Thinking
I've
been reading a book by the American economist J K Galbraith on what
he calls «innocent fraud» (The Economics Of……..), some of it as
he himself admits not quite so innocent. What he means by this term
is a deception achieved because people believe something that
«everyone knows» but which is not actually true or, at least, has
no substantive evidence behind it. Two examples he picks are the
separation between the private and public sectors and the location of
bureaucracy.
He
argues very persuasively that the public and private sectors are so
intertwined that it is almost impossible in most cases to separate
them. The general perception is that public expenditure leads to
debt (bad) and private expenditure leads to profit (good). But the
US defence budget, about the largest single budget in the US, is
purely public expenditure and effectively subsidises a great deal of
American industry (in a country that cherishes the idea that private
enterprises should never be subsidised). This very point, indeed,
has been a bone of contention in US-Europe co-operation talks.
In the
other example he suggests that bureaucracy is frowned upon by
everyone and associated with civil servants and the public sector, as
against private enterprise. Yet he demonstrates that the very large,
private sector, international companies that now collectively have
more power than most governments and effectively rule the world are
nothing but bureaucracies and, indeed, act as such.
I love
all this, the exposing of all those unquestioned and mistaken
assumptions; assumptions which, importantly, enable those able to
understand and willing to exploit them to create «innocent frauds».
French
Nationality
My
friends Steve and Jo have achieved French nationality and invited me
to accompany them to their formal acceptance ceremony in Valence. I
was quite impressed with the ceremony. The ceremony started with a
short film on what it meant to be French, then there as a short
speech by the sub-Prefect for the Department in which we live and
finally a photo session, each of the new French nationals being
photographed with the sub-Prefect. The French generally love
speeches, or rather perhaps dignitaries of all sorts love making
them, and I had been in dread of interminable speeches by numerous
dignitaries. Such was not the case; the whole ceremony took about an
hour, followed by drinks and cakes and………...documents.
Steve
and Jo received in their welcoming pack the “livret de famille”
that every French family has plus new birth and marriage
certificates. Not only born again but also married again! As an
official had said to Steve when he and Jo first arrived in France and
were completing some early formalities “Now you have a file; in
France, if you don't have a file you don't exist”. I know that
France is much larger geographically than the UK but where on earth
do they store all the documentation and how on earth do they ever
reference and find it if they ever need to?
One
thing that was said in the ceremony particularly caught my attention
and pleased me. “You should be proud to be French, just as France
is proud to welcome you”. A country that is proud to welcome
immigrants must be good news.
