{"id":33,"date":"2007-04-30T14:17:05","date_gmt":"2007-04-30T22:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2007-04-30T14:17:05","modified_gmt":"2007-04-30T22:17:05","slug":"even-the-french-will-liberalize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/even-the-french-will-liberalize\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the French will liberalize"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is a French socialist politician vowing to form an “anti-liberal” party? In Europe, liberals are those who believe in free markets. That’s what “liberal” used to mean in the U.S. before the Progressive movement and its Democratic enablers flipped the meaning around. So, now America’s leftists are called “liberals” while America’s true liberals have had to adopt more cumbersome tags like “classic liberal” or “libertarian.” Confusing? Don’t sweat it. Even the WSJ is labeling the left candidate in France as “liberal” in a chart<\/a> about recent elections there. Since I am writing about Europe today, I will use the term “liberal” here in the classic sense, consistent with European usage.<\/p>\n

So, back to the French socialists–why are they feeling so threatened about (economic) liberalism? Because their candidate, Segolene Royal, is now courting the “centrists” for their votes in the upcoming general election for French president. And why is she courting the centrist vote, even at the apparent risk of alienating her left wing? Because even in France, the left wing is becoming marginalized. France’s left wing is now pulling about 10 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 1970s and 1980s when they were able to elect a Socialist president<\/a>. Last weekend, Royal got 25 percent of the vote. That means that 65 percent of France is currently to her right, and she needs at least 15 percent of them to win the Presidency. That puts her in a bind, since what she gains by tacking right risks losing support on her left.<\/p>\n

But I don’t really give a darn about Royal, or even her opponent Sarkozy. It’s France. Historically, Marx skipped over France on his way from Germany to England, but his ideas nevertheless took firm root in their powerful labor class. Even their “conservative” party is beholden to unions and nationalists. What catches my eye is the overall trend that is emerging in France, as in the rest of the Europe and the world. Politicians all over have no choice but to cater to their voters needs. Even if most voters are economically ignorant, and they think<\/em> they need government intervention, reality eventually catches up, and the people and their politicians are compelled to acknowledge the competition for capital.<\/p>\n

In the long run, this competition for capital will force a competition for productive businesses and individuals. The governmental bumps that try to regulate the inflow and outflow of people and money will get smoothed away in an ever flattening world. Even the U.S., so far ahead in capitalism for so long that it could actually go counter to the general liberalizing trend, will be forced to arrest its socialization, and join the race to greater freedom. In the future, we are all capitalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is a French socialist politician vowing to form an “anti-liberal” party? In Europe, liberals are those who believe in free markets. That’s what “liberal” used to mean in the U.S. before the Progressive movement and its Democratic enablers flipped the meaning around. So, now America’s leftists are called “liberals” while America’s true liberals have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patterns-without-intention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}