The French correction

The victory of Socialist French presidential candidate Francois Hollande over the incumbent conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has gotten the talkerati chattering about “what it means”. What’s obvious in the French election results, and those in Greece, is that ordinary people have had a gutsful of the economic “experts” prescribing austerity. This is good.

The current economic consensus throughout the Western world is an inherently neo-conservative (also called “neo-liberal”) one in which governments are expected to cut spending and services that benefit ordinary citizens while also cutting taxes for business and the rich and, voila! neo-conservative magic will make the world wonderful again. One small problem: It’s all a crock.

Those left of centre all know that the proven way to end recession is through targeted government spending to stimulate economic growth and recovery. This has been proven over and over again—which makes the neo-conservative mantra that this has “failed” laughable. Left of centre governments know that it’s foolish and ultimately self-defeating to shove all of the burden in fixing an economy onto the backs of ordinary people.

And yet we have newsmedia around the world—including New Zealand—taking for granted that the extreme and severe austerity measures imposed on Greece are sensible and rational because, in faux basso profundo, there is no alternative. That’s no surprise: They are big corporations, after all.

The fact is, there’s ALWAYS an alternative. Looking after ordinary people first, before the corporate elites, is one of the core responsibilities of government, whether the elites or newsmedia corporations like it or not. Clearly ordinary people are starting to rebel and take back their governments from the hands of the neo-conservatives and corporate elites. C'est bon.