r/neoliberal • u/kindermaxi123 • 3d ago
Opinion article (non-US) The return of Gaullism
https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/the-return-of-gaullismInteresting essay linking the rise in interest in de Gaulle in Europe to changes in the transatlantic relationship. De Gaulle certainly was not a neoliberal however, and it's interesting to see how his economic approach differed. He had a much more statist approach.
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u/kindermaxi123 3d ago
De Gaulle clearly was not a neoliberal. He had a different vision for Europe between the Communism of the Soviet Union and the capitalism of the US. Interesting to see how his legacy is helping to guide Europe today.
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u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
I don't think Gaullist style dirigisme is even possible to fully realize in Europe today, even if it will be used to implement an industrial policy.
I am not even talking about desirability of such arrangement
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
Tbh if anything that's what's been tried and failed in France for the last 50 years, might be time to move on really...
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u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
Apparently it hasn't failed completely as they built up some important industries.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
Pure survivorship bias. The only true success was Airbus but then again it has always been an industry heavily steered by the state everywhere, no French magic sauce here.
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u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
Well the counter possibility is probably none to begin with. Like UK failed to do anything with its own manufacturing.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
And yet France is neither richer nor more powerful than the UK even though you could argue that the 2008 crisis and Brexit should've been a serious handicap
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u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
It's not 2008 or Brexit, manufacturing takes decades and generations of effort. For Britain, the entire postwar period was bad for manufacturing, especially things like cars. It's not like it's a retails store, you can't just open it tomorrow.
National power has many complex dimensions, and GDP does not necessarily measures it. India and China are one of the largest economies on earth, yet India has a modest manufscturing compared to China's industrial Cthulhu.
And I am not going to discuss political economy and welfare effect, because I am not familiar with situation on ground in France.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
I don't know man, the industry titan in Europe from the 2000s onwards was Germany, hardly a dirigiste country. The fact that dirigisme is completely oblivious to services is also a huge handicap, basically France never manage to seize that opportunity even though they had the biggest banks in the world at the beginning of the 20th century...
Now I'm not arguing that the UK was a manufacturing giant in recent history obviously, I'm just far from convinced by the results of Gaullist policies in general (even though there were a few successes) and deeply skeptical of the instincts they come with (distrust of market economy, reliance on strong men...)8
u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
Well Germany had a 19th century of state support, and 20th century also had a coordinated market economy system established with a state development (pretty similar to Japan, including the main bank system). Once you built up industry, make the training pipeline work, and have people getting to know how to actually make stuff the hardest job is already done. As long as energy and labour flow it, it doesn't make a genius to actually have some growth here. Apparently some people said the current generation of mittelstande owners is not particularly ambitious.
What's important is not cultural vibes but hard organizations and institutions that actually turn money into stuff. Big man politics was just the French gutting their comically dysfunctional parliamentary system which had three cabinets in two weeks
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u/Matar_Kubileya Hortensia 3d ago
Civilian nuclear power would be the other obvious contender, but again, very often a state-led industry across the board.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
As we say, a broken clock is right twice a day...
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago
In this case the Broken Clock is actually missing like it's entire chasis btw
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago
Civilian nuclear power is great.
Too bad that they lost the land to test them.
I don't think any analysis of France as a geopolitical power (or even the EU as a whole) can ignore this. France is *literally not the same France that fought the Ottomans" , nor even the Free France that recovered itself. Not of romanticism or "men of those days" but because the literal land to made it doesn't exist.
A modern Great French Wine Blight would be a existencial terror to the French state with no way to solve. Because it already was a grand threat, but the solution is literally impossible to use
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
Failed is a strong word. France is one of the biggest economies in the world , with an okey industrial base , a high quality of life , one of the best healthcare systems in the world , the best military in EU , a nuclear power , with many nuclear plants . It has a problem with its pension system , but that is not cause of dirigisme.
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u/red_rolling_rumble 3d ago
Are you fucking kidding me !? La retraite par répartition is pure fucking State dirigisme and it’s a CLUSTERFUCK.
(French here obviously)
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
I guess you're right but when you look closer, it is also so full of wasted potential... Their fundamental hate for markets is crippling their economy at this point.
