Twenty one French economists stood against the political trend in Europe as their open letter was published in the The Wall Street Journal. This opinion could not have appeared sooner as monetary policy, impulsive bailouts, and woeful prospects plague the European economy. With the election battle between Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Francois Hollande unfolding, these non-partisan economists launched an un-apologetic attack to those that, “think that one man’s life can be improved by robbing another.”
In it, they refute the practicality of finding balance between a quasi-free market system and the continuous expansion of a coercive welfare state that redistributes wealth:
Socialism has never succeeded in its extreme form, communism. As the past several years in Europe have shown, it does not work in its milder form of social democracy either. If European history teaches us anything, it is that prosperity is closely correlated to economic freedom.
Additionally, the observation is made that goods, wealth, and values are the products of man’s mind. Government’s role is not to engineer society but to preserve the ability of men to think rationally and produce:
Growth can not be decreed: It is the result of unpredictable decisions and actions by countless individuals, all capable of effort and imagination. And growth can only come if these countless individuals’ impulses are not paralyzed by regulations, taxes, or dependence on the state. That is the path down which Mr. Hollande’s socialist policies would lead us, with the support of his inevitable Communist and environmentalist allies: A France that can produce nothing but economic stagnation and ever-higher unemployment and poverty, as the debt burden becomes unbearable.
…And they conclude with this–the inescapable nature of reality:
Sadly, whatever happens on Sunday seems unlikely to deliver France from socialism—our choices range from the status quo of a statist right, to the grand visions of a more-statist left. There is only one solution to restore hope to France: Abandon socialism entirely. To let it grip us even more tightly, as Mr. Hollande promises, would be a fatal error.
Here’s hoping statism and socialism will be rejected entirely…before it’s too late.