It’s a cliché brandished even in the palace of the Cannes Film Festival. By receiving her Palme d’Or on Saturday, filmmaker Justine Triet targeted a “neoliberal” government. He would have “shockingly denied” a protest against the pension reform which she presents as “unanimous (sic)“. The director also denounced a “commodification of culture”, as if the laws of supply and demand and the fact that a film meets its audience were the devil incarnate.
In the exciting The neoliberal Scarecrow, a very French evil (PUF), Guillaume Bazot, lecturer in economics and member of the Laboratory of Dionysian Economics at the University of Paris VIII, questions many received ideas associated with the term “neoliberal”, today put to all sauces . According to him, the French data on the evolution of income inequalities, social mobility or the share between labor and capital in no way justify these discourses that smell good of primary anti-capitalism. “To castigate neoliberalism as Justine Triet did makes you pass for a good person, but, in reality, it is a most conventional discourse, which corresponds to the established order”, estimates the economist, who contrasts figures with the words of the director. Interview.
L’Express: In her controversial speech at Cannes, Justine Triet attacked the government, calling it “neoliberal”… Does that seem appropriate to you?
Guillaume Bazot: In her speech, Justine Triet associated the term “neoliberal” with the principle of commodification, considering it to be something bad. But is the market so diabolical? American cinema is very commodified, but I don’t feel it’s worse than French cinema.
Moreover, French cinema receives a lot of subsidies, which are not particularly subject to market rules. The system of intermittent workers, for example, responds much more to a social logic. It’s the opposite of commodification.
Unlike the world of football, for example, that of cinema seems to be dominated much more by nepotism than by market logic, if we consider the high number of “daughters of” or “son of”…
Due to a great subjectivity, it is difficult to evaluate the performance of an actor. It is quite contradictory with a market principle which implies an evaluation. But there is an a posteriori evaluation for a film: the number of admissions. If the “son of” or the “boyfriend of” is bad, the feature film may not make many entries…
But Justine Triet rightly claims the right of films not to be profitable…
At this point, where do we place the cursor? If a film does not need to be profitable, the risk is to only make cinema for oneself, rather than for an audience. It becomes in between. This argument by Justine Triet is therefore quite surprising. I do not criticize the idea that one can take risks to emancipate oneself from a principle of systematic profitability and try new things. But, after a while, you have to find a minimum of your audience. Because, otherwise, the cinema is no more than a patronage.
Beyond Justine Triet, Emmanuel Macron is regularly accused of pursuing a “neoliberal” policy. His generous policy of “whatever the cost”, which has worsened public deficits, would it already be forgotten?
Even if the term “neoliberal” has been conceptualized by certain researchers, it is clear in its use by the general public that it means everything and its opposite. The fact that, in France, the weight of public expenditure reaches 56% of the GDP, a record, in no way prevents criticism against a supposed neoliberalism. Some go so far as to say that “whatever the cost” would have been a neoliberal policy, because it was about aid for companies! Of course, it is not stupid in itself to examine what is meant by “public expenditure”. But, even if we subtract the tax credits, we arrive in France at 50% of the GDP. And, moreover, when you give 1 euro to a company, this does not mean that this euro is paid directly into the pocket of a shareholder.
On the one hand, neoliberalism is thus associated with commodification or competition, but, on the other hand, it can also mean the fact that the State supports companies, which, conversely, is conducive to rents. Emmanuel Macron has even been accused of neoliberalism for his pension reform. If he had instituted capitalization, we would have been able to understand this term. But here, the reform was aimed precisely at saving the pay-as-you-go system.
According to sociologist Dominique Méda, Emmanuel Macron would only follow the “neoliberal doxa” taught at ENA…
Either the students didn’t understand anything, or the teachers were very bad. [Rires.] Because people trained at the ENA are much more likely to think in terms of planning and administration rather than in terms of the market. We have seen it again with the recent report by France Strategy on the ecological transition. Emmanuel Macron was able to believe six years ago that he was going to make France take a liberal turn, but that was not the case. The “whatever it takes” is the reverse of that.
“If we really stopped the capitalist system and abolished private property, the French cultural elites would lose a lot…”
In your book, you oppose figures to these speeches on a supposed neoliberal turn. What do you think are the main takeaways?
It is often repeated that the historic neoliberal turn would have taken place from the years 1980-1990. In this case, one might expect there to be an explosion of inequality, especially after taxes and transfers. But, in France, we see that income inequalities are practically at their lowest level from a historical point of view. It should be remembered that it was in the 1960s that these inequalities reached their maximum level, which calls into question the idealization of the period of the strategist state. The idyllic era of the Glorious Thirties was also marked by the greatest income inequalities.
Another received idea that we often hear: the social elevator is out of order. However, even if France has never shone with its social mobility, the situation is not getting worse. According to INSEE data, 2 out of 5 men did not belong to the same socio-professional category as their father in 2015, compared to 1 out of 3 in 2003 and 1 out of 4 in 1977.
Finally, militant organizations such as Oxfam highlight the fact that capital is increasingly favored over labor in the sharing of added value. But, when we look at the historical data, we see that the dividends paid by the CAC 40 have certainly increased in the 2000s, but that, over the long term, the labor income/capital income ratio is quite stable (around 4 or 5), and has even tended to increase over the past ten years. In international comparison, we are the OECD country with the lowest share of capital. It is therefore difficult to say that France would favor capital at the expense of labour, quite the contrary.
On the other hand, the black point is the inequalities of heritage…
These wealth inequalities have been increasing in all countries since 1990. In France, they are changing more slowly than elsewhere. But they are no higher than in the 1970s, which is not considered to be a particularly neoliberal period.
In any case, wealth inequalities are much more worrying than income inequalities. Personally, I am in favor of a tax on inheritance rights, in order to improve the equality of starting conditions. But the French are overwhelmingly opposed (more than 80%). In people’s minds, this inheritance tax is perceived as a death tax. Instead of being economic, it is unfortunately a terribly moral debate.
Is anti-capitalism rising in French public opinion?
We see anti-capitalist discourse flourishing in the media. In the polls also, the French say they are mostly anti-capitalist. But, at the same time, private property remains a cardinal value for them, as evidenced by their massive opposition to inheritance tax. There is thus a real contradiction between the speeches and the way the French act. Anti-capitalism has become a luxury belief. No one really thinks capitalism is going to stop. Nobody thinks of what a possible stop of capitalism to pass to a collectivist system could imply for its own standard of living, in particular within an intellectual elite which is not particularly poor. If we really stopped the capitalist system and abolished private property, the French cultural elites would lose a lot…
According to you, “denouncing neoliberalism on the cheap”, as Justine Triet did, would in reality have become terribly consensual…
In Cannes, Justine Triet would have been much more surprised if she had held a liberal speech, of the type “we need more liberalism in the cinema”. What is the proof that today liberalism has nothing of “mainstream”. To castigate neoliberalism makes you appear to be a good person, but, in reality, it is the most conventional discourse, which corresponds to the established order.