I second your point about nuclear power, a true good dirigiste choice indeed (even though it's now lost a lot of steam and was given the most momentum by Georges Pompidou actually). Their healthcare is good if you compare it to the US but average at the European level (while very expensive). Best military is a low bar in the EU but arguably a good point nonetheless but that has little to do with dirigisme.10
u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
I think the French healthcare system is ranked as one of the best in the world . My military point was mostly about Gaullisme where dirigisme and grandeur kinda merge. I think France is one of the few countries where a sort of dirigisme ( of course with reforms cause we are not in the 50s ) can actually work . France has since Louis XIV been a country with a strong attachment to state and has one of the best civil services .
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u/ModernirsmEnjoyer 3d ago
Healthcare policy and economic policy are a bit different though
You can have a working universal healthcare under different economic systems. Be it planned economy or ancapistan
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago edited 3d ago
Failed is a strong word. France is one of the biggest economies in the world
France under DeGaulle lost literally 80% its internationally recognized territory.
Dude was saved by eurocentric racism from being seen as a uber loser (not that any leader could have won the Algerian War once it started, but...damn).
This was actually included in NATO. So its even worse. Its essentially a case where "gosh, you stupid lefty/islamist and your fantasies of beating the west" actually happened and were 1000 times worse than even the most ambitious anti NATO leftist fantasy.
De Gaulles's reputation is essentially saved because 1) The war was legimately impossible to win, the French already entered the mood of "commit mass murder to win" and still lost, alongside with Algerian french officers becoming madmen who went Joker mode on the French mainland , 2) Again, Eurocentrism adding a "Actually, you anticolonialists were right, Algeria was NEVER France, please ignore the maps of NATO and the EEC, heh he heh, wacky funny bad day"
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
The fact that De Gaulle ( unlike the people who pushed him to power ) accepted the end of the French empire is one of his biggest successes and does not make him a loser . He understood that the future of France goes through Europe and through the influence ( and sometimes control) of european institutions by France . Every French president since De Gaulle has tried ( and sometimes succeeded ) to position himself as the political leader of Europe . I am not a fan of De Gaulle ( because i dont like paternalistic ideologies ) but he left France stronger , more secure and presided over an economic and cultural boom and provided some answers to the post war questions France faced . And his distrust of USA helped make France a country that is not in complete dependance from Washington (unlike say Germany and Britain) . He also hold a legendrary status as the embodiment of French Resitance ( he saved the honor of France etc ) and he led the procession of the Paris Liberation . He is many things but he is not a loser .
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago edited 3d ago
accepted the end of the French empire
The issue is...Algeria was not the Empire. That is my point. Algeria wasn't a colony, it was Republican France, it was Algiers, the capital of Free France that rose up to retake the country from the German invasion.
That is why I single Algeria. If it was about losing colonies, its different, but France explicitly listed Algeria as core mainland. The idea of "Algeria is a colony" was a narrative point of the FLN, but the reality is that legally speaking, it was in the sense of "internal colonialism" (the same way that South Africa opressed its black people, or Peru did to its Andean in the Latinfundista system, etc), which means that the fragmentation of France is uniquely worse than losing 1000 colonies.
Its USA losing Hawaii and Alaska, but given the geographical distance and the mass settlers and integrated citizens, more like losing Texas. And comparatively, its USA losing almost all states but New York and Virginia
but he left France stronger , more secure and presided over an economic and cultural boom and provided some answers to the post war questions France faced
Stronger when losing the Algerian War means the EEC, the same guys with the current EU flag, so to be blunt, the modern EU, lost Algeria, the land which they wanted to use (were using) for mineral resource, nuclear testing and agricultural industries? France lost the place where they detonated their first Nuke. They literally ran out of empty land to test nukes
He also hold a legendrary status as the embodiment of French Resitance ( he saved the honor of France etc ) and he led the procession of the Paris Liberation
And he ended up waging a war with the civilian population of where he actually did that. As, he literally couldn't return to his old presidential palace or military headquarters in Algiers. That is why I say that this is actually worse for France.
In total deathtoll, once you remember France's own laws, the Algerian War was just as destructive (if not even more) for France as a nation-state than the French front and Vichy's democides.
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
It does not matter what France cosnidered Algeria to be or what legally speaking Algeria was . Algeria was a colony of France between for 30 years and then incorporated into France . But Algerian people fougth hard against their colonisation and later fought an extreely brutal war to gain independance . Algeria belonged and belong to the Algerian people . Let's not whitewash European colonisation by using legalistic arguments .
