More Fraternité, urges Jacques

Jacques Monin, London correspondent for Radio France, has just published a book called Le naufrage britannique (The British Shipwreck). I’ve read the first two chapters, ‘L’argent roi’ (‘King Money’) and ‘La fin du rêve’ (‘The End of the Dream’) and am impressed by M. Monin’s analysis of the UK’s civic weaknesses. He covers similar ground to David Marquand in Decline of the Public, a book which castigates the retreat of civic values and of opportunities for debate and engagement, in the face of aggressive private enterprise and commercial values.

M. Monin has been startled by the extent of political apathy in the UK, and makes the point that the rare instances of labour unrest in recent years have had money at their heart – individuals fearing insufficient income or excessive costs. Ideas, or concepts of right and wrong, have largely ceased to concern the populace. He concedes that there was a wave of public opposition to the Iraq War back in 2003, but uses this as an example of the rarity of mass dissent on a political issue. The ascent of money as all that really matters has, he suggests, impoverished public debate because Britons have come to accept the hegemony of economics as natural, as common sense, impossible to question because they do not realise that it can be questioned.

Acceptance of a single dogma is, in a constantly changing natural and social world, a recipe for disastrous rigidity. Furthermore, a dogma that privileges the economy above every other consideration relegates all that makes us human to the periphery of existence.

The cold dawn of 2009, heralding financial hardship and a fall in our collective standard of living, reveals the nation state as very much the junior partner in global business, existing to provide business with workers to be paid as little as possible, and with consumers to buy goods and services for as much as possible. There is a fundamental contradiction here, of course, but one masked by government as income redistributor, through taxation and the use of measures such as tax credits to supplement individuals’ incomes.

Belatedly, it is becoming apparent that globalisation is a merciless master. Surely the nation state can seize back the intellectual initiative, to start to create a society in which citizens control economies, not the other way round. Have we become too apathetic to politics to start to devise new ways forward?

If you can understand French, do read the book. Le naufrage britannique, ISBN 978-2-7103-3104-9, is published by La Table Ronde in Paris and costs €20.