Histoire de la dérive droitière internationale

1. The history of the international right-wing drift
By Benoît Fabre, 01/28/2006
A massive ground swell has led politicians in most countries into a
progressive right-wing drift. In France, observers named the
phenomenon “la pensée unique” or conformity of thought, i.e., what the
Americans have called “group think”. The aim of this article is to
recount the history of this drift in order to highlight the fact that this
right-wing drift is an international political construct, far from a natural
necessity which would be recognized by all nations.
I) The American origin of the right-wing drift
The starting point of the international capitalist counter revolution is
found in the United States in the 1960s. This was then the wealthiest
country in the world; it had won WWII and held a special aura and
considerable influence over its allies. However, the wealthiest in this
wealthy country were not satisfied. Their political influence had
weakened after the New Deal episode in 1930 and Keynesian principles
of State-governed economics. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson cause
anxiety: the new progressive society, with its measures of redistribution
of wealth to fight poverty and its fight against racist discrimination
towards black Americans, tends to marginalize the conservative
ideology of a “natural”, necessary, and “divine” law. This “natural” law
has it that one is wealthy because one deserves it through one’s hard
work and talent, and, conversely, one is poor because one deserves it
through one’s lack of hard work or because God has not chosen you to
be prosperous and healthy; one is reminded of the Protestant concept
of predestination—Protestantism was the religion of the WASP elites in
the United States. Anti-black racist sentiment had a more sociological
origin: blacks, recently freed by Federal laws, had accumulated less
money, academic knowledge, and social behavior norms – hence, they
were inferior to whites. Moreover, how could one even begin to think
that blacks, formerly slaves, could one day see themselves as, if not
superior to, then at least equal to those who had been their “natural”
masters for 400 years?
In this kind of setting, the big American capitalists manage to seduce
the small, southern, white, racist homeowners. From then on, American
elections will be won through the rallying or non-rallying of the U.S.
Southern States (see the book by Serge Halimi, Le Grand Bond en
arrière). However, electoral success is yet to come. The big capitalists
then fund think tanks to generate ideas and arguments supporting their
donors’ ideology. The aim of the arguments is to render the “natural”
capitalist discourse credible through the repetition of simple slogans
targeting the population (via the white-owned media) and through a
justifying discourse targeting the political community. Corruption, via
the funding of political campaigns, also forms a large part of the
strategy.

2. At last, the miracle occurs for the big capitalists: an unknown professor
at Chicago University works out an economic theory against
Keynesianism (which is characterized by State-governed redistribution
of purchasing power). This new economic theory claims that
government-mandated currency intervention is pure evil, that this
intervention is harmful in the long run, and that one should accept the
“natural” equilibrium of financial markets. This is the equivalent, in
financial market terms, of the line taken by Adam Smith (in the 17th
century) regarding the goods markets: leave the market alone, it will
self-regulate as though an “invisible hand” were leading the aggregate
of individual self-interests towards the interest of society as a whole.
But then, is it the case that nobody has more self-interest than others in
this little game? The sociological analysis of the balance of power will
be carried out by Marx in the 19th century, in the context of extreme
labor exploitation. In the 20th century, capitalists will finance the
attempts to demonstrate the self-regulated market equilibrium.
Capitalist economists not only will fail to demonstrate this characteristic
of free markets but they will, in fact, demonstrate the impossibility of
market stability. Strangely enough, these conclusions are not known
by the general public, but these economists received the Nobel prize for
the mathematical rigor with which they demonstrated the conditions
(impossible to realize in concrete terms) for market self-regulation.
Hence the political discourse still proffered by certain extremist
executives: “If there’s no market self-regulation, it’s because the market
is not free enough”! Now, let us get back to our Chicago University
economist. It is Milton Friedman, who will gain a following and receive
the Nobel prize for having claimed that State-governed monetary
expansion was harmful, hence going against 30 years of Keynesian
regulation in Europe and the United States, the much-touted era of “The
Glorious Thirty” in France and the American Way Of Life in the United
States. Ronald Reagan will rely on the complete fabrication of Milton
Friedman’s fame.
Reagan will go even further. He will promote in his country, and then in
Europe, Laffer’s theory which claims that increasing tax rates beyond a
certain point will hinder growth because this will deter the economically
active population (is this point negotiated in each country according to
the balance of power and the state of the population’s needs? – this is
not explained in the theory). What does the demonstration of Laffer’s
theory rely on? On a curve which, basically, shows that if the tax rate is
100%, the revenue available for growth (i.e., private) is nonexistent;
however, if the tax rate is 0%, growth (i.e., public) is nonexistent.
Consequently, there is an intermediate point for a tax rate that will
maximize growth (public or private?). The question is: where is this
optimal point on the growth curve in terms of the tax rate? – well, it is
roughly in the middle of the pedagogic curve. In the French political
discourse inspired by this theory, it is the point beyond which “the
French” refuse to pay taxes. As if all French people, whether rich or
poor, whether they pay income tax or not, had the same opinion. Why

