Free Culture
Etienne Chouard
10 reasons to leave the European Union
Part 1
The European Constitution, the third part of it, and all of this had been written in a treaty
without constituent assembly… The European Constitution,
the third part of it, imposed a form of politics, the liberal politics.
It took us most part of the debates, however, it seems to me that in the first part of it,
there were things much worse. So my point is to sum up with you,
maybe quite quickly so that it’s not… so that it’s not boring
10 key points that seem to me absolutely revolting ,
that citizens should know of, which are part of the European Institutions,
institutions that have been written without our agreement, have not been debated with our consultation
and in the end, when we were consulted, and said no,
they were however imposed on us through the Parliament,
with the Treaty of Lisbon.
It seems to me rather important that the citizens should know,
That among the thousands of articles of these Institutions, there are things against their own interest.
The first point is that the European Institutions,
And that’s in the first part, doom us to massive unemployment.
1 - The European Union encourages massive unemployment.
Of course it’s not written this way, of course in the European institutions,
it is not said “The Institutions warrant that unemployment rate will be high.”
If it were written like this, we would have had revolutions… No, it’s more wicked:
in the first part, an independent central bank is planned,
having therefore no orders to receive from the people you’ve elected,
you can vote for the extremes, the left wing, the right wing or the centrists, whoever you want
the central bank is no longer accountable to the people you elect
either in your country, or in Europe,
and, which goes together with this point is that this bank’s mission, its one and only mission, its priority,
THE European Central Bank’s mission is to fight inflation.
Now, all the bankers in the world know that to fight inflation, to turn this into a priority
will end up in unemployment of the most disadvantaged people, the weakest ones.
Well, there are lots of books on this topic,
Still there are two that are particularly worth knowing:
A first book by Fitoussi, published in 2005, I think, yes that’s it January 2005.
So this book was published during the campaign, it’s called: “The politics of powerlessness”.
This book… So that you know, Fitoussi is not at all a revolutionary person
he’s very, very moderate, balanced. He’s an interesting economist
and he’s the one who uses these words, saying:
“All the bankers in the world know that, when they follow one goal,
which is to fight inflation, it ends up in unemployment.”
When Fitoussi says that, I think we could say it in a way even more radical
and more virulent and more outraged.
How do we know… Well, by what mechanisms the fight against inflation
results in unemployment and vice versa?
Well, you have to know that economists are at war with each other on this topic.
We also have to understand why they are at war
And who the economists are.
So, I begin with what seems most important to me,
In the economists’ thought, one of them called Phillips established, through observation
(he didn’t explain why it is like that),
But based on the statistics of one century he noticed that the inflation periods
Were periods of low unemployment rate and vice versa.
Actually, Phillips noticed this on the wages and other economists after him
Established the link between the wages and inflation and in the end, the combination of their works,
Made it clear that figures of the statistics of one century show that
When you have a high unemployment rate, you have a low inflation rate,
And when you have a high inflation rate, you have a low unemployment rate.
After that, to understand the reason why is a huge debate among economists.
There are some people, who disagree on the mechanisms,
But, you know, it’s an empirical truth: we do notice that
Fighting against unemployment will increase the wages and so will inflation.
Well, we can understand, there are some mechanisms quite simple:
When there is a low unemployment rate, when you are sure you’ll find a job,
If you lose your job, you’re going to find another one,
You’re going to be more demanding when you have another job
And ask for your wages, because you have… because you’re not in a precarious situation,
You are not afraid for your job,
You know that you’re going to find another one, there are jobs for everybody
You will be demanding when asking for your wages. And the firms impact the wages,
which are costs for them, they impact them on the prices.
So there is actually a logic, quite simple, and surely quite strong.
It’s not the only mechanism but it’s one of them that we have to know.
On the contrary, a high unemployment rate enables the employers to impose low wages
Because as people are afraid for their job, they are not demanding,
they are more submitted and there is less pressure on the wages,
so there is less pressure on the costs, so it enables the employers
to go on making high benefits without their having to pay high wages.
So Friedman and a bunch of economists that we can define as prostituted,
I think that, generally speaking, the economists have a prostituted thought,
it’s a harsh attack, sure, but I think it’s so obvious,
that it’s however difficult to question this,
we can’t say that all of them are prostituted,
there are economists, few, that are humanist, honest, resisting
and not prostituted, not corrupted by the richest people
but the main reason why the economist were born was
to make durable the domination of the richest people,
to justify and legitimate,
make natural, as if it was a unquestionable and natural fact,
“let’s talk about something else now”, the domination of the richest people.
Ricardo was the son of a banker, himself involved in the financial business and he protected,
with his economic theory, the interests of the class he belonged to.
