A macroeconomist by training and graduate of the Strasbourg Faculty of Economics and Management, Erwann Tison is the director of studies of the Sapiens Institute think tank. In 2020 he published
A robot in my car: let's not miss the revolution of autonomous transport
at
MA Éditions.
Faced with the uncertainties of a constantly changing world, it is good to cling to unshakeable benchmarks. Among these immovable buoys, the recurrence of our tax creation figures in a good position. Whatever developments we will face in the coming years, it is reassuring to say that French genius in this area will continue to ensure constant production. Latest creation to date, the announcement by the President of the Republic of a contribution of 3% on sales of second-hand books. A decision that could provoke a grin, because it comes a few hours after the call to
“very strongly relaunch the reading initiative”
and to make it a
“daily ritual for young people”
and contradicting the government's desire not to increase the taxes. Above all, it is an illustration of the aporia of the executive in matters of economic policy.
With a size of 350 million euros, the second-hand book market has shown growth of 30% over the last five years, a sign of its dynamism and the existence of a growing demand for these exchanges. The former economics student that I am, remembers taking advantage of the book grants organized by the local student association, allowing access to essential textbooks by Mankiw, Blanchard, Varian, or Piller for only 10% of the sale price in bookstore. A virtuous circular and social mechanism whose success is now whetting Bercy's fiscal appetite.
The symptom of this rejection of the long term in our political life, shared by all parties, is undoubtedly the absence of impact studies of public action.
Erwann Tison
Without falling into the caricature of a power serving lobbies, it is clear that for forty years the demands of the long term have had little weight compared to the imperative of the present. Political personnel are prisoners of the dictatorship of the immediate, summoned to respond to a specific problem instantly, without being able to take the time to reflect and evaluate. Any request for delay is seen as a mark of weakness, incompetence or even powerlessness. However, in politics, this triptych is often synonymous with electoral disqualification.
In a recent column, the economist Emmanuel Combe showed how the theory of public choice applied to politics explained why the public debt would never be absorbed. In short, the elected official in constant search of votes has no interest in making unpopular decisions, even if they are beneficial for the future of his country. Rather, he is incentivized to respond to what he believes to be voters' immediate demand to secure their vote. A phenomenon that could be called the Schröder jurisprudence. The former German chancellor chose in 2005 to carry out unpopular but necessary reforms, costing him his re-election. In doing so, he nevertheless offered twenty years of economic prosperity to his country.
The symptom of this rejection of the long term in our political life, shared by all parties, is undoubtedly the absence of impact studies of public action. There is a strong appetite for announcing surprising measures, but devoid of ex-ante evaluation. This allows their authors to secure a prominent place in the news of the day, but does not constitute a structuring long-term policy for the nation. This is how we end up with measures that were popular at the time of their announcement but harmful in the long term, such as retirement at 60, the closure of Fessenheim, the shutdown of Superphénix, the uniform implementation of 35 hours, the ban on phytosanitary products essential for agriculture, the abolition of the housing tax, the obligation to sell electric cars from 2035, or even more recently the announcement of the establishment of prices floors in our agriculture.
This escalation of fiscal and regulatory measures, which is added to absurd subsidies such as the patching bonus or the wood check, are all decisions which end up weakening public speech, pointing to the total decorrelation between political posturing and concrete results for the daily life of the French. Worse still, in the period of near budgetary panic that we are experiencing, the primacy of certain sectional interests over the construction of tomorrow - illustrated by the 14 billion euros of revaluation of retirement pensions on the one hand and the reduction in allocated credits to training and the search for the other - feeds a powerful resentment which questions the balance and justice of public action and its capacity to think about the future of a country beyond the next election.
This contribution on second-hand books is not so trivial. It reflects the deep evils of our political life, steeped in contradictory injunctions, where seduction is more important than evaluation, and where improving a popularity rating takes precedence over structuring the future of a nation.