3. not consider that even high-income individuals work in order to increase
the absolute value of their revenue after tax, whatever the relative
weight of tax? Moreover, in a Western country, can we not accept that
some workers, discouraged by the level of the taxes they contribute to
the common coffers, would give way to others who are younger, more
motivated, often better qualified, who will learn to be efficient if given
the chance to get out of unemployment? Yes, but those who vote for
capitalist right-wing politicians are rarely unemployed. As for the
unemployed, disillusioned by the group-think policies which have
generated 30 years of massive unemployment, they no longer bother to
vote. So, why would politicians think about the relevance of Laffer’s
curve? Laffer’s curve focuses on public revenues but does not consider
the use made of the collected funds. Even from a selfish viewpoint,
high-income individuals benefit from public infrastructures (hospitals,
schools, roads, security); the altruistic viewpoint could also seduce a
number of high-income individuals.
While displaying non-interventionism on the goods markets, thus
targeting the European elites, Reagan will dig the most massive public
deficit in the history of the United States through financing the
intensification of the arms industry. Reagan is also behind the global
progressive spread of financial deregulation. We now know the damage
caused by the return of the short term speculative capital in developing
economies. We are also aware of the considerable extent to which the
capital of the American pension funds has broken up and subjugated
the European industry.
II) The European extension
American capitalists and hawks were not content with simply seizing
power on their own territory. They had to convert and rule the rest of
the world.
Their historical allies, the British, were the first consenting patients. In
Britain, highly redistributive and socially advanced Beveridgean policies
were in place, and Keynesian “stop and go” policies had guided the
country since the end of the war. “Go” symbolized a stage of monetary
injection into the economy, via civil servants’ salary increases and low-
interest credit given to companies and individuals so as to increase
domestic demand in times of low growth. In contrast, “stop” indicated
the decrease of public demand when the specter of excessive and
widespread inflation hung over the economy, which happened
automatically when solvent private demand became more important than
the local production capacities and stocks had run out.
But in 1973, Western economies suffer under the effects of the first oil
shock, when Arab states, former colonies, wake up and become aware
of their potential power if they end the oil exploitation imposed by
Western oil companies. This oil shock will usher in the Western world

4. the ideological hold-up that will shake the end of the century: the
serious economic crisis is presented to European citizens as an
insuperable structural crisis within the framework of Keynesian policies.
In France, Chirac-led reflationary policy fails to reach its short-term
goals. Raymond Barre will then focus on the inflation (which had never
hindered growth during the Glorious Thirty). Margaret Thatcher is
elected in Great-Britain, which is also perplexed by the length of the
crisis. The capitalist and nationalist right-wingers get their revenge: the
mining unions are confronted and destroyed, public services are in
tatters, the EEC is stymied. In France, the state is influenced in the
1970s by the Club of Rome’s report (The Limits to Growth) on zero
growth. The report advocated halting world development because it
predicted an imminent environmental catastrophe, should development
increase and spread to the Third World. Hence, the French government
did not push companies towards investing for productive capacity. The
lack of local productive capacity will then lead to massive imports,
following the Keynesian stimulus of purchasing power which the
socialist government resolved in 1981. The rapid deterioration of the
foreign trade balance and that of the balance of payments will cause the
downfall of this Keynesian recovery called by the left-wing government,
similarly to that called by the right-wing Chirac-led government in 1974.
This will mark the beginning of the oft-repeated group-think refrain
“We’ve tried everything” in France.
Another power center to be infiltrated by the liberal ideology was the
European community. In this case, the key emphasis is the notion of
rationality. European elites are above nations, above elected
governments, and the only judges of the superior interest of Europe.
The European Commission will not be controlled by the elected
European parliament. Neither will the European Central Bank. Rational
thought becomes the prerogative of the European central
administration. Special university curricula are created. Television
channels distil the gospel in the direction of the educated middle
classes in each country.
In France, the new doctrine of the governing left wing is that elections
are won at the center, via the middle classes. During the pre-electoral
period, it appears perfectly natural to the Socialist Party leaders in the
government that they should grant tax reductions to these middle
classes, as the logical outcome of leaders’ and citizens’ being imbued
with the simplistic representation of Laffer’s curve. As for the right wing,
it then proposes as self-evident that “the French do not wish to pay
more taxes”, which is straight out of Laffer’s outline once more. The
slavish imitation of the American model goes as far as proposing to
privatize health insurance and replace the contributory pension scheme
by pension funds which no longer delude anybody in their country of
origin …
III) The entire world under control

