confused and anxious’ mass, will behave. They condemn the terrorism, yes — but they fundamentally fear and loathe the societies they live in, the people they live among.

it is precisely this response, this moral disarray in the modern West, which acts as a green light to terrorist groups or individuals to punish us. It’s an invitation to assault. The interplay between the self-loathing of the modern West and the nihilism of Islamist outfits is striking. They are a brutal, violent expression of a disgust for the modern world that has its origins in the universities, political circles and media elites of the West itself as much as in volatile, unstable territories in the Islamic world. Indeed, many of the attacks in the West over the past 15 years have been carried out by people either born in or educated in the West.

The left has been guilty of attacking free speech, says the left

Leigh Phillips on Ricochet writes a powerful, if avowedly leftwing defence of free speech and goes on the attack at what he calls the "anglophone left" for calling Charlie Hebdo "racist", clearly showing that those who repeat this call don't understand French, which of course is a form of what some on the left might call "neo-cultural imperialism":

The last few days have been a humiliation for the anglophone left, showcasing to the world how poor our ability to translate is these days, as so many people have posted cartoons on social media that they found trawling Google Images as evidence of Charlie Hebdo’s “obvious racism,” only to be told by French speakers how, when translated and put into context, these cartoons actually are explicitly anti-racist or mocking of racists and fascists.

Now I would argue vehemently that the left has a strong history of sympathising with those who support censorship, including soft peddling many regimes that would imprison or murder those who expressed political dissent.  Given its strong support for state solutions to most problems or support for so-called "direct action" (a euphemism for vandalism, trespass, intimidation and threats of violence), it is consistent to support wanting to close down debate,  but Phillips seems to get it:

There is a worrying trend on the left to dismiss freedom of expression as part of the colonialist project, to repudiate free speech as a meaningless elite piety. In recent years, the liberal-left, particularly in the anglophone world, has taken to demanding the censorship of “offensive” or “triggering” speech, and student unions, theatres, universities, schools, municipalities, art galleries and other public venues have increasingly shut down a wide range of speech acts. Even many traditional civil liberties groups appear to be cowed. Demonstrators go beyond protesting those they oppose, and now try to actively prevent them from speaking, as in the case of efforts to disinvite Bill Maher from UC Berkeley last year — ironically during the 50th anniversary of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement protests. In 2014 in the United States, campus protesters prevented commencement addresses by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, attorney general Eric Holder, and IMF head Christine Lagarde. According to campus free speech group FIRE, 39 protests have led to the cancellation of protested events on campuses since 2009. All this is contrary to traditional leftist defence of freedom of speech and must be strongly opposed. The politics of the speaker should make no difference here.

 We counter bad arguments with good ones. The minute that we begin embracing censorship, it will be our own ideas that sooner rather than later will be deleted by the censors. And the irony is that while these calls to censorship frequently come from the “social justice left,” it is precisely as a result of the liberal foundation of freedom of expression that the women’s movement, the civil rights struggle and gay liberation have achieved all that they have.

The difficult Phillips has is the intellectual tradition he is aligned to has a firm belief in the control of language to control people and behaviour.  It has used the words "racist" "sexist" and now "Islamophobic" as a catch-cry for "shut up, your opinion is worthless, go away and be grateful we can't lock you up".  Those who criticise this get thrown the same word, because the "liberal" left thinks it has a monopoly on morality.

In actual fact it has embraced a form of collective group-think that those who lived under China's Cultural Revolution or the totalitarian Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe would recognise instantly.  It is why the term "politically correct" has been coined, albeit it too has been overused by some on the right to conceal their own bigotry.

Critics are labelled and consigned to the dustbin with that label, and there is a refusal to engage, and the most recent usage of the "check your privilege" claim is a way of focusing not on the content of speech, but on the background of the person speaking.   This, of course, is exactly what umpteen totalitarian regimes have done and still do.

I fear that the likelihood of the left in the English speaking world accepting free speech for those that reject many of its arguments, is not great.  The desire to restrict, regulate and control many aspects of people's lives, of businesses and to spend their money, runs through so much of what is advocated.  If you are going to continue to ban "hate speech", then you are going to continue to place free speech vulnerable to wider demands as to what is "hate".  After all, how many on the left would ban "hate speech" based on professions? i.e. banning vilification of say, bankers.

Defending free speech when it is under attack

Following on from Peter Cresswell's excellent piece outlining the recent events in Paris, come two more fundamental questions.

1. What does a free society do about those who want to destroy its freedoms?

2. Why are we, yes we, threatened by those who want to censor us?

The Islamist threat to free speech is not new.  Indeed the battle for the right to offend those who hold certain beliefs, whether religious, political, philosophical or even aesthetic, is continuous.  Laws against blasphemy were often enforced in many Western countries, to not offend Christian faiths.  It is no accident that every authoritarian regime clamps down on free speech as a first move.

There are plenty of opponents of free speech in our midsts.  So in fact my second question can be answered first.  The majority have censored us already, the Islamofascists simply want the courtesy extended to them.

The much too obvious ones are the small numbers of ardent fascists, nationalists, communists and other sympathisers of politics that would explicitly censor media, art and speech.  It is extremely rare for any of them to do anything other than rabble rouse or disseminate their views, and the contradiction between their use of free speech to oppose it is clear, and so they have few followers.

