ismael chang ghalimi

Libéralité, Équité, Solidarité

Every nation is built upon some kind of social mythology that defines a value system and gives people something to live for. France is no exception to the rule, and our seminal event was the taking of the Bastille. For all its romantic appeal, I still have a hard time decoding the value system that came out of it eventually. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité is engraved on the entrance of most public buildings, but is hardly something that a whole country can put to use. Liberté (Freedom) is a given, but is such an abstract and open-ended concept that it does not provide much of a guideline for action. Égalité (Equality), taken in its pure mathematical sense — don’t forget that France is first and foremost the country of Descartes — is so totalitarian that it undermines any individual initiative from the start, while making no distinction between equality of rights, equality of duties, and equality of dues. Finally, Fraternité (Brotherhood) sounds almost naïve when applied at the level of a whole country. How could I really consider myself a brother of over 60 million people?

Today, I witnessed the tensions that are created by a value system that cannot support the society that created it anymore. I was having dinner at the restaurant Les Éditeurs, a stone’s throw away from La Sorbonne. Demonstrators were fighting against the police, urging the Government to drop its proposal for more flexible labor laws that would help reduce unemployment for the younger part of the population. While the proposed law itself is far from being perfect, it looks to me as something that most French people would benefit from, but our love story with an utopian vision that very few can legitimately promote is preventing us from considering such an evolution. We French people love revolutions, our collective memory is built upon them, and nothing will change in the aging country of Général de Gaulle until we get to the next one.

I am not much of a revolutionary myself, and will always favor dialogue over violence. I also believe that evolution lends itself to better long-term results, for it creates less stigma. Therefore, I would like to propose an evolution to our founding ontology: To Liberté, I would substitue Libéralité (Liberality), which is a neologism that I would put halfway between Liberté and Libéralisme (Liberalism), the later having too bad of connotation in France today to be used in any meaningful way. To Égalité, I would substitute Équité (Fairness), which is much more pragmatic and tolerant to the very concept of diversity that makes life interesting in the first place. And to Fraternité, I would substitude Solidarité, which should serve as a foundation for any social welfare system. Libéralité, Équité, Solidarité could serve as a program to lead fundamental transformations within today’s French society, taking the best of its heritage while helping preserve its relevance within a world that is not waiting for the French to undergo its own transformations. This program also transcends the Left-Right political fraction that has proven to be utterly inoperative over the past twenty years. Instead, it brings together democrats and liberals into a new deal that will need the contributions of many to build. Granted, such a program does not have the romantic appeal of the original one, but if more people can better relate to it and turn it into actions that will foster unilateral progress, I just like it better.

Do you have plans to apply to the French presidential elections next year? If so, you may want to write your program in French and tweak it a little bit. Indeed, I am not sure you will be very successful with a program that would alienate many:

The Academicians, who never granted you the authority to create new words such as “libéralité”. The Anarchists and most of the left wing, who will find the word “équité’” way too snobish. The Monarchists and most of the right wing, who will find the word “solidarité’” way too common. The rest of the French people (that have not yet left the country and would not fall into any of the other categories), who will just find your program as yet another attempt of the American imperialism to attack universal values that only the French can really understand.

In other words, your program is just too good to be true.

I recently re-discovered that a popular French comedian (Coluche) had a more pragmatic program: “Liberté, Égalité, Merde”. This gave him high hopes for the presidentials, until he got convinced — by the French intelligence services, some people say — to reconsider his motivation and finally decided to go back to real politics: comedy.

Vive la France, Vive la Republique!

Jacques-Alexandre,

No worries, I have no political aspirations whatsoever. I am just an observer. But you’re right, such a program would be quickly dismissed by most political clans, right off the bat. What interests me is how such a generic program could be received by the ordinary citizen, irrespectively of any political or ideological affiliations.

As for the French translation, I’ll work on it over the week-end.

The word “Libéralité” exists in French, it means “a gift”. In fact, the original meaning of these words is more libertarian than egalitarist as some think nowadays.

The fundation of these words are in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789. In this Declaration, the words Freedom and Property are linked as in classical liberalism philosophy. Same for “equality”, which appears in the first article of the declaration. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” This is equality in rights.

During the second part of 19’s, marxists and socialists changed the meaning of these words. “Liberty” became liberty of doing what you want, regardless of others. “Equality” became equality in result, so everyone must have the same amount of property than others. “Equality” became the fundation of egalitarism. Therefore, current social values of France don’t come from 1789, but from the meaning shift made by socialists during the second part of the 19’s. It’s very clear that current French social values are rooted in Marxism.

Everyone wants money from the State. There are always demonstrations for something or something else. The use of violence by the demonstrators is tolerated by the people. Personal success is suspicious, business is necessary evil. employers are exploiters, etc… Labor relations are completely managed by five trade unions, which are a legal cartel of employee representation (very democratic, isn’t it ?). Only 7% of all workers (including public workers, who make the most part of trade unions) are members of these trade unions, but they get most of their ressources from the State. Student unions (also paid by the State) are a kind of school for future trade unioners. That’s why they make violent demonstrations. It’s a kind of practice of their future work. If you listen to student union leaders in the media, they only speak about workers exploitation, immoral business profits, etc…

In fact, most French people have marxist ontology in their mind. With this kind of social values, it’s logical that some people don’t want any kind of flexibility in labor relations. Everyone continues to think that they can have a job for their entire life. That’s why 70% of students want to become public workers. So, it is not difficult to understand why France is declining.

Note: Liberalism in America doesn’t have the same meaning as “Libéralisme” in French. American “Liberalism” is more like social-democratism. That is why liberals in the European meaning changed their name to “Libertarian”.

How does the statue of Liberality look like?

I would think it would look like Hermes.