Francois Hollande

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“He Defends His Radicalism, Arguing That A Global Wealth Tax Makes ‘Property Temporary, Rather Than Permanent'”

December 22, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a Guardian article, Owen Jones interviews French economist Thomas Piketty, who labels François Hollande’s tenure a “disaster,” discusses the incredible inequity of Middle Eastern finances and comments on the virtues of both the free market and of revolution. An excerpt: 

“The west’s general relationship with the Middle East – ‘the most unequal region in the world,’ he says – is one that troubles him, not least because it exposes grotesque inequalities. ‘Take Egypt: the total budget for education for 100 million people is 100 times less than the oil revenue for a few dozen people in Qatar. And then in London and in Paris we are happy to have these people buying football clubs and buying apartments, and then we are surprised that the youths in the Middle East don’t take very seriously our democracy and social justice.’

Although some on the right have assailed him as a dangerous red, I put it to him that he is not as radical as he is portrayed. He has written that he was ‘vaccinated for life against the conventional but lazy rhetoric of anti-capitalism’; he opposed the introduction of a 35-hour week in France, and the Wall Street Journal even called him ‘a neoliberal economist who sees many virtues in market forces but favours government redistribution to smooth out some of the market’s excesses.’ He looks bemused. ‘I don’t live in the cold war. Some people maybe still live in the cold war, but this is their problem, not mine.’ He unashamedly believes in ‘market forces.’ arguing there is no ‘war of religion’ between left and right in the modern era. But he defends his radicalism, arguing that a global wealth tax makes ‘property temporary, rather than permanent,’ which he describes as ‘a permanent revolution, a very substantial change to the traditional capitalist system.’

Though Piketty supported François Hollande’s presidential bid in 2012, he is contemptuous of the French president. ‘He’s been a disaster,’ is his unequivocal response, clarifying that he was ‘more against Sarkozy than [he] was for Hollande.'”

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“The French Data Is Available To The Various Police And Security Agencies”

July 5, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The Great Comedian once said this: “Gentleman, you can’t fight in here…this is the War Room,” the absurdity crystallizing everything within shouting distance. The modern equivalent might be this: “We know that you’re spying on us, because our spies told us.” 

In the wake of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, a man so outraged by surveillance that he relocated to Russia, few people in this country or any country have dealt with our new reality very honestly. Everyone is spying on everyone, from individuals to corporations to governments. It’s only going to grow more prevalent. And if everybody is guilty, nobody is guilty.

Within a week of French President François Hollande deriding the U.S. for spying, Le Monde printed an expose implicating France for similar behavior. From Steve Erlanger in the New York Times:

“PARIS — Days after President François Hollande sternly told the United States to stop spying on its allies, the newspaper Le Monde disclosed on Thursday that France has its own large program of data collection, which sweeps up nearly all the data transmissions, including telephone calls, e-mails and social media activity, that come in and out of France.

Le Monde reported that the General Directorate for External Security does the same kind of data collection as the American National Security Agency and the British GCHQ, but does so without clear legal authority.

The system is run with ‘complete discretion, at the margins of legality and outside all serious control,’ the newspaper said, describing it as ‘a-legal.’

Nonetheless, the French data is available to the various police and security agencies of France, the newspaper reported, and the data is stored for an indeterminate period. The main interest of the agency, the paper said, is to trace who is talking to whom, when and from where and for how long, rather than in listening in to random conversations. But the French also record data from large American networks like Google and Facebook, the newspaper said.”

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“Socialism Isn’t The Answer To The Basic Problem Haunting All Rich Nations”

May 7, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The free market can be corrupted, but all-out socialism would be a horrible remedy to that. Almost as bad would be not repairing our increasingly rigged form of capitalism. The opening of Robert Reich’s blog post, “The Answer Isn’t Socialism,” written in the wake of France moving leftward:

“Francois Hollande’s victory doesn’t and shouldn’t mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn’t the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations. 

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

In the United States, almost all the gains from productivity growth have been going to the top 1 percent, and the percent of the working-age population with jobs is now lower than it’s been in more than thirty years (before the vast majority of women moved into paid work).” (Thanks Browser.)

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“Oh Karl the world isn’t fair / It isn’t and never will be / They tried out your plan / It brought misery instead / If you’d seen how they worked it / you’d be glad you were dead.” (Thanks LRR.)

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