France

Chocolate for Thought

Jacques Delacroix Politics , , , ,

There is a pervasive feeling among thinking people that this country is not just facing a severe economic crisis but that we are losing something exceptional. That something is American exceptionalism precisely. Lech Walesa, the blue-collar hero of Polish freedom from communism put it well in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal. There is only one of America and if it ceases being itself, the world is left in the dark, goes the thinking. It’s not reasonable to count on the debt-ridden government pension-sucking Europeans to hold up the flashlight. The fact is that several European countries are disappearing because they don’t make enough babies to replenish themselves. That’s the ultimate form of pessimism. (And no, this is not a racist statement, I am completely pleased with the fact that brown-skinned Mexicans and their children are keeping the American population growing. They make good immigrants. See my article on Mexican immigration, with Nikiforov, in the Summer 2009 issue of the Independent Review.)

Unfortunately, there is an innate humility among Americans which makes it difficult for them to think aloud about American exceptionalism. If there were not, twenty years of cultural relativism in the schools would make the very thought difficult to formulate: “Everybody is equal. We are not any better than those who suck their grandmothers’ brain – but only after they die, or than those who practice horrendous sexual mutilation on little girls, or than those who still practice slavery. Only American slavery was atrocious. Slavery in exotic locales is kind of nice, actually, if you look at it in its proper cultural context.”

One way to overcome this shyness and diffuse sense of equality in order better to grasp what we are losing is to consider Swiss exceptionalism about which no one gives a damn, not even the Swiss. It turns out that in the main respects, there is not one America, there are several. Switzerland is one. Continue reading →

From the Comments: A Note on the Upcoming French Elections

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, Economics , , , , , ,

Jacques Delacroix has belatedly responded (he’s retired!) to an inquiry about the upcoming French elections. Happening History posed the following question to Dr. Delacroix:

I found your post very interesting. One thing I found particularly interesting was your remarks on the French left. Since the presidential election is coming up soon, what do you think would happen to how the financial mess in Europe is being handled if the Socialist candidate were elected considering the major role France plays? How likely do you think it is that Hollande could win?

Dr J’s response deserves to be read by all: Continue reading →

Media Idiocy Elsewhere: Some Encouraging Observations

Jacques Delacroix Culture, Current Events , ,

Whenever I despair, or more likely, when I become annoyed, because of the lack of criticality our mass media exhibit, I watch something in French or in Spanish. Then, I come out feeling better about criticality and attentiveness in America. In brief, others routinely do worse.

I have written before about this French documentary series I watch often. It’s called “Thalassa.” It’s about the ocean, in a broad sense, including tropical islands, exotic and ingenuous fishing techniques, and beautiful corners of Europe, even of France, that few know about. Thalassa is served in installments that are two hours long and it’s been on about forty weeks each year since 1975 (1975, not a typo). Both the facts of the long duration of each show and of the long duration of the series itself are evidence of success, I think. I mean success by French television standards. As usual, I want to protect myself against the accusation of taking milk from kindergartners.

Well, the last time, I watched Thalassa, the series,  it included twin reports about China-Taiwan and mainland China, the latter technically know as the People’s Republic of China. To explain the split between the two Chinas, the narrative declared that the Chinese Communists had “won the election” in 1949. Correspondingly, according to Thalassa, the official name of mainland China is “The Popular Republic of China.” Yep, I guess it’s popular enough! If you don’t find it popular and you say so, you end up in jail.

The writer of the narrative and the narrator are both idiots. This could happen here, though I think it’s less likely. What I believe is that a successful, important American television series would be edited by responsible people with an ounce of general knowledge, that it would not be left to children or to high-school dropouts. (Here, I am exercising the benefit of doubt. If one checked the French narrators’ and writers ‘ credentials, it might well turn out that they are all graduates of he best French institutes of higher education.) Continue reading →

Communist Dinosaurs

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

I watch a French two-and-a-half-hour weekly television show that’s pretty good in most respects. It mixes no- hold-barred interviews of politicians with talks with movie directors, authors and artists, including singers.  There is a presidential election beginning in France too. It relies on an an incomplete primary system. To make a long story short, anyone with a grievance or an idea who can get 500 signatures of I don’t know whom can run. That makes for a lively and exotic first round of  balloting. In the second round, things get serious. In any case, this time, there is an explicitly “communist” candidate (Trotskyst branch). She runs for an organization that calls itself “Workers’ Struggle” (Lutte ouvriere).

It’s not clear what her party considers as “workers” but from the candidate’s choice of examples of struggle in her interview last night, there is a strong preference for conventional blue-collar and pink-collar workers. Of course, manufacturing jobs are vanishing from France as they have been doing here. People employed in manufacturing are becoming accordingly scarcer. Bad strategic bet that, defining yourself as a workers’ party when you also define workers that way, (going away, going away, gone!).

The “communist” candidate discourse is loud as it is transparent. Let me summarize: Continue reading →

Links From Around the Consortium

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Economics, History, Links , , , , , , , , , ,

Brian Gothberg’s piece on whaling and property rights deserves another look, as he channels Nobel laureate Ronald Coase:

According to a simple version of the Coase (1960) theorem, if the costs of transacting were very low, it would not much matter for the allocation of resources how stock rights were initially assigned. Trading ensures that rights would be put to their highest-valued uses, whatever they might be. If particular whales have more value as a source of pizza toppings than as the subject of a tourist?s photo session, whale-watching companies would be encouraged to sell any rights that they might have to whalers. If, on the other hand, particular whales have great value simply as magnificent creatures whose existence is to be nurtured and cherished, conservation groups would tend to end up with the rights to those whales.

Reality is not always simple, however. Transaction costs are sometimes high. In particular, there is a free-rider problem […]

Co-editor Fred Foldvary opines on how deregulation hurts the economy.  This is perhaps the best piece I have found on regulation and its effects on the economy at large.

I found this piece by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on President Martin van Buren, whom he calls the ‘American Gladstone’.  If you’re itching for some historical information on one of the American republic’s little known presidents, I recommend you grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.

And, not to be outdone, Jacques Delacroix asks if the French have it better.  He is specifically referring to the debt-to-GDP ratios of France and the U.S.  The whole thing is good throughout, more so because Delacroix professes to hate the French.