Similarly, we are familiar with the religious conservatives who are keen on blasphemy laws, or who want to censor material involving nudity, sex or vulgar language.  Of course we still have laws restricting this, and the state will prosecute you for writing about or drawing all sorts of matters which it prohibits (including completely legal acts), but that's another story.  There are those who want more of such laws, some from a religious perspective, others from a radical feminist perspective.

More insidiously restrictions on free speech have come from the self-styled "liberal" left in the form of "hate speech" laws.  Whilst few would disagree with how unpleasant and vile such speech can be (i.e. explicit racism, sexism, denigration and debasing of people based on their inherent characteristics rather than behaviour), it is another story to make such speech illegal.  It has become increasingly normalised for some to say how "offended" they are by a portrayal of someone because of his or her race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, etc.  In recent years laws have been enforced to prohibit such speech.  This has been widely supported by most on the left, with the Police in the UK now arresting people for making offensive jokes.  

You will struggle to find many politicians who will argue for the unfettered legal right to offend (which is distinct from whether it is morally right or clever to do so).  Yet that is what this is about.

Indeed in the UK, a report into systematical sexual abuse in Rotherham indicated that child protection officials were dissuaded from questioning or addressing gangs of predominantly Muslim men targeting young girls, because it would "cause offence" in their communities.

Freedom of speech has been as much under attack from those who live amongst us who are "do-gooders" as it has been by those willing to wield violence directly.  The difference is the matter of degree.

The killers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and employees were offended by the cartoons published by that magazine.  The law didn't protect them from offence, but it protects others from offence in other areas.

Don't make an offensive joke about a crime or an accident, for the law may come visit you.  Don't think about writing a sexually explicit fictional short story that involves violence and what is deemed to be the degradation of a fictional person, for the law may come visit you.  

The men who murder because they are offended are extending the logic of existing laws, and taking the law into their own hands.  At least it remains legal to parody religion, right?

So how should this be addressed?

France's road to disaster courtesy of Hollande

Detlev Schlichter on France:

In 2012, President Hollande has not reduced state spending at all but raised taxes. For 2013 he proposed an ‘austerity’ budget that would cut the deficit by €30 billion, of which €10 billion would come from spending cuts and €20 billion would be generated in extra income through higher taxes on corporations and on high income earners. The top tax rate will rise from 41% to 45%, and those that earn more than €1 million a year will be subject to a new 75% marginal tax rate. With all these market-crippling measures France will still run a budget deficit and will have to borrow more from the bond market to fund its outsized state spending programs, which still account for 56% of registered GDP.

If you ask me, the market is not bearish enough on France. This version of socialism will not work, just as no other version of socialism has ever worked. But when it fails, it will be blamed on ‘austerity’ and the euro, not on socialism.

As usual, the international commentariat does not ‘get it’. Political analysts are profoundly uninterested in the difference between reducing spending and increasing taxes, it is all just ‘austerity’ to them, and, to make it worse, allegedly enforced by the Germans. The Daily Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard labels ‘austerity’ ‘1930s policies imposed by Germany’, which is of dubious historical and economic accuracy but suitable, I guess, to make a political point.

Most commentators are all too happy to cite the alleged negative effect of ‘austerity’ on GDP, ignoring that in a heavily state-run economy like France’s, official GDP says as little about the public’s material wellbeing as does a rallying equity market in an economy fuelled by unlimited QE. If the government spent money on hiring people to sweep the streets with toothbrushes this, too, would boost GDP and could thus be labelled economic progress.

Three elections - freedom's not the winner

Greece

I've never seen so much televised election coverage for a Greek election, with BBC News, Sky News and CNN all providing dedicated coverage yesterday.  This was an election about remaining in the Euro - Greek voters, more often than not, wanted to play it safe.

The Greek election result is clear - a country divided amongst those who are scared of losing their savings in Euros to those who want to demand other country's taxpayers support a bloated socialist state, and then a who lot of others who variously want either the government to take over and steal from the rich, steal from the foreigners, or the 1.59% who actually want less government.

So for now, Greece will live off of the back of hundreds of billions of Euros of money from taxpayers in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Estonia, Slovakia and other solvent parts of the Eurozone, and will attempt to survive with some spending cuts and tax rises - although the former wont be enough, and the latter will choke off the economy even more.  The optimist in me hopes that Greece can actually cut its deficit, balance its budget, open its economy, cut costs and move forward.  However, I suspect Greece will be racked with strikes, mass protests and continued exodus of the best and brightest, whilst the coalition between the two parties that led Greece for 30 years into this mess in the first place fractures as the vested interests both have protected fight for their cut of the borrowed bankrupt pie.

I can only hope that since New Democracy now includes a few elements in favour of less government and not increasing taxes, that the concessions that this government can get from Germany are to not increase taxes more.  That at least will stop choking the private sector more (as cutting government spending is not the same as increasing taxes).   Meanwhile the far left reality evaders, whose xenophobia about foreign capital doesn't extend to foreign taxpayers propping up socialist states, will continue to portray all of this as some grand conspiracy to make foreign bankers rich.  Those "foreign bankers" (Golden Dawn would be proud of that rhetoric) took a 110 billion write off of Greek debt so far, meanwhile foreign taxpayers have effectively restructured most of Greece's private debt into new lower interest rate loans.   However, Syriza and the leftwing xenophobic haters of capitalism just blank this out - and none have any answer as to how to bridge the gap between the Greek government's spending and its tax receipts.   The newly elected Greek government must close that gap, or will face yet another judgment in a couple of years.   The only way it might even hope to do that, and rescue the economy, is to let the private sector flourish by getting out of the way (and doing its proper job when it is expected to do so).