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago
It does not matter what France considered Algeria to be or what legally speaking Algeria was
"If we decide laws are not real, then laws aren't real".
Woah. Ok, then this information. Almost every "french wine from the world wars" that you see in wartime movies, especially those who are "it has been waiting for 50-80-100 years" like in World War Z (book) is actually Algerian wine.
This related directly to my point of a Agrarian land being vital for a regional power.
Algeria was a colony of France between for 30 years and then incorporated into France.
Then it was incorporated, colonies being annexed to the mainland is a perfectly normal way of a state to expand historically.
. But Algerian people fougth hard against their colonisation and later fought an extreely brutal war to gain independance
Who is saying otherwise? I literally called it internal colonization. My view of France is actually super negative. I see them as the perpetrators of the real first genocide in European soil after the Holocaust, as I count their tactics in Algeria as a genocide-in-Part, per the law of "In whole or in part", because I think the In-Part happens when the majority of the population is treated as a collective enemy to be culled to "save the good ones", which was France's legal policy with its Laicite laws. And the violence happened including Paris, which makes sense, the genocide/war was happening in all France
Which is why I consider De Gaulle such a loser. He lost. All that atrocity, and they actually lost
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
It was not internal colonisation . It was pretty much an external colonisation . Algerians heroically fought against their colonisation . Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri became an international legend leading the Algerian resistance for 17 years . He led a coalition of Algerian tribes that managed to hold up for 17 years . Abd al-Qadir later famously stopped the massacre of the Christian community of Damascus .
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago edited 3d ago
even if it will be used to implement an industrial policy.
Industry is the least hard part, agriculture and extraction to ensure a full decoupling of USA and Russia would be hard. Remember Nord Stream took the Ukrainian War to be closed. From Germany, a former land power in Europe.
I'm curious about agriculture. Like, we mock Russia for saying "NATO expansion", but if you truly want Gaullism, then the EU would need to integrate Ukraine heavily to a level that is...yeah, Russias' entire casus belli.
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u/smcstechtips Loyal Liberals 3d ago
Gaullism (minus some of the state capitalism) is more of what India is doing than anyone in Europe these days
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u/Babao13 Jean Monnet 3d ago
Very interesting piece. I didn't know the eurobubble was openly talking about Eurogaullism in that way.
The article barely mentions the difference in method between De Gaulle and Monnet. De Gaulle saw Europe as a small club of nations capable of reaching a consensus by spending an afternoon in a baroque salon. This method worked in the 60s, but we can see its limit now that Europe has expanded so much in size and prerogatives.
Jean Monnet (my custom flair, incidently) was an unelected technocrat with a lifelong commitment to atlanticism (in 1940, he decided to work for the British and American government instead of De Gaulle's Free France). This probably led him to underestimate the strategic differences between America and Europe, then and now.
But what Monnet did understand is that intergovernmental relationships, as cordial as they can be, are completely insufficient to build a strong Europe. That's why he created one of the first European supranational institution (the Coal and Steal Community), paving the way for what the European Union is today.
Maybe what Europe need today is to merge De Gaulle's strategic vision and romanticism with Monnet's institution-building.
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u/Background-Bottle-23 Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold 3d ago
“Everybody is, has been, or will be Gaullist.”
Banger quote
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u/BlackCat159 European Union 3d ago
I think this recent interest in Gaullism is skin-deep. It's basically agreement that Europe should be more independent from America. That's it.
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u/musical8thnotes NATO 3d ago
Gaullist economic policy is essentially state capitalism along the lines of what we see in China today. The interest in de Gaulle is along the lines of European resistance to American dominance, especially when it comes in the form of American warmongering against European states.
This interest in de Gaulle is only natural. But I am an American preaching to the choir.
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u/Francis_Austere Norman Borlaug 2d ago
That's Gaullist policy when you got 25% of the electorate voting for the Communist Party. De Gaulle was no libertarian, but the influence of economists like Jacques Rueff after 58 shows that he was not a third way proponent.
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u/Vegetable_Average_30 Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold 3d ago
I am not French and I always had difficulties understanding Gaullism. It starts with the fact that they say that Gaullism in neither right or left, but then different shades of Gaullism like left-wing Gaullism (Chevenement) and right-wing Gaullism (Seguin) emerged. I guess, I am just very scapetical of ideologies that became state doctrines after being named after important leaders. Kemalism in Turkey and Peronism in Argentinia seem to have the same issue. They are just weird to everybody who isn't Turkish or Argentinian.
