A W a l k o v e r t h e P o s t -S o c i a l i s t R u b b l e
Whats the Big Idea?
As Europeans confront the spectacular failure of socialism,
they are frantically searching for a new ideology
that can save them from capitalism.
A nthony
W
H E R E the dream palaces o f so cia list id e o lo
gy used to stand, w ith th eir halls o f m irrors,
banqu eting room s, and w orkers d orm ito ries,
there are now great big sad-looking holes. T hey are partly
filled w ith the tw isted beam s, ru bb le, and debris o f the
old edifices, left by the w reckers ball. T his pitiful clu tter
will alm ost certainly prove quire hard to break down any
finer. T h e rem aining v oid , from the in terstices o f the
debris upward, is now being filled up.
T he filler is a g o o ey , viscous c o n
g lom erate o f disparate elem ents. O ne
day it may harden into a hom ogeneous-
look in g cem cn t and earn a name o f its
own. Early attem pts to hasten this p ro
cess, and to give the filler intellectual
resp ectability by calling it, variously,
the T hird W ay, the post-socialist, p ost
m od ern, o r p o st-ind u strial m odel, the
c arin g , com m u n itarian ord er, o r the
forum over the m arket seem prem a
ture. F o r the tim e bein g no synthesis
has taken place. T he bits and pieces are
still clearly d istin gu ishable and so m e
times even mutually contradictory. This
makes them fascin atin g, thou gh not
necessarily enjoyable, to watch.
( I f all places, the filler con glom erate
is richest in E urope, and now here so much asinFrance.
There the breaking up o f socialist doctrine wreaked much
greater devastation than in the social-science departments
o f A m ericas colleg es, i f only because its past role had
been so much m ore vital. A m erica basically accepts capi
talism , not least because it consid ers it quintessen tially
A m erican. It is no t the principle th a t it q u estio n s, only
the practice. Francc basically rejects capitalism , especially
in principle, the more so as it considers it quintessential!)-
A nglo -Saxo n. But how exactly do you do the rejecting
when you can no longer get reasoned support and spiritu
al nourishm ent from socialism?
Mr. de Jasay is a political theorist living in France, and the
author of The S tate (Blackwells, 1985) and Social Contract,
Free Ride (Oxford, 1989).
32 NATIONAL REVIEW / JULY 29, 1996
de J asay
T h e Fren ch alternative insists th at it has no hangups
abo u t ow nership o f the m eans o f p ro d u c tio n , ch icfiy
because it seeks to reduce its relevance to the vanishing
p oin t. In sharp co n trast to personal p atrim on y the
house, the savings accoun t, the share in uncles farm and
aunts com er shop or sidewalk cafe, which both L eft and
R ig h t hold sacrosanct capital is despised on all sides. It
is tolerated , how ever, because m ore than anyw here else,
capital in F ran ce is rep en tan t, tam e,
su bservien t to the bureaucracy o f the
sta te , c o n cilia to ry tow ard labor. A
h ig h er p ro file w ould n o t fit w hat the
Fren ch like to regard as their sp ecific
system , a model o f socictv no one else
possesses, o r at least n o t to the sam e
exten t. T h e m odel has three principal
featu res: it is te ch n o cra tic , m edieval,
and authoritarian.
T e ch n o cra cy , o f co u rse, goes w ith
the grain o f the French tradition o f the
suprem acy o f the en g in eer over the
m erch an t, the accred ited expert over
the practical man o f affairs. R eplacing
such so cia list c rite ria as class in terest
or histo rical necessity , the French
te ch n o cra t believes that he is guided
by the rules o f reaso n ; he m anages
affairs, deploys resources, and pursues the public interest
where in o th e r cou n tries business leaders pursue p ro fit.
He believes in efficiency in an engineering but not in the
eco n o m ic sense, approves w'hen m ore and b e tte r is
achieved with the same outlay but protests sharply against
achieving the same with less. M uch o f the French opposi
tion to privatization is tech n o cratic, inspired by the fear
that mere considerations o f cost will be allowed to thwart
tech n ical prow ess, and that service will be reduced to
m atch expense to revenue. France has probably the best
railway system in the world, which runs up w hat may be
the high est o p eratin g d eficit and this com b in atio n is
more acceptable in France than it would be anywhere else.
Everybody can see the nice trains, but nobody really sees
the deficit, which is in any case only an accounting fiction,
immaterial as long as it is public, owed to ourselves.
