The New Watchdogs Page #5

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of a multinational company, Bongrain,

around 25,000.

Michel Godet earns

about 150,000 euros per year.

Bravo, Michel.

150,000 euros...

About ten times

the minimum legal wage.

You can get a PDF of my lecture.

A wage which Michel Godet

thinks is too high.

Michel Godet,

you think we should dare

to lower the minimum legal wage?

Logically, yes.

If we can't touch

the labor unions' privileges,

then we can't adjust

the minimum wage,

although in an increasingly

global market, it kills jobs

because the worldwide cost

of unskilled labor keeps falling.

Michel Godet is typical

of the 30-odd experts

who dominate the media.

Like him,

nearly all of the m

are board members of big companies,

they work with banks

and advise investment companies.

But the se activities

are never mentioned.

When the media invite them,

it is always due

to their academic credentials.

Why do the mass media

keep so quiet about the collusions,

which I call "dangerous liaisons",

between their regular guest economists

and the business world?

The general public,

radio listeners and TV watchers

would regard a brilliant

academic economist very differently

if they knew that this economist

is paid handsomely by banks,

insurance firms, and private companies

to sit on their boards

at the heart of decision-making.

Elie Cohen,

thank you for coming.

You're a research director

and economics professor...

I don't see how anyone can claim

to be intellectually independent

while being deeply embedded

in the world of business.

Nowadays, we consider

that if an expert is a member

of the Food Safety Agency

and also on the board

of a big agribusiness company,

there's conflict of interest.

I think everyone agrees on that.

Why doesn't the same criticism apply

to economists who are paid by banks,

insurance companies and big businesses

to increase their profits and interests?

Isn't that a conflict of interest?

Professor Jean-Herv Lorenzi.

These people say,

"We're intellectually independent"

but we can't believe them.

It may be hard to believe

that the se experts are unbiased,

but it's easy to guess

where they dine

once a month.

Freelance economist

Freelance economists

Freelance economist

Very tangibly, their job

is to promote,

including in the mainstream media

which they virtually monopolize,

the prevailing economic dogma

that is capitalism.

For the past thirty years,

a debate has raged between

worshippers of market forces...

and worshippers of market forces.

I'm delighted to see the revival

of the idea of enterprise,

profit and the market.

I'm thrilled to hear Alain Minc say it.

That's good, is it?

And new?

The market has always existed

but we couldn't boast about it.

We couldn't boast and now we can?

If you want a longer,

more comfortable life,

which most people on this planet want,

history shows that capitalism works.

What is a financial market?

As I say in my book,

it's rather like a farmers' market.

Some people bring melons,

others bring chickens,

and they trade melons for chickens.

Christian de Boissieu,

thank you for coming.

Speaking of Christmas shopping,

what about financial products?

If there's a glut of chickens

and too few melons,

the melon grower wins out.

Are the Socialists reformists?

Yes, at long last!

The wording isn't fixed

but it's there in writing.

The Socialist Party

is in the market, in globalization.

To regulate and improve it, of course!

Not endure it.

But it's in there, between

social democracy and social liberalism.

For the past 3,000 years,

the market and democracy

have advanced hand in hand.

They are not only compatible,

but mutually beneficial.

Your newspaper, Le Monde,

hasn't changed much in 50 years.

Are we witnessing a revolution?

In the mid-1990s,

the champions of an unfettered market

were happy to welcome

a strong new ally,

the daily newspaper Le Monde.

Headed by a triumvirate

of Jean-Marie Colombani,

Edwy Plenel

and Alain Minc,

the famously independent

French newspaper of record

opened its columns

to experts and journalists

preaching the gospel

of neoliberal economics.

When Le Monde

joins the free market chorus,

it affects the whole media scene.

If Le Monde,

which is often called

"the newspaper of record",

defends the same ideas that Libration

has defended since the 1980s

under Joffrin,

and which the leftist fringe

of Le Figaro also defends,

we obviously get a standardization

of economic opinion.

It's liberalize or die.

Le Monde is still

the paper of record.

It's regarded as such,

even though its editorial line

has changed considerably.

So when those ideas

are spread, proclaimed,

and upheld with almost militant fervor

by the newspaper of record,

the y're legitimized.

In a second section of the paper,

we aim to repair

another of our weaknesses,

this time in the field of business news.

As you know, the strategies of large

industrial and banking groups nowadays

are at least as influential

as public spending.

We want to keep up in that area,

so business, financial and market news

will have a central place in the paper.

They want to convert society

to a new way of living together,

a new form of economic and social life.

But basically, society refuses it.

For very good reasons.

It has everything to lose.

It's plain and simple.

As the foreseeable resistance

took shape,

persuasion and conviction

had to be deployed

in equal measure.

It was time to start teaching.

"We haven't been good enough teachers.

We need to explain."

As the media started teaching,

some journalists discovered

a priestly vocation

for educating the masses.

Perhaps this country needs to be taught.

Workers, employers,

politicians and the media too,

at our own humble level,

must all do a better job

of explaining the complex choices...

In news-speak,

"Explaining the complex choices"

is a fancy way of explaining

the need for reform.

The word "reform"

is now on everyone's lips.

Good evening!

Why can't we reform in France

when everyone else is doing it?

That is our topic tonight.

Can France reform itself?

Can it afford not to

in this globalized era?

How can the French be convinced

of the need for reform?

Do you accept the need for reform?

Why is it so hard

for France to make reforms?

Why doesn't it work here, in France?

People are starting to realize

that growth can't resume

until we give up

some historic privileges.

In the recent past,

we've fallen behind with reforms.

That's what worries me today.

We can't introduce a mass

of painful but necessary reforms.

We're at the end of a cycle.

The end of a system.

People are scared and don't want change.

Have the French become

ultra-conservative overnight?

They say no. They fear change.

It's not just the fear

of losing entitlements,

losing what one has,

it's the fear of any change at all.

Why does public debate

always revolve around concepts

such as "reform", "outdated methods",

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