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Who Are You Calling A Liberal?
By EURSOC Two
08 June, 2005
Interesting column by Prof Margaret Blunden in today's Herald Tribune. The French loathe Britain's "Anglo-Saxon" model, which is said to incorporate all the evils of scorched earth capitalism including the destruction of public services and the welfare state. The Brits, in turn, snigger at France's strike-prone, bureaucracy heavy "social model" with its high unemployment and massive dependency culture.
But are the two nations, often depicted as pole opposites in Europe, really that far apart?
Under Tony Blair, says Professor Blunden, Britain has pursued an aggressive wealth distribution program. It is one of the few large western economies where taxes are on the rise, not least to fuel a refurbishment of public services.
A whole class of state-dependent workers has been created, many of whom boast job descriptions that are at least as amusing as the French description of troublesome union leaders as "Social Partners."
Even in European Union issues, where Britain has traditionally obstructed the wilder fantasies of Gallic Euro-enthusiasm, there has been a great deal of movement, with the UK playing a leading role in the creation of an EU security and defence structure.
Meanwhile in France, she continues,
"It is no easier for a Briton to locate the French "social model." In the last 20 years, the French have been made to swallow quite large doses of the liberal pill. Financial markets have been liberated, and the capital value of the stock market as a proportion of gross national product has tripled. The number of shareholders in France has increased fourfold. Two-thirds of the largest French companies are now wholly or partly privatized, and the proportion of foreign-owned equity in French firms is higher than that in Britain."
Interesting stuff, though France's progress towards the modern world has been stalled, possibly for years, by the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, which France's elite has chosen to blame on opposition to liberalism rather than to the treaty itself.
France, she says, needs to find its own "modernity" - and it could take a "cure of ideological detoxification to achieve this."
Once again, Nicolas Sarkozy is tipped as the man to lead France into the big wide world. Not by introducing more unpopular reforms, she says - but by telling the French that they've been liberals all along. He's got his work cut out for him."
eursoc.com |