France

French voters have snubbed Sarkozy's party and have voted for the fancy funny land of the Socialists. The party that helped decimate the French stockmarket and chase businesses away when it was last in power in the early 1980s (as Francois Mitterand - the man who instigated the Rainbow Warrior bombing - sought to nationalise major businesses).   France will now either follow the path of Greece, in strangling its already fairly stagnant economy some more, chasing its best and brightest to London, some more, or will actually face reality and introduce reforms that hitherto were too hard for the vain git Sarkozy to introduce.

France is full of myths, one is its great manufacturing sector - which as a proportion of GDP is no greater than the UK's - another it how its mixed economy staved off the worst of the financial crisis - when in fact France has parts of its economy (agriculture and the space sectors in particular) largely propped up by EU subsidies.  

Higher taxes, more regulation to protect those already in jobs at the expense of those without them, and a head in the sand attitude to fiscal balance, will help ensure France continues to lose competitiveness relative to Germany and the world.  It is probably a decade away from its final decisive crisis, as France's generous welfare state and corporatist monstrosity of an economic policy finally collapses in on its own contradictions.  Not much liberte, not so much fraternite, and perhaps egalite of poverty.

Egypt

How's this for a choice?  Want an Islamist President who has vowed to respect other religions, the rights of women and the new freedoms Egyptians went on the streets for?  Or do you want a President from the old guard, the old corrupt militarist regime that kept a lid on freedom of speech and ensured that its cronies were wealthy and comfortable?  Half of all Egyptians chose neither.  It appears that a narrow majority of the rest chose Islamism.

Some on the left in the West who rail in favour of womens' rights, secularism, tolerance, liberal values, peace for homosexuals and the like will celebrate this, to their shame.  Others will share the concern with those of us elsewhere on the political spectrum.

The overriding of the parliamentary election by the judiciary may be worrying, but if the Islamist has won the Presidential election, it may give some impetus for others to vote for a new Parliament that isn't so dominated.

However, I am not hopeful.  The simple reality is that democracy in Egypt is more likely than not to create a state run by those who think religion and state are the one and the same, who hold views of women (let alone gay people) as being subordinate and whose views on Jews, Christians and others who don't hold their religion are less than flattering.   

The result wont be clear until Thursday, but let's be clear - it wont mean more freedom for people in Egypt.

three elections - three stories - little reason

So in the past week or so there have been four elections which have had greater or lesser coverage in the international media.  What are the key lessons from them all?

1.  The all involve people choosing politicians, which is the worst form of government ever devised (except for the alternatives).  Nearly a million people think Ken Livingstone, a warm supporter of Fidel Castro, is a fit and proper person to spend billions of pounds on a city.  More than half of French voters think a man who has never created a job in his life, should run Europe's third largest economy.  A majority of Greek voters want to be told what to do by authoritarian Marxists and fascists.

2.  Boris Johnson is a funny engaging man who woos women and is intelligent and entertaining.  Moreso than Ken Livingstone.  He won because he captures people's imagination, and he didn't pretend to be offering that much.  He offered frugality, a 10% cut in the Council Tax levied by the Greater London Authority, but also didn't pretend to not be a private educated, Oxbridge, upper class chap.  In an age where being a celebrity and a character is more valued than most things, it worked.

3. Ken Livingstone is a bitter nasty old socialist who plays class warfare politics, who blamed the riots on austerity, who says one thing and does another, who plays fast and loose with comments about rich Jews and says one thing about gay rights whilst giving succour to Islamists.  He's a politician of the past, and cost Labour victory.

4. Beyond the London mayoral elections, Labour did well because over 60% of voters didn't bother at all.   The core opposition to the government was motivated, the core support was not.  The Liberal Democrats continue to erode into what looks like fourth party status.  The Greens, despite some efforts in doing well, have barely lifted their support as the environmental arguments don't wash well in a recession.  The socialist fascist BNP lost every council seat it defended, including losing what had been its single seat on the London Assembly.  UKIP gained some votes but not seats.   People are fed up with politicians, don't trust them and given the gaffes around the last UK budget, it's hardly surprising the UK coalition is uninspiring.

5. The French have always voted for socialism, it has long been a matter of degree.  Now they have voted for a hardened socialist rather than a softened champagne socialist who preaches austerity, but really lives it up large at the cost of future taxpayers and who preaches suspicion of foreigners when he himself is the son of a Hungarian migrant.  Now they can pretend that they can stop trying to live within their means, get taxed more and just borrow to prop up their socialist economy where, despite the mythology, manufacturing is no bigger a part of the economy than it is in Britain.  Bear in mind a fifth of the French are warm towards a fascist and another 15% are warm towards communists, then you see that liberte isn't as big as equalite in France.