5. Following the United States and Europe, deregulated liberalism will then
subject the world to its “natural” logic. This is the Washington
Consensus, thus labeled because it arises out of an agreement among
administrations that are located in Washington: the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the American Treasury. The
Consensus was hardly democratic, but the word deceives the
international public. Given the official nature of the three organizations,
it is pretty obvious that the interests of the big American capitalists are
closely linked to the superior interest of the American State: American
neo-imperialism takes place via economic subjection. The Consensus
contains the following rules: for the IMF to grant a loan to a country in
crisis, that country needs to increase its banking transparency (meaning
that banks should be open to American capital, hence to American
influences) and to privatize its State-owned companies (hence abandon
the autonomous industry development strategy; public companies will
be bought up at a very low price by American capitalists). In addition,
the economic crisis-ridden country needs to abandon its subsidies to
basic food and energy products; is the subsequent social chaos a
genuine oversight in the IMF argument, controlled “collateral damage”,
or cold calculation by the American hawks? Debt owed public lenders
and foreign private banks is rescheduled, as the notion of bankruptcy
(hence settlement of debt) is not allowed to Third World countries in
crisis. This will have two consequences: first, since the beginning of the
1980s, the annual total amount of aid to the Third World is vastly
inferior to the financial transfers in the other direction resulting from
debt servicing (interest and principal). Second, Consensus-guaranteed
private banks’ debt security leads Third World governments to take
imprudent risks. From another perspective, corrupt Third World
governments, involved with the worst Western politicians, generate debt
which mortgages their country’s development for several generations.
The American imperialists’ chaos strategy has been carried out and
gained ground for the last 30 years.
A new global institution is born: the WTO has legal power to judge
obstacles to external trade. I recall notions from Montesquieu (the
“doux commerce” thesis: international trade prevents wars), Adam
Smith (there are absolute advantages to the production of certain goods
depending on the country), and Ricardo (there are relative advantages
between two countries; each benefits from producing and selling goods
in those domains where it is relatively better than the other country).
Promoting these theories brings about international division of labor.
For example, many African countries are specialized in the cultivation of
a few export-targeted agricultural products such as coffee, cocoa, etc.,
pushing farmers to abandon food crops. The net result is that African
countries have become dependent on the fluctuating stock market
prices for the exported commodities; farmers ruined by the reversal of
market prices leave for a new life in the cities, but in fact find
themselves in dangerous slums. These countries have become
unstable and dependent on Western donations which conceal the

6. Western states’ neocolonial influence policy. Despite the WTO,
Americans and Europeans subsidize their agricultural surplus through
exportation, which undermines developing countries’ local agriculture
since local prices cannot compete against Western prices, even on their
own domestic markets. The United States, confident of their power,
introduce quotas on those products that threaten their industry, and
manage the feat of negotiating self-limitations on the part of exporter
countries towards their own territory. Well now, did the powerful of this
world really think that the WTO would put on equal level countries that
are so unequal in their resources to finance long court cases and the
training of lawyers competent in international trade law?
The only really international body, the United Nations (“one country,
one voice”), is trampled on by the American State. The latter does
anything it likes to impose its viewpoint: votes bought in certain
countries, threats of economic reprisals, political promises made to
Eastern Europe countries, manufacturing false evidence of the
existence of arms caches, and presenting this false evidence in official
meetings, etc. American imperialism is uninhibited at the beginning of
the 21st century. It uses all possible avenues: economic, the media, the
military, diplomatic, the secret services. Keeping in check the egotism
and arrogance of the new world masters, the big American capitalists,
constitutes a major challenge at the beginning of the 21st
century.

7. Western states’ neocolonial influence policy. Despite the WTO,
Americans and Europeans subsidize their agricultural surplus through
exportation, which undermines developing countries’ local agriculture
since local prices cannot compete against Western prices, even on their
own domestic markets. The United States, confident of their power,
introduce quotas on those products that threaten their industry, and
manage the feat of negotiating self-limitations on the part of exporter
countries towards their own territory. Well now, did the powerful of this
world really think that the WTO would put on equal level countries that
are so unequal in their resources to finance long court cases and the
training of lawyers competent in international trade law?
The only really international body, the United Nations (“one country,
one voice”), is trampled on by the American State. The latter does
anything it likes to impose its viewpoint: votes bought in certain
countries, threats of economic reprisals, political promises made to
Eastern Europe countries, manufacturing false evidence of the
existence of arms caches, and presenting this false evidence in official
meetings, etc. American imperialism is uninhibited at the beginning of
the 21st century. It uses all possible avenues: economic, the media, the
military, diplomatic, the secret services. Keeping in check the egotism
and arrogance of the new world masters, the big American capitalists,
constitutes a major challenge at the beginning of the 21st
century.