"L'homme n'est ni ange ni bête, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la bête." – Pascal *)


In these hours, the colloquium "Nouveau monde, nouveau capitalisme. Ethique, développement, régulation" (New world, new capitalism. Values, development, regulation) takes place in Paris, hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Among the participants are Tony Blair and Angela Merkel.

Eric Besson, the Secretary of State in charge of Strategic Planning, Public Policy Evaluation and Digital Economy Development, delivered the opening words. On the homepage http://www.colloquenouveaumonde.fr/home/, Besson writes:

"With this crisis, States remembering 1929 terrible consequences have even come to be the insurer of last resort.
In order to learn the lessons thoroughly and re-create the right conditions for a sustainable and solidarity-based growth, we need to gain back trust in capitalism – this is regulation’s purpose - and his core values. Capitalism ought to be this well-acknowledged wealth creation system as well as a humanistic economic, social and organisation, able to create and fairly redistribute wealth while living up to its very principles: freedom and accountability, entrepreneurial risk valuation without sharing mistakes.
This crisis, like any other, could bring change. Time has come to draft a “new capitalism”, more responsible and ethical. Time has come to draw a “new world” of solidarity and multilateralism, where the coordinated economic governance initiated over the last few months will be strengthened and institutionalized.

Combine the epithet "digital economy development" in Besson's title with the expression coordinated economic governance. The result is a vision of a capitalism which is governed with the help of some kind of generalized and "multilateral" digital bookkeeping. Interesting!

But not very promising, at least not with these guys. As long as they cook their magic pudding of atomic bombs (the new warheads and missiles M51 and Trident) and missile defense, their capitalism cannot be much more transparent than the system which has just crashed. It is corrupt at the root, however much Sarkozy may speak of the amorality on financial capitalism (he used this word a while ago). Question to which it is necessary to return: what was said at the colloquium about the tax havens?

To many, including the present writer, one of the main goals of this conference seems to be to pave the way for Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union.
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*) Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast. The French philosopher André Glucksmann referred to this famous dictum by Pascal in his recent opinion about the policy of the Israeli government in Gaza. For Glucksmann, "he who would act the angel", is Hamas; for me, Sarkozy and Blair.