6. The Greeks have voted in protest.  The two formely major parties responsible for decades of overspending, lying about debt, a culture of corruption and rent seeking, have been decimated.  The "centre-right" New Democracy party has the greatest number of seats, but 108 in a Parliament of 308 is far from enough to govern.  The "centre-left" PASOK party which led the last government is third with 41 seats.  Second is the Marxist "Coalition of the Radical Left" with 52 seats - a party of communists, Trotskyites, environmentalists and Maoists.  It promises to reject spending cuts, reject austerity and somehow magically produce a socialist motherland where money can pay for the big warm maternal state that makes everything happy again.   Fourth is the new Independent Greeks party, with 33 seats, which is an odd nationalist party wanting the Germans to pay war reparations, rejecting loan agreements with the EU and wanting politicians and officials responsible for the crisis to be prosecuted - well I can agree on the last one, but I think the Germans have done Greece enough good by lending to it when nobody else would!  Fifth is the Communist Party of Greece, which picked up to get 26 seats.  The party that is Marxist-Leninist and would have run Greece like a totalitarian twin of Bulgaria had the Greek Civil War gone differently, not that anyone noticed. However, everyone noticed that  Sixth is the fascist Golden Dawn Party with 21 seats.  It rejects the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution, is radical Greek Orthodox, and wants removal of foreigners.  Greeks almost certainly will face no stable government that will enable their bloated state to be funded - indeed, the future looks bleaker now than ever before.

So for London?  Business as usual - nothing to see here.

For France?  A little man (shorter than Sarkozy) is going to fight austerity - that hasn't even happened- but will inevitably bow to reality, because he is, at the heart of it all, a man who will listen to the grand French statist bureaucracy.   Expect little change, although there are reports that real estate agents in South Kensington in London are facing record queries from wealthy Parisians seeking to flee punitive taxes Hollande has promised.

For Greece?   Hardly anyone has been telling people in Greece the only solutions to their problems are:
-  Accept the government has failed them, make their own arrangements for retirement, healthcare and education.
-  Move all their money into foreign bank accounts, preferably not in Euros, or buy precious metals.
-  Hunker down and accept that the next 5-10 years will be very hard for those who can't or wont make provision for themselves.

France in denial on its long path of stagnation

The Economist got it right when it had its cover page with the very title “France in denial” and today City AM’s Allister Heath said it more clearly about the French Presidential election:

“The useless Nicolas Sarkozy was given a bloody nose; the awful, economically illiterate Francois Hollande is in the lead...there is no pro-capitalist, pro-globalisation, low-tax, Eurosceptic, outward looking party in France... what passes for the centre-right in France is social democratic and fanatically pro-EU”. 

 Quite. A look at the candidates for President says it all. If I was French I couldn’t stomach any of them. Of the ten candidates, three are communists (Melenchon, Poutou and Arthaud), one is fascist (Le Pen), another a conspiracy theorist/quasi-fascist (Cheminade), two are liberal socialists (Hollande and Joly), one is a soft "moderate" socialist (Bayrou) and the other two are conservative "Gaullist" socialists (Sarkozy and Dupont-Aignan). What a choice! It's about "how would you like your more government sir, with a red flag, black shirt, green banner or just some more tax and protectionism?" 

Whether they embrace the EU or reject it (and there are plenty in that group rejecting it, because they see the EU as a free market capitalist project), they all support an economic nationalist fortress France, they all support more taxes (Sarkozy’s “austerity” programme has been mostly about tax increases and he embraces financial transactions tax), they all reject free trade - the free movement of goods, services, capital and people. They all, to a greater or lesser extent, paint the bogeyman not overspending governments that can’t keep their fingers off of the credit cards to bribe voters with borrowed money, but the new scapegoat “the bankers”. They all paint any alternative involving less government as “failed Anglo-Saxon” policies, despite the fact that manufacturing as a share of GDP is the same in the UK as in France, it is just the UK industries are more numerous and smaller than the grand state owned or subsidised industries that are national champions. 

The French story is one of despising capitalism, but as the Economist points out, it is rather contradictory:  

The French live with this national contradiction—enjoying the wealth and jobs that global companies have brought, while denouncing the system that created them—because the governing elite and the media convince them that they are victims of global markets. Trade unionists get far more air-time than businessmen. The French have consistently been told that they are the largely innocent victims of reckless bankers who lent foolishly, or wanton financial speculators, or “Anglo-Saxon” credit-ratings agencies. Mr Sarkozy has called for capitalism to become “moral” so as to curb such abuse. Mr Hollande has declared that his “main opponent is the world of finance”. Few politicians care to point out that a big part of the problem is the debt that successive French governments themselves have built up over the decades.  

The forthcoming contest between Sarkozy and Hollande is really a matter of how much more socialism do you want for France? Bearing in mind that part of France’s socialism, its molly-coddled rural sector, is actually funded by German, British and Dutch taxpayers through the EU. If Sarkozy wins, and he unilaterally implements a financial transactions tax, he will chase the financial sector from Paris to London and Zurich tout suite. If Hollande wins, he will do that and more, with a new 75% top tax rate (at 1 million Euro) just to make sure the message is clear – France doesn’t want really successful entrepreneurs (which of course, the 250,000 or so French expats in London already know), and he is looking to lower the pension age, just when it is clear how big a demographic problem France has in paying state pensions in the future. 