So the economists, for example Friedman,
contest the correlation there is, as reversed proportions,
between inflation and unemployment saying : “Not at all…
there were a few years in the 70’s, when the correlation
was not noticed. And they took this variation in the statistics
as a pretext to argue that the principle was not right,
when actually you could as well say that the principle is right,
most of the time because most of the time when you fight against unemployment
will end up in inflation and if this inflation goes on will make the unemployment rate decrease.
We can say it in other words: this principle is most of the time witnessed,
and indeed in the 70’s it was not, certainly for reasons
that are still to determine, other reasons that were stronger,
in this couple of years , than the general principle, but which are
no reason enough to declare Phillips’ work null.
So the little book I suggest you read, written by Liêm Hoang-Ngoc,
hard to pronounce and to remember but he’s a good economist,
a young man who’s made an absolutely remarkable work on other topics as well,
this book’s called “The fabulous destiny of the Phillips’ curve”.
This is a good little book, which is useful to remind people of Phillips’ work,
and it shows the ideological fight,
cause it’s damn important for the employers to prevent being said
that we have to chose between inflation and unemployment
and that in the end the society’s choice for the economy is inflation
or unemployment, because what they want is unemployment.
They know it’s linked but they cannot admit it, that inflation gnaws their gold pile I mean,
whereas as for the workers and the firms…
Workers are not bothered by inflation.
If you have an indexation… Maurice Allais, Nobel Prize in Economy
stands for the idea of the general indexation of the wages, the rents, the loans on the inflation,
so that nobody is put at a disadvantage,
so that the unit of monetary measure is not variable
Let’s imagine that a mile would constantly change its length,
It would be very complicated to measure anything.
In the same way, a currency must have a stable value
In order for the actors to have points of reference that can be trusted.
So in a general indexation background
if wages fluctuate together with the inflation, you don’t have anything to fear from inflation,
you have a shield protecting you against inflation.
And if the rent are indexed on the inflation, the landlords
renting their buildings are protected against inflation.
So in the end who does inflation put at a disadvantage?
People who have cash, people who have a lot of money,
in particular people who have huge amounts of fiduciary money.
This money loses value, dramatically.
If you have between 10% and 15% of inflation, these people,
and there are so few of them,
there are very few people who have lots of cash, to the point
they really worry about it, very few people.
So shall these people…
these people’s interests be given priority on general interest ?
It seems to me the answer is no. A bit of inflation, a general indexation so
in the end everyday people are protected against inflation,
if this makes it possible to fight unemployment and to give everyone a job,
well, listen, it’s a society’s choice, which, at least,
could be the object of a public debate. We could discuss it.
Well no, the European Union decided for you,
you didn’t have your say in the matter: in 1957 was established,
with the Treaty of Rome, a system,
that was very cleverly done because during the first years,
for 20 years actually, the Treaty of Rome was not enforced.
It was established but not enforced. So people,
in the beginning had been very suspicious. Mendès France stormed against it, sayting:
“This is not good at all, we are going to lose our sovereign power.
We have many things to lose with this treaty.” And then, years going by,
and nothing changing: we were protectionist, nationalist,
we had control on our currency,
in the end this treaty didn’t make any difference in our lives.
there was a control of trade and exchange, we had our currency,
there was no free trade. This treaty established things that were not enforced
We let it go, we lowered our guard.
We were not suspicious and in the 80’s, without breathing a word of it,
to us, they enforced the Treaty of Rome,
they started to implement it. They started to implement free trade,
to liberalize the capital, the capital movements,
to authorize the free establishment of any firm anywhere,
in any State, thus authorizing, they authorized
the competition of all against all.
And we were asleep, we had lowered our guard
and every time brave militants were protesting
they were answered back: “Come on
you’re protesting against something that was written in 1957!”
That is very clever. Very clever indeed. To implement a system step by step,
gradually, people don’t see anything, well yes they see but you know…
It’s not important enough to rebel against it. And eventually
you have an awful machine that has been established,
and that has been established at the highest level of law, constitutional law,
and even on the international level, with treaties that are not revisable,
unless there is a unanimity, and the more we are,
the more unanimity becomes a block, the total impossibility
to change anything. And that’s where we are. Because we are 27 and the unanimity at 27…
we will never be able to change anything to these treaties anymore.
So, to get back to what I said in the beginning, the first point, loathsome point,
truly loathsome, really a reason to revolt, to start a revolution!
is the institutionalization of unemployment,
the constitutional obligation, the condemnation to massive unemployment.
I do think it is very serious!
The monetary politics is able to influence the relation between inflation and unemployment,
playing on the interest rates and the creation of money.
The choice that has been made by the oligarchs is massive unemployment
and the less inflation possible, which goes together. And they didn’t tell you
“massive unemployment” they told you “less inflation possible”,
saying it is to protect the weakest. Bullshit!
It’s not to protect the weakest it’s to protect the richest