Is Fascism Making A Comeback?

It was the year 2017. The top 500 wealthiest individuals in France held 20 percent of the nation’s wealth. Don’t cry, it’s not that big a deal: in this country, that’s enough for more than one bottle—even two or three—without even worrying about recycling the glass.

2017 was the year when a sharp decline in standards, stature, and decency paved the way for Emmanuel Macron’s election. This Macron is a real record-breaker—you’ll see.

The downward path had taken a sharp turn in 2007, when Nicolas Sarkozy—a former president now convicted of corruption, a crime, or, in short… a “little sin” that in Chile they modestly refer to as “illegal acts,” or, failing that, ideologically false nonsense—arrived at the Élysée Palace.

Sarkozy was succeeded by the social democrat Hollande, who in turn hatched a nightmare—Macron—who took us—if I may put it that way—as if we were a collective succubus made up of 70 million asses gathered together and ready for action…

So much so that the 500 oligarchs I was telling you about, seven years later, in 2023, owned 45 percent of the national wealth—that’s growth, my dear, you’re making my head spin, as Edith Piaf sang.

Call it what you will—liberalism, private enterprise, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, or even “growth”—the aptly named one—at over 32 percent a year. Give me a break!

Here in Gaul, it’s a free-for-all—they’re really going for it. “Grab it, Aguirre!”—it couldn’t be easier, “the last one’s a faggot,” and all that sort of thing, but in French.

While this accumulation was taking place, dividend payouts were breaking records: 63 billion euros last year, which is well above the European and global averages, even surpassing the U.S.

At the same time, public debt rose from 64.5 percent of GDP in 2007 to 110.6 percent in 2023.

The “subsidies” to private enterprise may have something to do with that: Eric Coquerel, chairman of the National Assembly’s Finance Committee, states that each year the government transfers 211 billion euros to the “long-suffering business owners.”

If you were to think that private wealth is increasing outrageously while the entire nation goes into debt—in other words, that the poverty of the many creates the wealth of the few—you wouldn’t be far from the truth.

It doesn’t escape your keen insight that while a handful of oligarchs increase their share of the pie by such a vast margin, at the same time millions of ordinary folks see theirs shrink in a terrifying way.

The CVA is going to be Credit Valuation Adjustment or the translation in Spanish, "Cómo Voy Ahí?", which translates directly to "What’s in it for me?"

That’s what justifies my concern regarding the CVA. CVA is a euphonious acronym that, in the witty slang of my youth, was used to ask, “And me? How’s it going over there? How much am I going to get? What’s in it for me?”

A legitimate concern that, according to the inventors of the concept, lies at the very foundations of economic science—go figure.

On August 9, Jean-Hervé Lorenzi and Alain Villemeur, economists in the eyes of the Eternal One, made a splash with an article published in *Le Monde* (Paris) in which they announced that they had found the philosopher’s stone: how to distribute the fruits of labor between workers and capital so that we can all live happily ever after. Their tale, worthy of Scheherazade, begins like this:

In 1817, the English economist David Ricardo (1772–1823) had argued that the distribution of income between profit and wages was the main problem of political economy.

I believe that the way the pie has been sliced for centuries is what led Albert Camus to begin his book *The Myth of Sisyphus* with the brief and caustic phrase you know:

There is only one truly serious philosophical question: suicide.

If Lorenzi and Villemeur had discovered how to slice the cod to keep everyone happy, we would know about it.

Their half-baked theory would be taught religiously at the Adolfo Ibáñez University Business School, whose curriculum is inspired by the one Reinhard Höhn devised in the postwar period, thus contributing powerfully to the training of the hundreds of thousands of Vorarbeiter, Aufseher, Werkmeister, and Rottenführer who brought about the German miracle.

Reinhard Höhn was a German jurist and historian, a member of the Nazi Party, and an SS general. During the 1930s, he collaborated closely with Reinhard Heydrich in the Sicherheitsdienst, a sort of DINA—but a serious one. Very serious. Very SS.

At the end of the war, Höhn went into hiding and reappeared as director of the business school he founded in 1956 in Bad Harzburg. He became a professor of personnel management at the Akademie für Führungskräfte der Wirtschaft, which trained 600,000 executives from 2,600 German companies. His success was such that the West German army and the regional governments (Länder) sent their officials to learn the private-sector management methods known as “management by delegation of responsibility.”

At that time, business schools were practically nonexistent. From Reinhard Höhn onward, they’ve been all the rage—and a money-maker—to this very day. All over the world.

The labor management methods developed by Höhn made the fortunes of American and European businessmen—and his own. Among the lessons Höhn imparted to the workforce were the ability to be free to obey (sic), submission, frugality, and the ability not to break temper.

France, like all countries of the Free World, followed the path of progress, modernity, and efficiency. SS General Reinhard Höhn-Gottschützeihn generously bequeathed his unsurpassed knowledge to us. Thanks to this, as I was telling you, the top 500 French oligarchs seized 45 percent of the nation’s total wealth, while public debt reached 110.6 percent and the annual budget deficit hit a solid 5.6 percent.

The same thing is happening from “Nuyak” to Berlin, from Buenos Aires to Brussels, and from Santiago to Jakarta. Then, those in the know wonder why, everywhere, the far right and fascism are on the rise. Given that the right and social democracy govern for the benefit of the wealthy, what do you expect?

All reasons why I continue to be concerned about…