What both offer is a different speed of the process that Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece followed for the past couple of decades, of growing the state, growing spending, growing taxation and pretending that this works. France’s GDP per capita ranking in Europe has slipped in recent years, now between the UK and Spain/Italy. It hasn’t run a budget surplus for nearly 40 years, and its visibility in the international marketplace for services is low, despite it being the largest component of the economy. Public debt is 90% of GDP, it has the largest state sector in the Eurozone at 56%. It has banks chronically exposed to bad debts in the Eurozone periphery which are grossly undercapitalised. Its labour costs are 10% higher than Germany’s, but French unemployment is 10%, Germany’s is 5.8%. France hasn’t had unemployment less than 7% for 30 years – putting a lie to the socialist myth of how caring a big state is with strong labour rights. The Economist suggests neither of the two leading candidates will address these structural problems: 

 “If Mr Hollande wins in May (and his party wins again at legislative elections in June), he may find he has weeks, not years, before investors start to flee France’s bond market. The numbers of well-off and young French people who hop across to Britain (and its 45% top income tax) could quickly increase. Even if Mr Sarkozy is re-elected, the risks will not disappear. He may not propose anything as daft as a 75% tax, but neither is he offering the radical reforms or the structural downsizing of spending that France needs.” 

 Furthermore, if France embraces an agenda of protectionism, closing borders, higher taxes and more subsidies within the EU, it will clash with the German, British, Dutch and Danish visions of what the EU should be. It will, fundamentally reveal what has long been the underlying tension in the EU – those who want to use it as a shelter and as a super-government to fund their own national rent-seekers, and those who see it as part of a project to break down borders of trade and travel (a third group see it as a source of money to milk while their economies are relatively poor - yet French farmers get three times the subsidy per capita as Polish farmers, as part of a compromise because expanding the Common Agricultural Policy to pay for 12 new states would have bankrupted the EU).

Germany calls the shots in the EU today and can be expected to block such nonsense, but what is next for France? 

Five years of Hollande chasing away business, with more stagnation, more credit rating drops and disappointment that he can’t mould the EU in the image of nationalist socialism? 

Or five years of Sarkozy fiddling enough to stop things sliding too fast, playing lip service to his own nationalist rhetoric, but by and large representing the status quo or slow progressive decline? 

What’s most repulsive is how popular fascism remains, seen now when Sarkozy – son of a Hungarian immigrant – talks of “too many foreigners” in France to woo voters from the seductively dangerous Marine Le Pen, despite he himself having spent five years embracing the political union that facilitates open migration among 27 countries. 

Or indeed the popularity of communism, with a sixth of voters choosing options that have been tried, tested and delivered misery and poverty across half of Europe. What does it say about the desperation of French voters who are swamped by the miasma of stagnation that they blame foreigners or businesspeople, and think a strong authoritarian leader will save the day? Where have we seen this before?  Fortunately, most French voters will never embrace fascism or communism proper, but they are almost infantalised to think politicians, with advice from those educated at the closed shop École nationale d'administration (Civil service school), can fix their problems with more laws, more spending and more taxe.  (Perhaps it is the philosophy behind THAT school that needs to be investigated)

Whatever does happen, one thing is abundantly clear, the future French President and forthcoming government will not be friends of capitalism, free trade or open markets. They will continue to seek protectionism at the price of French consumers and taxpayers, the unemployed and those who fund the EU. France will be the most strident force in international trade against free trade, less subsidies, more transparency and smaller transnational government. More strident indeed than even China. The question is to what extent it gets ignored and sidelined as it embarks on its continued process of relative economic delay, or if it ends up slowing the Western world down with it, given its prominent role in Europe. Given how central France is to supporting the growth of the EU project, and how it is the single loudest opponent of liberalisation of trade in agriculture, it is fair to say that, for those of us in New Zealand (and indeed in all efficient agricultural exporting economies), France will continue to represent the biggest stumbling block to getting progress in opening up international trade in agricultural produce and services.  For those of us in the UK, it remains the fervent cheerleader of a Federal Europe, and opponent of the UK vision of the EU as an open area for trade and business, rather than a protectionist fortress.

France's Presidential election wont save the French from themselves

Politically France is more of an enigma than many will think. It could be said to be the cradle of democratic socialism in the Western world. With a ridiculously generous welfare state (unemployment benefit is paid at 70% of the salary of the previous job), spending over 28% of GDP on welfare, a relatively interventionist industrial policy and retention of state owned companies operating major services, it is seen by many on the left as a model. 

France of course has also long been at the vanguard of support for closer European integration. Its unalloyed support for the European Union would suggest that the people of France regard it as critical to their economic future. Yet the truth would appear to be a bit more subtle than that. Whilst the Common Agricultural Policy gives France 10 billion Euro a year in subsidies for its farmers (and indeed it was creation of this policy that was critical to France delaying the UK’s entry into the EEC – because France wanted Europe to pay for its own ruinous subsidy scheme), French voters clearly have mixed feelings about the EU. The main selling point of the EU to them has been a fortress Europe mentality. EU laws to set minimum employment standards, to regulate competition and to keep out imports and foreign competition are what they want. Compare that to the UK which has seen the European project as one about lowering borders between countries and liberalising markets.

Indeed it is this clash of ideologies that is at the heart of the European project battles. Guess which view took hold in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Late last year France briefly looked like it might fall victim to the sovereign debt crisis, but austerity measures were introduced that bear little resemblance to those elsewhere. It almost entirely involved raising taxes, and French voters hardly blinked. Indeed, the socialism ingrained in French popular thinking has been seen in the popularity of the socialist candidate for President, Francois Hollande, who has sought to bribe voters with more welfare, earlier retirement, more subsidised jobs all paid for by higher taxes (top rate of 75%!) and the tooth fairy of future sovereign debt default paid for by German taxpayers. The reality evasion has been delusional, but he has been ahead. Until now. 

