Vision of socialism
Rocard's, Michel
The following interview with the Socialist Prime Minister of France has been excerpted from one conducted by Ferdinando Adornato and Gabriele Invernizzi that appeared in Verso it due mila #1: La...
...When, however, one moves to the domain of economic exchanges between men, freedom is called the right to do anything—to trick, to sell below cost, to create economic concentrations . . . and every law, system of justice, or police that intervenes— even if only to control product quality—is decried as state planning, as entry into the gulag...
...Translated from the Italian by JOANNE BARKAN q WINTER • 1991 • 33...
...M.R...
...Underlying the system was the implicit and rather stupid hypothesis that in order to liberate man (who is fundamentally good) from the evils of capitalism, private property...
...and that we'll have more social justice only if we establish better rules for the market...
...M.R...
...Creation...
...M.R...
...At a time when some rationalizations— those that had become perverse—are changing profoundly, if not collapsing, it's necessary to remember that from an ethical point of view, nothing is changed...
...Today we are more victims than masters of the technological leap...
...Does the term "socialist society" still have meaning for you...
...I negotiated peace...
...This idea should induce us to find the solution to every conflict through negotiation and not force...
...Autonomy signifies that in the organization of public power what's needed is a system that permits every decision to be made in the most direct manner possible by those who will implement it and by those who will be affected by it...
...The horrible experiences of this century will leave us more lucid about human beings and their ambivalences...
...F.A...
...All the same, there's no freedom without a market...
...One day I tried to enumerate them, and I counted seven...
...Reaffirming this supremacy today becomes an absolute necessity because in the absence of international law, any state has the right to massacre its own people...
...These seven values I've listed aren't the exclusive property of the West...
...Because it doesn't matter whether the seller is private, cooperative, or nationalized, the market is a constituent element of freedom...
...G.I...
...One might think that democracy is synonymous with freedom, but I want to refer with this word to the content of public power...
...I want to add a point that's very important to me...
...So the bottom line seems positive to you...
...Institutionally, no...
...G.I...
...F.A...
...The first is] freedom...
...that an economy functions only if it's competitive...
...F.A...
...I, for example, no longer believe—if I ever did—in communitarian ideals...
...Value number four, Mr...
...But a society without a market is without freedom...
...Among the one hundred sixty nations sitting in the United Nations, about eighty proclaim themselves socialist...
...In fact, it's necessary to place limits on the market...
...Solidarity—that is, the permanent will of public powers to assure above all else the nonmarginalization of all handicapped, of nature, health, economic development—and then a redistribution of income that takes into account the hierarchy of talents, more tiring types of work, and responsibilities...
...M.R...
...G.I...
...F.A...
...In New Caledonia, the government preceding mine used gunfire...
...I'm convinced, however, that if Note from Eastern Europe "The iron doors of history" give at last And we walk through them from the rigid past, Free...
...G.I...
...we can do anything we choose —Eat at McDonald's, persecute the Jews...
...F.A...
...So today we need a formidable effort of intellectual creation to reinvent a system of government rationalizations that respects all hopes but also accepts the fact that man is not necessarily good, but can be, just as he can be bad...
...And here I include pluralism, representative democracy, and a careful mix of direct democracy (such as referenda and the election of the head of state by citizens) and the indirect democracy of powers delegated to elected assemblies...
...Think of Pol Pot...
...And the third idea...
...There's no civilization without law...
...It's the condition of any lasting economic and social development...
...Here also it's a question of reaffirming that, like the economy, science, too, must be at the service of man, and not vice versa...
...We're at number seven, the last...
...G.I...
...In short, I don't believe in a reawakening of communism...
...By definition...
...I can only say that human beings don't live without hopes and therefore there's a need for utopia...
...But I don't think our Western societies— which were so afraid of collectivism and feel they've saved themselves from penury and the gulag thanks to market forces—are ready to reflect on this subject...
...Now we're at five...
...M.R...
