(Published in L'express of the 14th May 2024)
Don’t you get the impression that we seem to be in a bit of a heyday for “welfarism” populists, of such populist demagoguery rooted perhaps in economic disappointment, policy failures, and disruptive social changes This has lowered the legitimacy of the serious political parties and politicians( the ecologists, the left , the more technical ones...) and raised that of populist demagogues. This is impacting on the nature our politics and rendering our economy more fragile in the long term .
But in the short term -it is the ends that justify the means- this competitive welfarism is shaping our democracy, is it for the better or worse ?
The incumbent is already on the way out , the tide is turning and it is running out of “welfarism” munitions and now it is more interested in “démonter” its adversaries; but it still has an ace card ;it has reserved its last-ditch desperate measures in the forthcoming budget , supplemented by the usual crooked political manoeuvres and calculations driven by one instinct: regime survival.
The other one , the mainstream opposition, seems to be in the making ; it is of a different texture perhaps but it is turning out that it is abjectly trying to don the same political clothes of populist demagogues proffering simplistic solutions to complex socioeconomic situations as reflected in some of the 20 key measures announced.
To stay credible, they will have to convince us on the implementation plan , the proper costing of these measures , the accompanying reforms (if any) , the impact on growth, on the budget and debt levels, on inflation….
Yes , they will have to convince us that it is not another non-stop flow of populist fare served in generous doses to lull the short-sighted and the gullible , another wave of competitive welfarism trumping economic logic and short-term spending shading productive investment and sustainable growth
Otherwise , they would have failed in convincing the many still uncommitted voters that they have a constructive vision for the future and that it will not be a lose-lose election for the latter as long as they are the choices.
They should not be treating our voters so nonchalantly. It is true that the voters, both young and old, may be giving more weight to competitive welfarism than to other pressing issues but an increasing number of them are equally concerned about” le vrai changement”. They are expecting our politicians to be serious about a bold reform agenda for a new/better economic and political system that would secure fairer outcomes and less drastic future changes .
But with the projected decline in the workforce and an increase in dependency ratio, the increase in voters-pleasing wastage of tax money will pose fiscal risks, crowd out other priority expenditures and saddled future generations with elevated debt levels and high inflation . Sooner or later, we will have to confront the hard choices that we have not prepared ourselves for.