Whenever anyone blames the US for a lack of political sophistication, they should pause for a second. For what else can explain the sudden rise of Nicolas Sarkozy in the opinion polls, as he switched tack so profoundly and cynically it would destroy a similar politician elsewhere. An objective view of Sarkozy is that he has been, by and large, a status quo President. He did undertake some modest reforms around pensions, but by and large has made little effort to reform the French socialist state. His largest profile has been in supporting the revolution in Libya, in banning the niqab and his partnership with Angela Merkel in dragging out the Eurozone crisis. However, he found new life in campaigning as if he wasn’t President, but a new candidate. 

His new policies include:

 - Withdrawing France from the Schengen agreement (which means France has no controlled land borders) if other members did not adequately control illegal immigration; 

- Saying there are “too many foreigners” in France, demanding immigration be cut from 180,000 a year to 100,000 (which of course France can’t control whilst it is in Schengen); 

- Demanding a “Buy European Act” requiring EU governments to buy EU goods and services, and if not agreed he’d establish a “buy French Act”; 

- Opposition to halal meals at schools or swimming pools having separate hours for men and women to meet demands of Muslim users; 

- Demanding all kosher and halal food be labeled so consumers can avoid it if they wish.

 In short, he is seeking to take votes from ultra-nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen, who believes in strong state ownership of strategic businesses, radical protectionism, withdrawal from the Euro, boosts for subsidies for French business and agriculture, a looser EU, withdrawal from the Schengen area, a moratorium on immigration, withdrawal from NATO and a closer relationship with Russia. The result, he is now ahead in the polls. Let’s be clear, he can’t implement most of what he said without effectively withdrawing France from key EU provisions on freedom of movement and open markets. So if he is re-elected, he wont actually do most of this. France wont leave the Schengen area and France wont be able to introduce a “buy European” law, because it will be opposed by Germany and the UK. However the support gained for a “fortress France” suggests that even French voters are not too warm to the EU. 

What is most striking though is how French voters are not as cynical as one would have hoped. Sarkozy could have held these positions for years and could have done something about it. He didn’t, and now he is remodeling himself to be the nationalist “with reason”. Presuming it will be him up against Francois Hollande, it is clear neither has any solutions to confront France with its decades of reality evasion. For France’s economy remains anaemic, its best and brightest leave because of taxation.

Its much vaunted manufacturing sector is, in fact, no bigger as a proportion of GDP than manufacturing in the UK (the difference is UK manufacturing largely involves rather smaller firms, with a few exceptions, whereas France relies on larger firms with high profiles). Meanwhile, public debt in France is creeping ever higher above 85% of GDP, and France has not had a budget surplus for over 30 years. For all of the Airbuses (which are propped up by the EU and have a significant part of their componently manufactured in other countries), TGVs, Renaults, nuclear power plants and armaments, there are precious few service industries that export and few IT startups. 

France may provide final assembly for nearly half of the world’s jetliners, make some trains and cars, weapons and satellites, but in all but one of those markets, it faces serious competition in export markets. Meanwhile, its own media is gagged by laws on privacy that make it difficult to take on politicians, despite the extraordinarily lavish lifestyle and corrupt practices that appear to be the norm at the top. France’s socialism does have a semblance of the totalitarian personal aggrandisement of Marxist-Leninist regimes. 

Ultimately, when France faces reality it will probably be overwhelmed by a belief that it is capitalism and free markets that have brought the country down. It will seek to demand the EU save it, somehow, by shaming the Germans into thinking they owe France because of the war. It will dabble with the idiocy of economic nationalism, and find it sliding further into stagnation. France wont abandon the EU, because no politician has the courage to take on the lobby of the largest group of corporate welfare parasites in the EU – French farmers. A group French taxpayers can’t afford to prop up on their own. The question French voters ought to be answering is this. Do they vote to hurry along this inevitable confrontation with the unsustainability of French socialism, by voting for Mr. Hollande? Or do they keep it decaying at a steady pace with Mr. Sarkozy? 

In either case France's future looks like Greece does now.  I suspect by then that Germans will be rather fed up being made to feel guilty for a war that none of them remember, and which they have long expressed penance over.   They also wont think their own taxes should go to pay for a country that has stubbornly resisted restructuring, true austerity and liberalisation for far too long.

French court punishes Google Maps - for being free

One of the many misrepresentations and distortions of libertarians is the belief that we all want to reduce everything to money, and for life and the world to be a collection of financial transactions.  It is a core part of the post-modernist leftwing critique of capitalism and free market liberalism, yet it is one that has no basis whatsoever in libertarian or capitalist philosophy, politics or even discourse.  Indeed it is Marxism that puts materialism about everything else.  It is seen in the incessant collectivisation of people into classes, based on incomes or wealth.  It was seen in the Soviet Union's ruthless pursuit of construction and production regardless of the cost to individual freedom or the environment.  Almost every policy proposal from the left of the political spectrum involves spending more money or taking money from people to spend on what they want.  For anti-capitalists the problem is invariably around there being "not enough money" for those they approve of and "too much money" owned or earned by those they don't.  The Khmer Rouge abolished money, but by then it had completely enslaved almost the entire population of Cambodia (after executing many) and people were all meant to work for the love of each other (ignoring they had guns pointed at them, literally, the whole time, and were all on the brink of starvation).

