Newsletter
(Number 12)
25 mai 2002
Grenoble, France
"The Happy People"
In an opinion piece entitled "The Angry People" published on April 23, 2002
in the New York Times, Paul Krugman, well-known Professor of Economics at
Princeton and liberal apologist of free trade, draws a parallel between the
presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Lionel Jospin. According to Krugman,
both featured a "slightly left-of-center" candidate, who, "though by every
indication a very good human being, is not a natural campaigner"; his
"professorial style" appears "condescending and humorless" to many. Despite
having led his country through a period of "great peace and prosperity", he
is brutally shot down by the combined impact of irresponsible leftists who
engage in "political theatre", campaigning against him whilst having no
chance of winning (be they Trostkyites in France or Ralph Nader in the
United States) and apathetic, complacent moderates, who either believe that
this progressive candidate will win, or that the election will make little
difference. As a result, he is eliminated and the "hard right" rushes forth,
either to stun the world by winning through to the second round of the
elections in France, or by grabbing power outright in the United States.
There is some truth in this version of the facts: voter lack of interest, as
expressed by abstention, reached historic proportions in the first round of
the French presidential election (almost 30%). The figure in the United
States, of course, is even higher (almost 50%). But much remains unsaid; so
much, in fact, that one may be inclined to wonder if, in the alternate
universe which New York Times columnists are said to inhabit, the fitness of
the news to be printed derives from criteria which can only be described as
disinformational. What, then, is being omitted? And to what purpose?
The most striking omission (and perhaps not such a surprising one, given
Krugman¹s position as a member of the Fourth Estate) concerns the role of
the media vis-à-vis the electoral result. To speak in the broadest terms,
the mainstream media of North America, in its quest for maximizing profits,
trivializes the national political process to an extent that almost seems to
defy belief. In the particular instance of the 2000 presidential race, the
inaccurate polling of Voter News Service (VNS) combined with the closeness
of the result and the TV networks¹ wish to scoop one another caused the
networks to call the election for one candidate, then the other, before
retracting their predictions, thereby possibly influencing sections of the
electorates who, because they were in different time zones, were still
entitled to vote. In particular, the media contributed to the deleterious
climate surrounding the Florida poll, around which the whole election
hinged. Similarly in France, many have criticized the influence of the media
on the election. To be sure, the French media¹s coverage of "insecurity" as
the dominant theme of the campaign and its constant representation of
incidents of criminality contributed to increasing public sensitivity to
this issue, thereby probably increasing the vote for the far-right
candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose strategy has long been to exploit and
magnify the electorate¹s fear. The same could be said of the dozens of
pre-election polls asserting that Jospin and the incumbent, Jacques Chirac,
would be in the second round runoff, which almost certainly increased the
abstention rate.
Another series of omissions concerns French electoral arithmetic. Jospin¹s
Socialists were not alone in governing France for the last five years - a
fact of which Krugman seems unaware, or is perhaps unwilling to acknowledge.
Their "plural majority" also comprised Greens and Communists. Both
"theatrical" parties (to use Krugman¹s terminology) chose to present
candidates for the presidential ballot, as did several Trostkyite
organizations. None of these parties was new: while some increased their
showing, and others saw theirs falter, their electoral base has been a
constant in French political life for thirty years. What was new, and
probably fatal to Jospin¹s candidature, was the creation of former Socialist
Defense and Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement¹s "Republican Pole".
Chevènement¹s appeal to the "values of the Republic", and his railing
against Europe and the loss of French sovereignty, echoed that of Charles
Pasqua, also a former Minister of the Interior, but for the right. Pasqua,
however, did not succeed in getting his campaign for President off the
ground. If he had, Jacques Chirac might not have finished ahead in the first
round. Through luck and/or political skill Chirac managed to keep a serious
threat out of the running, while Jospin did not. Chevènement got a
disappointing (for him) 5%, enough to ensure that Le Pen would slip ahead of
Jospin. In any case, Chevènement can hardly be described as an
extreme-leftist.