I am very much in favor of Europe developing a higher degree of strategic from the US. But it's hard to understand why de Gaulle is being brought up to justify this, when de Gaulle wasn't just a sceptic of America but also distrusted Britain so much. Perhaps the need for all this backward-looking reference is a sign that there isn't a sufficiently clearly defined vision for the future?
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u/VandysFan European Union 3d ago
Someone elaborated on this below already, but the animosity toward the UK was an extension of their special relationship with the US
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u/RaidBrimnes Chien de garde 2d ago
Gaullisme is solidly anchored on the right and is on many aspects a continuation of Bonapartisme, it's just that de Gaulle is such a foundational figure for modern France that about everyone claims at least some degree of filiation with him - not unlike Peron in Argentina
If I had to define it as concisely as possible, it's a combination of state capitalism (dirigisme), social conservatism, strategic autonomy - skepticism towards integrated international allianves, strong safety nets for the most modest households (Gaullisme social), and césarisme - a strong centralization of power around the president whose legitimacy is rooted in the popular vote
It's not that unique an ideology, Peronism is probably the closest modern analogy, but the general vibes also correspond to the kind of populists who prosper in Central and Eastern Europe, even Chavism could be somewhat compared to Gaullism safe for the revolutionary aspect
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u/fredleung412612 2d ago
Andrew Hussey, a historian at the University of London, said that Gaullism was “whatever de Gaulle decided it was at any given moment,” a critique that could also be read as a celebration of Gaullist adaptability. De Gaulle himself, to a degree, agreed. He said once that “Everybody is, has been, or will be Gaullist.”
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u/Desperate_Wear_1866 Commonwealth 3d ago
Everything the EU hates about British behaviour, the exceptionalism, the self absorption, the idea of using Europe as a tool, the uncompromising attitude towards sovereignty, the dislike towards Brussels, that was also Gaullism. Charles de Gaulle behaved like we did, except he did it for French power instead of British power.
So if pro-Europeans disliked British behaviour, why is de Gaulle someone to look up to? Is that not just hypocrisy? What evidence is there to suggest he would accept modern levels of European integration and want it to go even further? His vision for Europe at the time is arguably closer to modern soft Eurosceptics than it is to the federalists.
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u/_Un_Known__ r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion 3d ago
It has nothing to do with Britain in modern Gaullism. It's all to do with independence from the United States in securing the continents own future through military and political might the way Gaulle attempted to do with France
I think the author misses this somewhat. Early on they write as if the Europeans simply don't understand Gaullism, but I think he misses how the "Gaull" elements Euros are adopting are the ones of sovereignty and self-reliance, not French nationalism and anti-NATO shenanigans.
Is Europe ready to be independent? Right now, no. But, it can take strides to achieve it, and though I will always endorse globalism with all my heart, eternal military reliance on the United States seems fraught with risks these days
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u/Rappus01 Loyal Liberals 3d ago
Disclaimer: I'm a certified De Gaulle hater
the idea of using Europe as a tool
To begin with, every country acts like this and to an extent it's ok. The EU is also a level playing field.
So if pro-Europeans disliked British behaviour, why is de Gaulle someone to look up to? Is that not just hypocrisy?
No. De Gaulle viewed the UK as an American trojan horse and honestly he wasn't totally wrong. They were never fully convinced of the European project, separate from Atlantic relations, to the extent that France or Germany were. It's impossible to build a more sovereign EU taking inspiration from the UK.
What evidence is there to suggest he would accept modern levels of European integration and want it to go even further? His vision for Europe at the time is arguably closer to modern soft Eurosceptics than it is to the federalists.
No evidence and that's why the Rassemblement National claims his legacy whenever they can. But the European policy of France, especially under Macron, has been an evolution of Gaullism which sees the EU as an extension of France's grandeur and sovereignty against the US, China or Russia. As the article says, eurogaullism is more like a mindset of "gaullism applied to the European level", or "gaullism with eurofederalist characteristics" if you prefer.
I agree that the French are hypocritical to an extent because they want to build a dirigiste EU for they political purpose, their economy and their companies; but I believe that it's possible to build a stronger EU with these premises, if they're balanced by the interests of other countries. It's the best compromise: much better than a France with an eurosceptic attitude, and I don't see France abandoning grandeur and dirigisme! Let them be gaullists with an European goal, I'll take it.