Yet I know many in the left will claim wide support for charity, and quite a few people in charitable endeavours and who provide assistance, time and money for needy people don't do so for money.  They do so out of genuine human benevolence for other people.  They want to see people lifted out of poverty, they want to see children getting education, they want people to be cured of diseases.   You see it is part of human nature to have some compassion for others.  However, if you consider mainstream political discourse, the left would claim that it represents a charitable view of the world, compared to that of the "right" which is all about people being individuals who care nothing for others.

Objectivists don't hold to that view, for we believe that human benevolence is a rational pursuit of one's values.  The most universal example is with families and close relationships.  Given humans raise children, an activity that involves dedicating a significant amount of time, effort and money to providing for others, demonstrates that it is inherent to give a damn about others.  Wider families and friendships see that happening informally, all the time.  Human beings are mostly social, they enjoy the company of others and get pleasure from sharing, interacting and giving and getting from each other, voluntarily.

Libertarians reject the characterisation of capitalists and free-market advocates as wanting to atomise humanity, and have people who "don't care about the poor", or who always want people to exchange goods, services or indeed any form of interaction for money or some form of predatory gratification.   Libertarians embrace one core principle -  voluntary adult human interaction.  Human beings should feel free to interact with each other as they see mutually fit, which can mean asking for help, or giving help.  If people refuse, then that should be respected.  For without the voluntary element, one is no longer being kind or benevolent, but is submission to force - a concept that is incompatible with benevolence.

So why have I gone on about this diatribe? Well companies often do not expect money for goods and services.  They may offer free samples for promotion, or they may simply regard the provision of common goods, services or even space as complementary to what they do.  Shopping malls are large privately owned common areas where people can spend considerable time with seating, warmth and bathroom facilities, for nothing.  Google Maps is a service that is available for free online, and offers a basic level of mapping to anyone wishing to access it.

However it has come afoul of French competition law, which apparently treats a company offering a service for free as being negative.  Competition law exists as a response to arguments that dominant businesses in a market can act in a way that prevents competition and is harmful to consumers.  Setting aside that libertarians reject this argument, what is going on in France is not about consumers.  It is about protectionism.

The French Commercial Court has decided that Google Maps offers "unfair competition" to a French cartography firm called Bottin Cartographes, and is fining Google US$600,000 for daring to offer Google Maps for free.

What has Google Maps done wrong?  Has it stolen any intellectual property? No. What it is offering is the product of its own efforts, purchased, produced and accumulated through voluntary interaction.

Is it harming consumers?  No. Quite the opposite, they are getting a useful resource for free.  They are benefiting from a large company offering a service they need not pay for.

The problem for the French is that Google Maps is undermining another business, a French business (this sort of economic nationalism is of course, racism practiced by socialists).  A business that rather than change what it does, focusing on value added or targeting specific markets, declares it has some high profile customers (Louis Vuitton), as if that makes it special.   So it should be protected from another business that offers its own maps for free.

This, is the French model of "compassionate "capitalism, unlike what they call "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism.   It is sometimes pointed out by socialists who see France as some sort of halfway model between free market capitalism and socialism, but this court case reveals it for what it really is.

French competition law is not about consumers.  They lose out.  Indeed France has long been one of the last EU Member States to open up its traditional monopolies to any form of legal competition at all, such as electricity, postal services and bus services.  That ignores the rampant protectionism of the agricultural sector, because French consumers can't be trusted to pay more for French produce (as they are expected to do).  So in France, this "socialist capitalism" actually means the ordinary citizen loses out, no free service.

French "capitalism" is about protecting old established businesses.  It is about entrenching a corporatist view that says it is more important that an existing business keeps doing what it is doing, making money from consumers that have little choice, and keeps people employed in that old business. 

It ignores the fact that if consumers had a choice, they may spend their money on something else, on something they want that isn't free, on a business that does have to compete for their money and which employs people.  A business (and employees) that suffer because of the protectionism of Bottin Cartographes.  It ignores that someone may set up a business or grow a business because a free map facilitates something innovative or affordable that was not when one had to buy a map from Bottin Cartographes.  Finally, it ignores that the people working for Bottin Cartographes might actually be innovative enough to diversify, specialise and generate more value by being different.

So in France, the country that rejects free market capitalism, when something is offered for no money it is offensive to the law.   It is offensive to me too.

The people of France may now get Google Maps blocked, sadly.  Whereas I think the right response to Bottin Cartographes is to boycott it.  Let this stinking little protectionism business, which uses courts rather than good products people want to pay for, not get money from those of us who do have a choice. 

Why should anyone, regardless of whether they are free market capitalists, or anti-capitalists want the law to step in and stop a business giving away its goods and services for nothing?  After all, it is not you paying for it, and you do not have to take what is offered?

French strikes a triumph of emotion over reason

The ongoing strikes in France, led by left wing unions and student groups, are opposing the raising of the minimum retirement age in France from 60 to 62.  If you read Idiot Savant you'd think the Sarkozy administration plans are about funding tax cuts for the rich.  If you take off your economically illiterate red coloured glasses you'd learn that it is actually about starting to confront the economic reality that the French Government cannot perpetually run budget deficits, like it has for several decades.  

If nothing was to be done, by 2050 two working age French people would be paying the retirement income of one.  With public debt set to hit 337% of GDP by then (it is 80% now), France will make Greece look like a mild defaulter.  

Of course in the world of the "see no fiscal reality" left, you simply put up taxes.  The legions of young people protesting in favour of protecting pensions shows the ignorance that can so easily be spread, few realising that they will have to pay far more taxes than those who are currently at retirement age, to pay for those who will retire when THEY are in their 50s.   