Krugman calls those voters who gave Le Pen (and Bush) their ballot "the
angry people". They are, he writes, angry about the abandonment of
"traditional values" which translates into attacking "godless liberals" in
the United States and "immigrants" in France. Given his distinguished
economic credentials, it might have occurred to Krugman that these people
may be angry about their deteriorating standards of living, or about losing
their jobs. After all, there have been many factory closures in France in
recent years, leaving workers with little to show for their decades of hard
labour. This is borne out by the fact that many previously staunchly
Communist constituencies are now voting for the National Front. (1) But for
Krugman, it seems that morality and politics take precedence over economic
considerations.
Corporate propaganda is an active, dynamic process which does not only
distort reality: it aims at banning some ideas altogether, at rendering
certain statements impossible to utter. In the case of anti-globalization
activists, for example, the usual strategy is to dismiss them as kooks,
describing their claims as intrinsically unreasonable. For an analysis of
the methods of elaboration, dissemination and integration of dominant
ideology, read in Atelier 11, "L'idéologie capitaliste à l'époque des
multinationales," Article 3 by Stevenson, Article 7 by Eagleton and Article
11 by Channinig.
That France¹s institutional political culture still allows a small space for
protest against the forces of transnational capitalism is often denounced as
an antiquated irritant by Anglo-American pundits and politicians, who would
probably rather limit such opposition to colorful street parties or
anonymous cyber-activists. In fact, this denunciation can also be observed
in France, especially when a golden opportunity such as the rude eruption of
the far right into the sacred second round of the Presidential elections
arises. By focusing on the evils of Le Pen, it then becomes all too easy to
distract the citizenry from other problems, usually of an economic nature.
In this way issues such as deregulation and delocalisation, "right-sizing"
and insider trading in short, all the manifestations of market worship
fall by the wayside, as the call goes out to unify against the forces of
extremism.
From a French perspective, an interesting omission in Krugman¹s article is
the prime beneficiary of all this fine republican fervor: the President of
the French Republic, Jacques Chirac (graduate of the Ecole Nationale
d¹Administration, the training ground for State oligarchs, former Mayor of
Paris, and former Prime Minister) who was handsomely awarded 82% of the vote
in the runoff against Le Pen. Not a word is said of him: of the 15.000
francs routinely spent on "fruit and vegetables" each day when he was Mayor,
of the 3 million Francs in cash used to pay for holiday airfares for the
President, his family and his mates, of the immunity awarded to him by the
French Supreme Court for the length of his term in office, which has just
been given a five-year extension.
Faced with such shameless greed, corruption and hypocrisy, voter anger seems
not only to be a rational response, but also the only logical reaction. Part
of Le Pen¹s recent popularity may have been caused by his willingness to
attack Chirac directly: a willingness not shared by other candidates or the
media.
Comparing different political systems is always a tricky proposition, but
equating Jospin and Gore seems particularly absurd, unless the Democratic
Party of the United States of America has suddenly pledged to reduce the
working week to 35 hours, enforce strict gender parity of political
representation, and create a "Pacte de concubinage et de solidarité" or
PACS, otherwise known as "gay marriages" - all laws which the Socialist-led
coalition actually passed. Similarly, Krugman¹s assertion that House of
Representatives Republican Whip Tom DeLay and Attorney General John Ashcroft
hold views that are "in their way" as extreme as that of Le Pen is a
startling one, for Le Pen¹s oft-stated anti-Semitic and revisionist beliefs
obviously place him in the fascist camp. The problem is not so much with the
accuracy of Krugman¹s pronouncement, but with the reaction it implies: if he
truly believes what he says, why does he not join the Resistance? Or (at
least) urge others to do so?
In France¹s Presidential election, the far right was rejected, decisively.
Of course, some people voted for Le Pen, 18% of the population, the "angry
people". That makes the rest of us, 82% of the population, happy people. Why
don¹t we feel happy?
(1) See for example Michel Samson, "A Martigues, le racisme tel qu¹on en
parle", Le Monde, 27.04.02
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