ILLUSTRATION BY BONNIE T. GARDNER
 Salvaged from the ruins o f so cialist th o u g h t, the idea
th a t man and society m ust assert th eir m astery o v er the
blind forces o f the m arket remains central to this new
m o d e l. T h a t the bulk o f the educated classes is at one
w ith the L e ft in h o ld in g th is is n o t s u rp r is in g ; w hat
is m ore strikin g is the strength o f this type o f discourse
o n the R ig h t. F a r-rig h t intellectu als around the C lub
dH orloge, politicians o f the stamp o f Philippe de Villiers,
but also those in the m ainstream c e n te r-R ig h t such as
Philippe Seguin and, when he lets him self g o , President
C h irac, really think that capital should thank its lucky
stars that it is allowed to cam a profit.
U S T as the disdain for profit as the purpose o f enter
J prise is a cross-party phenom enon in France, so is the
medieval notion o f the just pricc, the just reward, and
the right o f everyone to make the same living from doing
the sam e th in g tom orrow that he did yesterday and the
day b efo re th at. C h ange im posed by m arket forces is a
violation o f this right, w hich would be condoned by the
savage liberalism o f A nglo-A m erican laissez-faire, but is
resisted and reversed by French p ost-socialism . T h at the
attem pted remedies against change are worse than the dis
ease, and result in a vicious circle o f self-aggravatin g
unem ploym ent, is alm ost beside the point, and is widely
ignored . T h e im p o rtan t th in g is to recognize the right
once it has been acquired by whatever m eans, and to go
on with the attem pt to protect it.
Since the introd uction by de Gaulle o f the present sys
tem o f com pulsory health insurance, the adm inistration o f
the system s money flows has been entrusted to one o f the
B ig T h ree lab o r un io n s, w hich m odestly calls itse lf
W orkers Force. This is a perk o f great value in cash and
patron age. Last years short-liv ed attem p t by the Juppe
gov ernm ent to reform the health-insu ran ce system and
give the state som e control over its runaway d eficit would
have allowed the Legislative Assembly to wrest the key to
the till from the union bureaucracy. H elped by the C G T ,
the o th e r big radical u n ion , W o rk ers Fo rce stopped all
public transp ort much m ore vital in France than in the
United States m aking the French trudge to w ork for an
excep tion ally cold w in ter m on th. R u b b in g it in, W F 's
boss, M arc R lond el, kept the strike g o in g well after the
governm ent abjectly capitu lated . W ith u n con trolled and
often vicious pick etin g, and w ith the governm ent in the
absurd role o f em ployer elected by its em ployees and
rcvokable by them , this is probably what one should have
expected. W hat was unexpected and striking was the clear
m ajority su p p ort Rlondel and his coh orts g o t from their
victim s, the French pu blic, held hostage by the tw o u n
ions and som e public-service em ployees in their figh t to
p rotect their perks and privileges. The latters acquired
rights were at stake, and true to the medieval sp irit in
which all have their place and all must keep it, the loss o f
these rights could not be condoned.
A cqu ired righ ts that is, advantages o f one so rt o r
another obtained at the expense o f the general public are
a new cornerstone o f the ramparts o f the French m od el,
Frances defense against speculative bond and currency
m arkets, Asian child labor, Am erican trade hegem onism ,
and the ruthless d ictato rsh ip o f supply and dem and.
D uring the 14 years o f M itterrand s presidency, while he
sacrificed one socialist principle and one so cialist leader
after another to his personal aggrand izem ent, his single
yet sufficient excuse was that he was the guardian o f the
peoples acquired rights. F o r th at, lie was forgiven
everything, including scandals and corruption o f a sordid-
ness and R yzantine com p lexity com pared to w hich
W hitew ater is n o t even in kindergarten. T h e prim acy o f
acqu ired rights fits every p o st-so cialist attem p t at
rebuilding an ideology, but it fits the French version bet
ter than m ost: it favors producers over consum ers, insid
ers over outsiders, and surprising as this may be at first
blush the haves over the have-nots.
This great reservoir o f rights is to post-socialism as sur
plus value used to be to socialism , fo r it tacitly implies a
sort o f cornucopia, a widows cruse from which everyone
can take what he thinks is his due, w ithout anybody else
having to g o w ithout as a result.
Th at the have-nots nevertheless get the short end o f the
stick is the great u n m entionable o f the new id eology.
