By THOMAS PIKETTY*
It is time for the left to once again describe the alternative economic system it aspires to.
Despite the relative majority obtained by the New Popular Front (NFP), the French political landscape continues to be marked by divisions and uncertainty. Let us be clear: the gains made by the left in votes and seats are, in reality, very limited and reflect insufficient work in relation to both the program and the structures. Only by resolutely facing these insufficiencies will the left-wing parties be able to overcome the period of turbulence and minority governments that is being announced and one day obtain an absolute majority that will allow them to govern the country in the long term.
The program adopted by the New Popular Front a few days after the dissolution of the old government certainly had the immense merit, in comparison with others, of indicating where to find the resources to invest in the future: health, education, research, transport and energy infrastructure , etc. These essential investments will increase sharply and there are only two ways to finance them.
Either we accept the beginning of a new cycle of increasing socialization of wealth, driven by increased taxes on the richest, as proposed by the New Popular Front, or we ideologically reject any tax increase, placing ourselves in the hands of private financing, synonymous with inequality of access and collective efficacy is more than dubious. Driven by gigantic private costs, health expenses approach 20% of GDP in the United States, with disastrous indicators.
However, the amounts mentioned by the New Popular Front may have been frightening: around 100 billion euros in charges and new expenses in three years, that is, 4% of GDP. In the long term, these amounts are not excessive: tax revenues in Western and Nordic Europe went from less than 10% of national income before 1914 to 40-50% after the years 1980-1990, and it was this increase in power of the welfare state (education, health, public services, social protection, etc.) that allowed unprecedented growth in productivity and living standards, regardless of what conservatives of any era may have said.
Strong demand for social justice
The fact is that there are considerable uncertainties regarding the calendar and order of priorities of a left-wing government that comes to power. Even though the demand for social justice in the country is strong, the mobilization of new resources remains a fragile process, from which citizens can withdraw their support at any time. Specifically, until it is indisputably demonstrated that millionaires and multinationals are actually being forced to contribute, it is unthinkable to ask anyone else to make an additional effort. Now, the New Popular Front program remains very vague on this crucial point.
It is even more problematic that the left-wing governments of recent decades, in the absence of a sufficiently precise program and sufficiently strong collective ownership, are always giving in to the lobbies as soon as they come to power, for example, by exempting so-called professional assets and almost all large fortunes from the ISF [solidarity tax on wealth], which means that revenues are ridiculously low in relation to what they could and should be .
To avoid repeating these mistakes, it will be necessary to involve civil society and unions in defending these revenues and the social investments associated with them. In these questions, as in others, the Slogans They cannot replace basic work and collective mobilization.
There are similar problems with pensions. It doesn't make much sense to adopt the slogan retirement for everyone at age 62, or even at age 60, when everyone knows that there is also a contribution time condition to obtain a full retirement in the French system. A slogan like “forty-two years of contributions for all” would be better understood by the country, and would make it clear that people with higher education will not retire before the age of 65 or 67, insisting, at the same time, on the injustice unacceptable 64 years of Emmanuel Macron's reform, which obliges, for example, anyone who started working at age 20 to contribute for forty-four years.
Examples could be multiplied. It is good to announce the deletion of the platform Parcoursup, but it would have been even better to describe precisely the alternative, fairer and more transparent system that will replace it. It is good that the media group is reported Bolloré, but it would be better to commit to an ambitious law to democratize the media and challenge the all-powerful shareholders.
By stages
Let us also remember the proposal that aims to allocate a third of the seats on company boards of directors to worker representatives. This is the most profound and authentically social democratic reform of the New Popular Front program, but it would be better if it were placed within a broader framework. To enable the redistribution of economic power, it would be necessary to increase the number of seats in large companies to 50%, simultaneously limiting the voting rights of the largest shareholders and committing to a true redistribution of wealth.
Instead of indulging in rhetorical radicalism, it is time for the left to once again describe the alternative economic system to which it aspires, while recognizing that things will occur in phases.
On all these issues, only collective work will allow us to progress, which requires the creation of a true left-wing democratic federation, capable of organizing deliberation and resolving differences. We are very far from that: in recent years, Unsubmissive France did not stop trying to impose its authoritarian hegemony on the left, in the same way as the Socialist Party of the past, only worse, given the refusal of any voting process by the “unsubmissive” leaders.
But left-wing voters are not fooled: they know very well that the exercise of power requires, above all, humility, deliberation and collective work. It is time to respond to this aspiration.
*Thomas Piketty is director of research at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and professor at the Paris School of Economics. Author, among other books, of Capital in the XNUMXst century (Intrinsic). [https://amzn.to/3YAgR1q]
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
Originally published in the newspaper Le Monde.
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