The reactionary rictus: Macron's deformation of social insurance

 Paul Quinio's editorial in Liberation about the collapse of the debate on the "deform" of the social insurance system in France revolves around a reference to an apocryphal phrase of Churchill's: that democracy is the worst system of government, except any other. That quip has always been a conditional surrender of an essentially reactionary stance, according Capital and the established power the lion's share of the discursive wealth of the nation - as well as the real wealth - and calling it democracy. France has never submitted to this kind of thing. The strike, the demonstration, all are not dead in France.

Macron viewed his larger task one of "normalizing" France - a nice little Thatcherization with some euphemism liberalism thrown in, like "apologizing" for colonialsm (while of course keeping French troops in Africa whenever the cause arises). The "reform"/deform of the social insurance system was key to Macron's larger cause. Quinio is entirely right about Macron's ultimate responsibility for the further decline of "democracy":

"But we must observe that the Chief of State has forgotten that the French, in barring the route to the extreme right, have in the second round of the presidential shown proof of their political maturity. Since, Emmanuel Macron has made a show of having been elected "normally" on his program (the reform of the retirement system) or his person. To this political maturity he has only responded with contempt for a non-neglible part of his electorate. To turn his back on the spirit of his election (and the promises of his second round campaign) is all the more an error in that he doesn't have, politically, the means, sitting as he does on a relative majority. That he enfeebles his majority, that he enfeebles he himself isn't really the important thing. But that, by his choice, he has raised up the French against each other, at the risk of further fragilizing the machinery of democracy that permitted him to fill his place, is much more serious."

I don't think Macron gives a shit for democracy, and so I am not totally in accord with this editorial, that credits Macron and the majority with good faith. This rhetorical assumption of good faith, which journalists, washed in the neoliberal waters, bring to the powerful seems to fight the forces arrayed against democracy on the worst terrain possible. However, it is true that Macron has exacerbated a division, a fracture, in France that is symbolized by the very deformation of the system he is trying to put through - a deformation that will make the lives of the upper class that much more cossetted and the lives of the rest that more ugly. Financially, the reform is judged not by a market standard - by that standard, the interest on French bonds shows that there is no crisis - but on a fictional-symbolic standard - it is the crisis of tomorrow that requires this action now. Interestingly, other crises of tomorrow - for instance, a climate change that might well wipe out French agriculture, decimate the rivers, and destroy the lifestyles of the majority - are to be approached petit a petit, until, alas, we all have to adopt to the Sahara-fication of the world.

The crisis of the tomorrow is here today: an out of control oligarchy, a muffled health crisis due to despair, a disenfranchised (politically and economically) youth, and an establishment that considers rules are for others. Myself, I see no way that Macron's "reforms", which will most likely be voted in by the Senate, will last past Macron's tenure. The deformed system will be so swollen with exceptions it will be a joke. Although: it was always meant to be a joke. On the principle that he who laughs last laughs best. That is what reactionary culture and politics amounts to.