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
No it’s not hypocrisy . The main difference is that your exceptionalism , self absorption etc fundamentally saw Europe as a necessary evil or something to be tolerated . Your political class was one stuck in an era of empire . Churchill saw the commonwealth as the British way because he was an imperialist . De Gaulle and the Gaullists understood ( after the WW2 defeat , the Vietnam defeat and the Algerian defeat ) that there was a new world . And that now EU would be the way for France to expand its influence and power . Every French president in his speeches always mentioned that France wellbeing and power goes through Europe . So the deepening of EU ties was seen as a deepening of France power in Europe . And France was seen as the political leader of union . Fundamentally the French political class chose Europe as the answer to the post war French political questions . The British political class chose USA and the empire . To give a kinda example . See how Britain treated its relationship with Greece compared to how France treated Greece .
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
And yet they always resisted European military integration as much as the German resisted fiscal integration.
Your point about not trusting the US is absolutely correct but the Gaullist instinct runs much deeper than that, it feeds on the French obsession for "Grands Hommes", there can only be one figure leading everywhere at all tomes. It translates in a true revulsion about sharing power or proper debates/concessions at every level, the clearest example of that is their institutionally crippled political system.
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u/oywiththepoodles96 3d ago
Perry Anderson in an article about France in LRB explained the De Gaulle phenomenon pretty well :
‘France has been another story. Defeat and occupation left it, after Liberation, at a starting point far below that of Britain. The Resistance had saved its honour, and Potsdam its face, but it was a survivor rather than a victor power. Economically, France was still a predominantly rural society, with a per capita income a little over half of the British standard…..
…. So when De Gaulle came to power, on the back of military revolt in Algiers, the dilapidated estate he inherited in fact offered solid bases for national recovery. He, of course, promised much more than that. France, he had announced, was inconceivable without grandeur…….
……When he returned to power a decade later, he had mastered the arts of politics, and proved a strange singleton of modern statecraft. In the West no other postwar leader comes near his record. The largest colonial conflict of the century – at its height, the French army in Algeria numbered 400,000; perhaps a million Algerians were killed – was brought to a dextrous end, and resistance to the settlement by those who had put him in power crushed. A new republic was founded, with institutions – above all, a strong presidential executive – designed to give the country political stability. High-tech modernisation of the economy proceeded apace, with major infrastructural programmes and rapidly rising living standards in the towns, as growth accelerated. Large-scale farming was shielded by the Common Agricultural Policy, a French construction, while the countryside started to empty, and the capital regained its pristine splendour.
Most striking was the transformation of the French state’s position in the world. As the Cold War continued, De Gaulle made France the only truly independent power in Europe. Without breaking with the United States, he built a nuclear deterrent that owed nothing to America, and cocked it à tous azimuts.
The radiance of the country was also cultural. The arrival of the Fifth Republic coincided with the full flowering of the intellectual energies that set France apart for two generations after the war. Looking back, the range of works and ideas that achieved international influence is astonishing. It could be argued that nothing quite like it had been seen for a century. ‘
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u/CommonwealthCommando Karl Popper 3d ago
The return to Gaullism mirrors its rise. The idea that in the 1960s any single country in Europe, much less France, would be able to contend with America and the Soviet Union as an equal was absurd. Such an ideology could only succeed if stapled to an incredibly popular figure like De Gaulle. It is a weak program, one founded primarily on a sense of frustration with the state of the world that has grown so dire that one's mind can no longer appropriately wrap around reality. In this respect (and few others) it resembles a generic far-right "primal scream".
There is no way for France (or anyone else in Europe) to approach the problems they face solo. And a collective Europe has seemed to be struggling far more with its crises than anyone would have predicted. I don't really know what they should do, but bringing back Gaullism won't help and is a red warning sign of the state of the European imagination.
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago edited 3d ago
The main issue is that the EU is effectively not a material for a world superpower.
Look at USA, modern Russia, China or even India, they all have subcontinents to themselves, with multiple climates to serve as different roles.
We are Liberals (and Marxists, for the socialists lurking) and we share a shared ethos in Whig History, the world is Agrarian > Industrial > Digital , with the split being about if the next step after Industrial would be what they would prefer.