A fter m ore than two hundred separate jo b -cre a tin g
schem es involving tax incentives and subsidies o f all
kinds, F ran ces un em ploym ent rate is over 13 per cen t
and rising steadily in good times and bad. This is a direct
result o f payroll taxes to cov er sickness, old age, and
unem ploym ent insurance that may exceed 6 0 per cent o f
gross pay and that drive a thick wedge between the supply
o f labor and the demand for it. T his the defenders o f the
French model will not admit. They blame chronic unem
ploym ent basically on F ra n ce s and fo r that m atter the
rest o f C ontinental E u ro p es being an island o f fairness
France recognizes the right of
everyone to make the same living
from doing the same thing tomorrow
that he did yesterday
in the cruel sea o f A nglo-A m erican and Asian capitalism .
Any reference to vigorous jo b creation in these mercenary'
and ruthless cou ntries, and to the stagnation o f em p loy
m ent within Fortress Europe, is m et with truculence: We
have few er jo b s bu t ou r jo b s are fit fo r hum an bein gs,
whereas everyone knows that A m erican blacks and T hai
children work fo r next to nothing because their societies
leave them w ithout any protection. In France, all have an
acquired right to a minimum incom e o f $ 4 3 0 a m onth;
this token o f social solidarity proves the strength o f the
m odel. U nem ploym ent is the fault o f o thers follow ing
a less humane one and com peting unfairly.
W hy, then, not pull up the draw bridge and make
F ortress France, o r a Frcn ch-led F o rtress E u ro p e, a fit
place fo r op erating the m od el w ithou t being under
m ined by A m erican and u ltra-liberal influences? E lse
where in Europe, this idea appeals mostly to the political
and intellectual L eft. France is perhaps the only cou ntry
where there is strong, albeit discreet, support for it across
JULY 29, 1996 / NATIONAL REVIEW 33
 the p olitical spectrum . N evertheless, it docs not prevail.
So far, except for a b rie f interval in 1 9 8 1 - 8 3 , it lias c o n
sistently been trumped by an even stronger idea: plain gut
nationalism . This sounds paradoxical, and it is deeply so;
it must briefly be explained.
T h e an ti-cap italist alternative, the idea o f a new
m od el," in the minds o f the French political class is insep
arable from the obsession with greatness; but France has
long ceased to have the resources to be great with. H ence
the support, in some o f the m ost unexpected quarters, for
a united E u ro p e w here o v erb rig h t French ad m in istra
tors sail circles around th eir b u m blin g cou nterp arts in
Brussels, preventing any A tlantic tilt. U nderlying it all is
the core n o tio n o f the brave and brawny G erm an draft
horse, gen tly steered rather than driven by superior
French w it and purpose tow ard a com m o n goal that is
rem iniscent o f Charlem agnes empire if not o f N apoleons
co n tin en tal system . F o r this dream French political
thou ght is ready to accept sacrifices, giving up the c o m
fo rt o f a loose cu rren cy and trade p ro te ctio n , as well as
tem pering the dirigism e that would be congenial both to
French traditions and to the gropings to replace socialist
d o ctrin e with som ething equally unfree. H ow ever, te m
porarily at least, low external barriers and an open econ o
my m ust prevail, fo r G erm any will not accept anything
else, and Germ any must be jollied along, not brow beaten.
H E chem istry o f Germ an political thought today,
T
despite a few affinities, is quite different from the
French . In F ran ce, any sectional advantage o r
privilege acquired since the war is held by ail sides to be a
right; 55 per cent o f national product is spent collectively,
and nobod y believes seriou sly that anything could or
indeed should be done about this. Statism reigns supreme
and resources com e from the w idow s cruse. G erm any,
to o , has a statist and w elfarist trad ition, but it also has a
very Teu tonic sense o f duty, work, and thrift that forbids
b elief in w idow s cruses, and com pels a bitter realization
that in its onward march the welfare state can go over the
brink. F o r the last year o r so, there has been fairly wide
agreem ent that it has reached the brink. O nly the loony
L eft o f Berlin intellectu als denies this altog eth er. The
respectable L eft and the unions are p u ttin g up a fight
against any specific econom y that is proposed, but this is
largely a m atter o f routine politicking. In effect, both Left
and R ight know full well that the dem ocratic welfare state
has its ow n dynam ics w hich, i f left alone, m ust push it
into a zone o f hazard and possible self-destruction. At the
sam e tim e, the R ig h t is no keener than the L eft to roll
back the state. T h ere is virtual consensu s that even if it
could be done it would not be desirable; anything so radi
cal would be socially too disturbing.
