The new globalized aristocracy

From Le Monde: The Question of the Emergence of a "New Globalized Aristocracy" -- by Eric Le Boucher

Was Lionel Jospin correct to denounce "a new dominant caste," "an aristocracy" that "emerges from an implicit alliance between the heads of large companies, financiers, senior industrial and service sector executives, certain senior bureaucrats and privileged media personalities?"

This group, he writes in his last book ( Le monde comme je le vois [The World as I See it ], Gallimard) "enjoins other social categories to make sacrifices in the name of global competition or of economic equilibrium, but does not itself consent to any effort or renunciation and doesn't even conceive that such a thing could be possible." The former bourgeoisie was patriotic, sometimes nationalistic and, in France at any rate, protectionist. The new caste considers itself international, even transnational. The national economic space is not its natural reference. On the contrary, it marries the universe and ideology of capitalist globalization since that is what provides the justification for its existence and its demands."

Scandalous Privileges

Lionel Jospin adds that "returning [this caste] to a better idea of its own social utility and national duties is an urgent necessity for the equilibrium of our society, so great is the anger in our country that its behavior and scandalous privileges have begun to provoke." The former Prime Minister does not say how he intends to bring this about.

The accusation is creating controversy. For some, it smells of populism and, had Mr. Jospin not gone on in the next chapter to reject opposing the people and the elites, one could easily believe he had given in to that facile temptation. For others, it seems obvious that Mr. Jospin is correct and that the globalized elite has divorced its native lands.

What should we think about all this? Let's first note that Lionel Jospin uses words (aristocracy, caste) to please the most traditional Socialist electorate. I don't know whether he's aiming for the 2007 election, but the political maneuver is obvious. This chapter, moreover, is related to a book in which the former Prime Minister denounces the by-products of Liberalism and rejects "any social-Liberal synthesis." Lionel Jospin, like other leaders of his party, plays the hard Socialist; he flirts with the Socialist Party's militant base, the very left ideas of which are familiar. Therefore: down with the new aristos!

A Half-Million Euros

But is his analysis correct? Yes. Yes, some leaders and senior executives have divorced their nations. Yes, their future is in globalization. Yes, business lawyers, bankers, senior executives of multinational groups - it's not only the CEOs of CAC 40 [the French Fortune 500] who earn a half million Euros a year. To talk about the emergence of this group is, in fact, a banality: the "nomads" presaged by Jacques Attali have interests that diverge from those of the less well-trained, less mobile people whom capitalism no longer needs, but who remain stuck in the national clay. The gifted are in demand, the others abandoned. Skill, will, and ability are better and even much better paid than before. We are living through a great victory of meritocracy over equalitarianism.

Then one would counter Lionel Jospin with the argument that intelligence or gifts are not transmitted to one's children and therefore we cannot talk about an aristocracy.

Yet the former Prime Minister sees things as they are. For one of the strong characteristics of modern capitalism is that "the winner takes all." We see it in all domains and at all levels: only the "good" - those the system judges good - succeed, and they are few. They are, moreover, immediately replaceable, which increases their desire to get rich quickly. Hence the straight line increase in CEO salaries, like those of football stars.

Inequalities that had stabilized during the "glorious thirties" are increasing very rapidly in the United States. The richest 5% acquire the major share of family income growth. Here's the radical novelty: redistribution, which was the transmission mechanism of Fordian capitalism, has lost much of its importance in today's capitalism. "Integrating the lower classes is no longer necessary; the elites function all on their own," economist Daniel Cohen summarizes.

Now - and that's another novelty - the power of money is beginning to create a dynastic effect. "Education has become a relatively rare resource, cheap labor an ever more abundant resource. Access to education is becoming a fundamental determinant of inequalities," explains Harvard professor Jacques Mistral. He continues: in the United States "the rate of university attendance by students from low income families remains low and does not correct the inequalities of the initial situation." Selection by money begins to replace selection by talent and we may fear the birth of a true aristocracy.

France does not escape this issue: parents from the upper classes send, or dream of having the means to send, their children to English or American universities because French universities have become hallways of the unemployment office.

Demagoguery

A new elite then, with aristocratic tendencies. But for all that, is it antipatriotic, as Mr. Jospin says, or clearly anti-French? No doubt that's where his analysis gets lost in demagoguery. Is Bill Gates anti-American? Richard Branson anti-British? No. And the CEOs of the CAC 40 are not anti-French either.

Only, here's the thing: the French among this global elite fulminate against the political class and its immobility. They're not against the government, they're more inclined to favor it, but they are against its ineffectiveness. When a country declines, the rich have the reflexes of the bourgeois comprador (to place their interests elsewhere). It's not very moral. But it is, as Lionel Jospin admits, economically rational. Keeping them will no longer depend on taxes or sabre-rattling (to which Dominique de Villepin - who essentially thinks like his predecessor - has resorted). It begins by the re-establishment of a useful government and by a university that must be able to keep its "best" students.