...and then a system of rationalizations based on these values, that is, social prescriptions for the conduct of public action...
...This is true both in the automation of work—which is done brutally without taking into account the central idea of man—and in the field of biological experimentation...
...And also that the control of decisions be from below and not just from above...
...and they go from Albania to Sweden, taking in China, the Soviet Union, and Francois Mitterrand's France along the way...
...On the economic level, autonomy means struggle against monopolies and concentration, but this struggle can begin inside enterprises—with the discovery by workers that the valuation of an individual is not determined by salary and duties alone, but also by winning an area of responsibility...
...G.I...
...M.R...
...And what do you put in sixth place...
...Rocard...
...F.A...
...F.A...
...Perhaps new collective ideas will be found—I even think they're close at hand—but with the condition that they be better adapted to the circumstances of man as he is...
...The opposite has been proven true...
...profit, and competition, all that was needed was a political power not tied to those things...
...M.R...
...When speaking of civil liberties, no one imagines that included among them is the freedom to kill or to steal...
...F.A...
...Or do you think that it can be rewritten...
...Democracy...
...THOM GUNN Reprinted, with permission, from Three Penny Review, Spring 1990...
...Today the end of this system of perverse rationalizations leaves the majority of left activists in the world without an identity—without that socialist identity based more on the rationalizations than on the initial values...
...G.I...
...Before thinking about bottom lines, it's necessary to examine the second meaning of the word "left" —what I call the system of rationalizations of left values...
...and consequently one accepts the idea that there's no freedom without laws, a system of justice, police...
...free...
...32 • DISSENT Reports from Abroad money continues to be an exclusive point of reference, it will definitively corrupt these societies...
...M.R...
...So what's to be done...
...G.I...
...But doesn't the market amplify— one might object—all inequalities...
...The concept of the supremacy of law also holds for the economy...
...Do we stop here...
...M.R...
...Destruction or creation...
...It's good for socialist discourse to make this truth its own...
...I add that democracy is not a luxury reserved for rich countries...
...It's too soon...
...And the second...
...What are the key ideas that can guide the left of the 1990s...
...The word "left" evokes two categories at the same time: aspirations, points of reference, ethical values...
...To come and go, to express one's own opinions, to join a union or a party, and so on—but also the freedom to buy and sell what one wants...
...I would call it domination of technologies...
...What has the word "left" meant for the twentieth century...
...The third idea is autonomy—in the sense of self-management and decentralization...
...For this reason, autonomy is tied to the idea of self-management and decentralization...
...The supremacy of law...
...In the relations between man, matter, and life, the products of scientific research have progressed much faster than philosophical inquiry...
...One day, we must confront this problem seriously...
...Peace...
...F.A...
...When transferred to the level of social organization, they're also the most effective means to assure the development of the Third World...
...Even today, whoever says "left" is saying "the will to change, more justice, more equality, more democracy, more pluralism...
...G.I...
...F.A...
...I think rather that the intellectual work to elaborate the rules of a new public power that wants to assure more equality and less arbitrariness in a society where competition isn't negated—this will be the great challenge of the century's end...
...The following interview with the Socialist Prime Minister of France has been excerpted from one conducted by Ferdinando Adornato and Gabriele Invernizzi that appeared in Verso it due mila #1: La nuova civilta (supplement to L'Espresso, March 18, 1990...
...M.R...
...G.I...
...F.A...
...Always...
...I firmly believe this, and I've demonstrated it...
...But with the historical crisis of the communist systems, doesn't the utopian notion of new relations of equality and justice between men WINTER • 1991 • 31 Reports from Abroad also disappear...
...M.R...
...G.I...
...On the ideological level, I've already told you what I think...
...F.A...
...And here I'd like to underscore the great intellectual swindle I mentioned earlier...
...M.R...
...We must invent an international law that's also applicable to the economy...
...G.I...
...Today what a soccer player or television star earns provokes disorder and instills money values throughout society...
Vol. 38 • January 1991 • No. 1