W hile there is no G erm an ideology today, there is a
search fo r som e ideological com poun d that would help
reconcile the acknow ledged realities o f scarcity and c o n
flictin g interests with the sweet reasonableness o f social
peace and com m unitarian spirit. W hat is wanted is a suc
cessor to the con cep t o f the social m arket eco n o m y
w hich, for all its being an oxym oron, has served the G er
mans so well but w hich has now reached the term o f its
34 NATIONAL REVIEW / JULY 29, 199 6
useful life. Som e o ther intellectual oxym oron is needed to
provide the unifying form ula in w hich people o f go od
will can profess belief.
W ith the zeal o f co n v erts, G erm ans are now perhaps
m ore firm ly wedded to p olitical d em ocracy than som e
other nations that have had longer practice at it. D em oc
racy, however, works through coalitions m aintaining their
coh esio n and striv in g to recruit allies bv h o n o rin g old
entitlem ents and awarding new ones in com petition with
rival coalitio n s. T h is is the built-in eng in e that pulls the
w elfare state tow ard the brink, and this is w hat a m agic
new form ula must som ehow both stop and not stop.
I t is o f course not an im possible feat to stop your bicy
cle, keep it upright, and not fall o f f if you lean a little and
put one fo o t on the ground; and it is this feat that p o liti
cal thou ght in G erm any seeks to accom plish. T h e side it
leans to is the left, bu t the tilt is slig h t, and the fo o t it
seeks to keep on the ground o f econom ic reality must not
be made to carry to o heavy a weight.
U nlike the French, Germ ans o f all classes and m ost per
suasions do believe that capital has legitim ate rights o f
ow nership and is entitled to earn w hatever p ro fit it law
fully can. In this respect socialist doctrine has never pene
trated very deeply in to G erm an o p in io n . At the same
tim e, G erm ans o f m ost persuasions are egalitarian at
heart, disapprove o f excessiv e d ifferen ces, and would
not undo what is bv international standards a highly pro
gressive tax structure. They think "so cie ty " should lift up
the underprivileged, and the rich should be made to pro
vide society' with the w herewithal to do so. T h e incon
sistency betw een the rich being en titled to make w hat
their property rights perm it, and society being entitled to
take it away from th em , is o f cou rse n o t noticed at the
level o f broad popular op inion. It is, however, felt at the
level where guiding ideological form ulae m ust evolve to
reconcile irreconcilables and make social dem ocracy intel
lectually respectable.
One o f the charms o f John Raw lss Theory o f Justice that
explains its popular success on both sides o f the A tlantic
was the idea o f chain-linkedness. The idea affirms that a
distribution that maxim izes the lot o f the least privileged
docs not in fact do so at the expense o f the m ore p riv i
leged. A ju st d istrib u tio n adm its no inequalities that do
not w ork to the advantage o f the least w ell-off. But as a
m atter o f fact (wc are expected to take this on trust) the
ju st d istrib u tio n generates greater social w illingness to
c o o p e ra te . H ence the m axim um advantage to the least
w e ll-o ff is chain-linked to advantages that accrue to the
better-off, who thus need make no absolute sacrifice, only
a relative one, at the altar o f social justice.
M uch the same idea is m aking the rounds in Germ any
today, and indeed in o th e r European co u n tries w ith a
social-d em o cratic trad itio n , including B ritain . Socialism
was g o in g to exp ro p riate the exp ro p riato rs, recapture
surplus value, and vanquish scarcity. T h a t this was rub
bish is now acknowledged, but this makes the prom ise o f
a new form ula by which we can have our cake and cat it
all the m ore alluring.
T h e germ o f the corresponding new ideology, if it real
ly deserves the nam e, is th a t as the com m u nity tilts its
policies in favor o f labo r, o f the salaried m iddle classes
and all those unable to carry lifes m ajor risks, co o p era
tion becom es m ore willing, m anagem ent gets easier, and
productivity increases. W hat the tilt costs business and
the wealthy in terms o f taxes, wages, benefits, and power-
sharing w ith the unions, it repays them in greater social
stability, safer property rights, and a sm oother fu n ctio n
ing o f the administrative machinery. B oth sides gain from
the bargain. Capital, however, could never reap its gain if
it were n o t fo r the redistributive m easures, the taxes and
regulations seem ingly directed against it. N o single capi
talist can, by fair and carin g treatm ent o f his em ployees,
gain as much from their b etter coop eration as the caring
treatm en t would cost him , for som e o f the gain would
accrue to rival firms and to the com m unity at large, which
would get a free ride out o f his efforts and sacrifices. Only
m andatory fiscal and regulatory measures that all e n te r
prises have to com ply w ith can allow capital as a w hole,
and hence each firm and each ow ner individually, to reap
the net gains o f greater social peace and a m ore prod uc
tive eco n o m y. T h is ju stifies in terv en tio n ist governm ent
and resolves any seem in g co n tra d ic tio n fo r p o st
socialist thou ght must insist through thick and thin that
the con trad ictio n is only apparent betw een the respect
fo r property rights dem anded by a bo u rgeois ord er and
the egalitarian legacy o f socialism that dem ocratic politics
must preserve.