The reason why this is happening is the ponzi scheme madness of government funded pay as you go (PAYGO) pensions.  The same crisis would exist in the UK, if the retirement age was not to be increased.  In New Zealand the same crisis will occur as well, only partly covered by Dr. Cullen's socialised "fund" designed to invest tax revenue for retirement rather than just operate a PAYGO system.  The United States has this crisis writ large as well.  

The only way these schemes can be sustained is by reducing what is paid, increasing the eligibility age and increasing the tax contributions of those who might not get anything out of it.   A better way would be to simply freeze schemes at their current nominal level so that the total amount paid out erodes over time, but it also enables tax cuts to be implemented over time as well.   If people invest their own money in retirement income rather than the state spending it (or "investing" it), there is a greater pool of savings, more capital for private sector growth and a sustainable basis for retirement income.  

However in France, socialism is ingrained in "being French" say some.  It is an attitude that also infects the European Union, but one that cannot deft reality forever.   People in France might observe that GDP per capita in real terms for that country is now drifting towards that of Greece and Spain, not the UK and Germany.   I suspect the French appetite to do anything substantive to stop that relative decline remains low.

French sexualise smoking some more

The Independent reports on the scandal in France of anti-smoking ads.

It was designed to make smoking look bad.

What it does is make it look like a sexual act of submission. It implies that smoking is like giving fellatio, which isn't exactly an uncommon act among teenagers.

In other words, it has linked it to a taboo that is likely to make it even MORE appealing.

The images (ones including men are here) could spark mimicking, so that a girl smoking might be seen as teasing sexually - imagery that I'd have thought would be exactly the opposite of what was the goal.

Sarkozy insults many countries at once

According to the Daily Telegraph he has been quoted saying "Countries which share a common cultural heritage, such as Germany and Austria, Great Britain and Ireland or the Benelux countries could share a common Commissioner"

By that measure France and Italy should share one, both being near bankrupted economies clinging to socialism, but with a passion for wine, food and love. However, can you see Ireland being represented by an English person? Sarkozy has progressively been losing the plot, will to reform and being interesting in the past year. Disappointing really.

French turn against the unionists

Nicolas Sarkozy is having what some have called his "Thatcher" moment, when confronting the old fashioned privileges of socialist France he is standing steady. As the first high speed Eurostar train from St. Pancras arrived at Gare du Nord - almost the entire French national rail network, and the Paris Metro were strikebound, along with bus services and cuts in gas and power due to energy worker strikes. Add in postal workers, teachers and judges, and you're in for the typical French socialist union attitude - go on strike if anyone dares suggest you get something less than the generous terms and conditions currently offered. There will be weeks of strikes in France, it is the final showdown between liberalism and socialism.

^

However, something has changed in France. You see, the trains aren't running because the government is demanding that locomotive drivers retire later than 50. 50 was the retirement age when driving a locomotive meant shovelling coal - now it means sitting and moving a throttle. Similar ridiculous feather bedding has cost France, and the vast majority of French people who are NOT in such industries or the state sector are sick of it all. They are fighting back. With state debt at 70% of GDP, calls to keep this bloated public sector are looking unsustainable, and calls by unions to increase taxes to pay for it are not kidding most people.

^

You see, while the trains are on strike, there were hundreds of commuters handing out anti-strike leaflets opposing the unions, confronting them. After all, Sarkozy won the last election - something the left kind of forgets, and no doubt thinks he somehow cheated his way there, but the reality is this - the majority of French voters chose Sarkozy over Royale the socialist candidate. He has a popular mandate to change France, and the public are standing beside him,

^

84% of those polled say the government will not surrender to the unions, but more importantly 71% think it should NOT surrender. Something for John Key and David Cameron to think about - Sarkozy has a pair of what neither of these men seem to display. May he hold firm, because we are all better off if France's economy can be saved, freed and allow to grow.

Sarkozy isn't Thatcher

While I am somewhat pleased that the vile Royal has been defeated (her warnings of riots if she doesn't wins spoke volumes - she'd rather win out of fear than positive reasons to support her), Sarkozy will - at best - tinker.

The more I have heard and seen from him, the more certain things come out. He has advocated using the EU for protectionism against the world, but that France should be more open and competitive in Europe.

France is not yet desperate enough for Sarkozy to be able to do what he needs - he needs to break the back of state welfarism, of a welfare state that pays people to do nothing, that penalises councils for not building enough soulless public housing.

That is why, on balance, I believe France will endure some tinkering, the worst of what France has will be amended - much like Germany under Angela Merkel - but it will simply stop France slipping further behind.

The equivalent in UK history is 1972- with Ted Heath, who tried to reform the British economy, but failed - and Britain had to endure 7 long years of discontent, strikes and stagnation. Stagnation that proved the economic bankruptcy of statist big government socialism, and kept the Labour Party out of government for over a decade - in other words, until it rejected socialism.

Sarkozy could prove me wrong - 53% of the vote is a decent mandate for change. However, Italy under the vile Berlusconi, and Germany under Merkel have both been disappointing (Italy continues to slide backwards). Sarkozy will face a hard summer, those who suck off of the state tit in France, or the EU tit or indeed wish to pretend that they are owed the monopolies and privileges of the state, will protest and fight - but the majority of French voters resist this. It will be a sign of how little interest some socialists have in democracy as to how many of them are with those damaging property when the protests come.