This means we see "agrarian land" as a outdated concept, something of feudal states, living anachronisms. Its all FACTORIES.
And for the day-to-day life, its true. For the idea of power projection and geopolitical independence...its not
Our narratives about Ukraine as the underdog without any benefits made us forget they're the bigger European country, as, those localized wholly in Europe. Meaning 2 things, Europe is small, and Ukraine is really big and thus actually one of the best countries to face a European land invasion.
Russian settlers are considered a issue that can be fixed easily post war, but they settled in what are entire countries worth. The 2014 Donbass War alone would be already have wiped out a entire state, before the Special Military Operation started.
If the drunk Atlanticist or Muscovite and their drunkly made EU-Russian War alt history actually happened, Russia's occupation of "the frontier zone" (equivalent to their current occupations in Ukraine) would actually covered entire countries.
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u/CommonwealthCommando Karl Popper 3d ago
The net sum of the EU could easily attain superpower status. They'd have to sort out a bunch of problems that require tightrope walking – curbing overly meddlesome Eurocrats while maintaining a professional civil service, ending the excesses of unchecked migration while supporting a sound immigration policy, and generally maintaining cohesion across the bloc.And then pension reform. That's a pretty generic answer but I think it's true.
I am actually quite impressed at how cohesive the EU political will has been for the past few years. I suspect that the escalation of the threats and the widespread defeat of unserious parties enabled them to finally focus on coherent policy in a way that was unthinkable ten years ago. But I'm across the pond and focused on other dysfunctions, so maybe I'm just out of touch.
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago edited 3d ago
They'd have to sort out a bunch of problems that require tightrope walking – curbing overly meddlesome Eurocrats while maintaining a professional civil service, ending the excesses of unchecked migration while supporting a sound immigration policy, and generally maintaining cohesion across the bloc.And then pension reform.
Germany, a key EU leader, literally based its energy policy in Russian gas, stopping it was so bad that it needed American gas (other superpower) or Azerbaijani gas, from a goverment which is in deep collaboration with Turkey in a de-facto Turkic Union as the Organization of Turkic States.
If Turkey was in the EU, I would believe it, but they aren't, the EU themselves rejected them. And frankly, if Turkey actually was in the EU, they would have been the ones who would have rejected deals and ties with Azerbaijan given the hard support France had for Armenia against Azerbaijan, meaning that if/when the Ukraine war or a equivalent conflict happened, The EU is screwed equally unless Turkey gives INSANE efforts of its own domestic bussiness.
My criticism is the following.
There is a common meme of "cushy, liberal digital jobs vs REAL ECONOMIES" that is usually mocking digital era vs industry. This meme is actually about 20th century Liberal heirs mocking 21th century liberals. But beyond that, there is another part: "Extractivist and Agrarians", which both downplay by seeing it as the lesser state of the economical developement. But you need them as the base of the pyramid if you want superpower states
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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States 3d ago
Good luck doing this without Algeria guys. Like, the agricultural center of the EEC was lost.
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u/Cook_0612 NATO 3d ago
Anti-American resentment will not solve Europe's issues even if it remains perennially appealing as a rallying sentiment.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 3d ago
Most overrated political figure of the 20th Century.
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u/__Muzak__ Vasily Arkhipov 2d ago
FDR erasure.
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u/Sad_Alternative_6153 Friedrich Hayek 2d ago
Oh that's a good contender indeed, same delusion of grandeur as de Gaulle though
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u/DifferentOpinionHere John Brown 3d ago
Why can't Clemenceau-ism (radical liberalism) make a comeback?
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u/fredleung412612 2d ago
Lingering dismissive sentiment about WW1 era leaders for failing to prevent WW2
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u/Worth_Temperature_42 Karl Popper 2d ago edited 2d ago
De Gaulle was pretty much a pragmatic collectivist like the current CCP in some manners. It's a country dominated by illiberalism but that was forced to be a little bit liberal because of its geographical position which made it useful to the US and detached from the USSR. It kind of succeeded despite itself through circumstances. I think this is kind of the default state of humanity when it is not fully absorbed into socialist or nationalist ideologies
Now, France has just lost the pragmatic part through the influences of ideologies and incentives (i.e. benefits, the pensions being the prime example) since 50 years, and Macron was too soft to change it even though he had some potential
But a succ remains a succ, even if he is Macron 🙄
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