U C H o f this e ffo rt at id eological re co n cilia
M
tion, although it suits the Germ an yearning for
con sen su s, is n o t specifically G erm an. T h e
same ideas are sw irling about w herever social dem ocrats
feel the need to update them selves. E xcep t fo r the co u n
tries, such as F ran ce, Italy , and Spain, w here socialism
was always deeper than social dem ocracy and where there
is now genuine ideological disarray, the whole o f Europe
is speculating abou t som e such painless reconciliation o f
evident co n trad ictio n s. B rita in s N ew L ab ou r has
b ro u g h t it clo sest to everyday reality by basin g on it a
strategy o f return from a quarter-centu ry in the political
wilderness. T ony Blair, the Labour leader, and his pack o f
advertising men and T V producers seek above all to wipe
o u t L a b o u rs old im age as the class party, living o f f the
con flict between us and them . New L abou r is for labor
but also fo r cap ital; it will n ot assert one interest o v er
another bur will bring all interests into harmonv and do it
by less but b e tte r gov ernm ent. T h o u g h no d em ocratic
party w orth its salt can say anything else, N ew L abou r
appears to think that such a synthesis is in fact attainable.
W hile Thatcherite, dry Conservatives used to say that
com panies b elo n g to th eir sh areh o ld ers, and O ld L a
bour held that the com m anding heights o f the econom y
should be in social ow nership, the new political language
speaks about enterprises serving their stakehold ers. In
the capitalist view o f society, the natural conflicts between
capital and labor, consum er and producer, young and old,
blue- and w h ite-co llar, are resolved im personally by a
myriad o f individual choices in free markets. In the social-
Socialism was going to expropriate
the expropriatorsrecapture surplus
value, } and vanquish scarcity. That
this was rubbish is now acknowledged
ist view, they are resolved by the w orkers state. In the
new view w hich senses the un popularity o f the tw o old
o nes, they are not genuine con flicts and need not be
resolved. Som ehow , all interests are com m on interests. As
in ch ain -lin k ed n ess, all gain when one gain s; all hold
stakes in the same endeavor. W hile one part o f this creed
is true but trite, and the o th er part is mushy and cannot
stand up to cold analysis, the whole is nonetheless in ter
esting, for it reveals what will sell.
People clearly do not like to let markets decide. N or do
they like it when the governm ent does, even if it is a gov
ernm ent o f their own choosing. T he idea o f a stakeholder
d em ocracy insinuates that both m arket and gov ernm ent
can som ehow be short-circuited and things will get sorted
o ut am ong ourselves, giving m ore scope than hitherto
to the apple-pie-and-m otherhood values o f today, consul
tation and d ialogu e. R esp o n sibility for w ho gets w hat
seem s, then, to shift to the enterprise as a kind o f stake
holders forum . M anagem ent must cease to be the agent
o f the shareholders. It must becom e an um pire o r, if that
word conjures up the idea o f a con test, rather a S o lo m o n
ic cuttcr-up o f the com m on cake, seeing to it that wages
are fair, prices are neither too high nor to o low, jobs arc
secure, consum ers are protected, the local com m unity gets
its share, and the environm ent is not forgotten.
D espite the new science o f business e th ics, m anage
m ent is o f course not qualified to play this role, nor can it
play it w ithout betraying the owners mandate. Above all,
the role would con centrate awesom e power in its hands.
Rut it would spoil the sport to spell this out. Stakehold-
ing, like acquired righ ts, the w idow s cru se, the carin g
European m od el, and equality w ith o u t leveling dow n,
may be disparate, shapeless, and even d ow nright phony,
yet these seem to be the only elem ents currently on offer
to fill E uropes ideological void.
F o r it is surely to o m uch to hope that it will n o t be
filled at all.
JULY 29, 1996 / NATIONAL REVIEW 35