Nicolas Bouzou: "Misery of economic nationalism"

How to be against a policy that promotes Made in France and consume it local?In this unprecedented period of radical uncertainty, simple and reassuring slogans make a recipe.Economic nationalism that would like us to produce and consume French is more than ever fashionable.However, I would like to put this enthusiasm into this contribution by mobilizing four arguments: 1/ This nationalism is part of an intellectual tradition of which it was widely demonstrated that it was false.2/ The French economy suffers less from a lack of competitiveness than productivity.3/ Made in France is a concept that is weakly operational for economic policy.4/ The cost efficiency ratio of relocation policies is certainly unfavorable.Global investment and industrialization policies are preferable.

Mercantilism

Cound circuits, demondialization, made in France...All these concepts are supposed to restore the same movement our independence, our prosperity and our environment of yesteryear, decarbarrow and without pollution.The reference to the 1960s is regularly highlighted, symptomatic of cognitive biases which consists in seeing the past with pink glasses.It is to be wondered why the world had, to COVVI 19, the desire to develop international trade.Those who, 10, 20 or 30 years ago, praised demondialization, are now presented as visionaries who were right before the others.These "visionaries" are however part of a well-known and very old intellectual filiation: that of mercantistic economists, a parentage which brings us back to the 15th century, that is to say in the Middle Ages of economic reflection.Economists of that time considered that economic impulse should come from an interventionist state which encouraged exports and taxed imports.Economic policy aimed at the accumulation of gold reserves.This policy confused inflation and wealth, the prosperity of the state and that of the people, war and trade.It placed countries in a situation of systematic competition and fueled conflicts by making any international cooperation impossible.Mercantilism, in contradiction with the idea, certainly naive and not always proven, of the "sweet trade" of Montesquieu, was conflicting in the sense that he considered international trade as a zero -sum game and drawn up the nations againstothers.It is spicy to note that the current defenders of this policy drapes under a veil of virtue while the policy they promote is brutal or even reactionary.Contemporary mercantilism is green to give itself intellectually more modern and politically more presentable but it is not much more elaborate than 5 centuries ago.With mercantilist doctrines, the classic analyzes that have been emphasized, with Adam Smith then David Ricardo, on the end of the 18th century, on gains from international trade.This idea, which always makes sense today, is that the exchange between countries, as between individuals, is most often advantageous for both parties.For mercantilists, the economy aims to enrich the state.For classic liberals, it aims to enrich the people.Moreover, periods of globalization such as antiquity, the Renaissance, the 19th century or the post-war period are periods of increased income and greater international cooperation.

Competitiveness and productivity

Contemporary obsession for the made in France proceeds from these ancestral mercantilist reflexes and rarely of economic reasoning.Nevertheless, the made in France is not a harmful concept in itself: it can be the base of an offensive and non -defensive policy.The French trade deficit can be considered a problem insofar as it reflects insufficient production compared to our public and private expenses.It is in this sense that we can say that France lives above its means.Still, you have to agree on a precise diagnosis so as not to make economic policy errors.Thus, export and import statistics are to be handled with caution due to the phenomenon of re -exports.In France where the distribution of companies is extended to both ends (there are many very small businesses and multinationals), many industries import intermediary goods that they refer abroad in the form of semi-finished or finished goods.In addition, an aggressive strategy for reducing wage costs to find competitiveness no longer makes sense today, unlike the situation that prevailed 10 years ago.Different devices, at the forefront of which the Credit Competitiveness tax jobs (the CICE, established in 2013), allowed France to significantly reduce its production costs and to realign them with our partners.The available economic literature suggests that our difficulties in export come from today from a productivity deficit than competitiveness-hobs or competitiveness-prix.The solution to the absorption of trade deficit is not found in the erection of Maginot lines but in the increase in the productivity of our businesses and the quality of our productions.As such, an adequate economic policy for France is not mercantilist.It is not a question of being an interventionist, protectionist or of subsidizing the all-round foreign trade but of taking the pretext of the current crisis to fill the colossal delay that we have accumulated by underinvesting in digital, robotics, the'Artificial intelligence and 3D printers.This is what the government plan France is releasing with my sense with a lot of relevance.The crisis, which highlighted with cruelty the Sino-American hyper-domination in the production of these new technologies, also recalled that our businesses and our public sector did not use them enough.Telework has been made difficult by insufficient technological conditions.The transmission of files between city medicine and hospital has been hampered by the obsolescence of information circuits.As for the Stopcovid application, it has unfortunately been underused due to ambient technophobia and fears about the use of private data by American companies.We hardly produce these new technologies.Do we at least apply them more.

The made in France: a bad compass

INSEE, in a 2019 study on 2015 figures, stressed the difficulty in concretely using the concept of product made in France, for three reasons.First reason: there is no real product made in France.This concept is an abstraction, a model.All our consumer goods are made of assembly.We can therefore calculate the Made in France content of a product, but this content is necessarily less than 100% (and in practice often much lower).Second reason: Made in France is often the prerogative of foreign companies.The economist Emmanuel Combe quotes the example of the Toyota Yaris, whose content in French components is high, even though it is a Japanese automobile.Should we encourage French products produced by foreign companies?Isn't patriotism rather to defend companies with French capital, wherever they produce?Nationalisms are not easy to reconcile...Third reason: despite the injunctions, the French consume very few products made in France.Obviously, the services consumed by the French are produced on the national territory.It is rare that we go to the hairdresser abroad.But just over a third of the consumption of manufactured products is made in France.The economic patriotism of consumers is therefore relative.

The cost of relocation

Economic nationalism has found a recent outlet in the desire to "relocate" parts of the industrial value chain located abroad.Technological developments have made these relocations possible at a cost sometimes compatible with the capacity of consumers to pay.The progress of digital, robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printer technologies generate decreasing economies of scale and production costs, while minimizing the share of labor in analytical accountingfactories.Admittedly, the required investments are heavy, but they can be amortized.In this technological context, the competitiveness of a production unit comes more from the technology than it incorporates than labor costs or the flexibility of labor law.All policies that are favorable to industrial investment are therefore favorable to relocations and developed countries, with high labor costs, have a card to play.

But be careful not to make a mistake of politics and not to expect relocations too much.Already, it is the investment of companies that must be subsidized, and not the act of relocation in itself.Then, a report of France Strategy in March 2016 had stressed that the aid for relocations had given almost nothing in France.Finally, the relocations, even sustainable, will create little jobs.According to economic literature, relocations have been responsible for 5 to 10% of job losses in recent decades, which is low.In addition, the gains in relocation jobs are lower than the loss of employment passed due to the automation.Relocizations can therefore have interest when technology allows or when an imperative of national sovereignty requires it, but their spectrum as their economic impact is necessarily limited.A policy of attractiveness of capital and/or an industrialization policy present a much higher efficiency ratio, in particular on employment.

Conclusion: France can flourish in globalization

A narrowing of our economic horizon would result in greater equality in greater poverty (without ecological gain today documented).France deserves better.A good industrial policy, it is not that which dictates their conduct to companies, which narrows their geographic spectrum (or that of consumers).It is a policy that supports them: public procurement, research and development assistance, vocational training, facilities to develop new sites, financial aid for investments, reduction in production taxes.Europe, State, Region: everyone has a role to play and all these levels must coordinate their actions.It is this coordination that works well in Germany.Reindustrialize France is to make it more independent.It is economic power that brings sovereignty, where sovereignist ideas or, worse, nationalists, bring the weakening.

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This article is extracted from "T" La Revue de la Tribune - n ° 2 - Fabricate (all) French?The new dream of France - December 2020 - Discover the paper version

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