The French disease
I have just returned from yet another charmed holiday in the post-revolutionary Socialist Republic of France, to see old friends and family. Whatever economic indicators we Anglo-Saxons pour over with glee to prove the imminent demise of of this cocky exception francaise, France remains obstinately seductive, beautiful and elegant.
Before my trip, I had been reading the correspondence of early 19th century French economist and journalist Frederique Bastiat. Even in 1846 he was able to bitterly observe that there was not one French politician in either of their houses of Parliament that believed in, or advocated, free trade. He explained that the French suspicion of la perfide Albion was such that a rumour going around was that if two and two made four in England, it would probably only make three in France. Unsurprisingly, The Economist recently noted, “Nowhere is contempt for free enterprise, and its linked evils of wealth and profits, more intense than in France”.
According to…
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