214
PARTISAN REVIEW
inflation in 1982 was ten percent, the guaranteed minimum wage
of the lowest-paid workers would be increased by fourteen or
fifteen percent. This would quickly increase the buying power of
the most disadvantaged.
The second series of reforms are structural; they have no
immediate effects, of course, but are designed to transform the
French economy, and to ensure that the main economic incentive
would not be to amass capitalist profit. Among these reforms were
the nationalization of key industries, such as petrochemicals or
electronics, to realize the program of the Socialist party. The
policy of governments of the Right had been to give up control of
parts of the industrial sector to the large multinational
corporations that were, for the most part, under American
domination. This is how, for example, our electronics industry
has become so weak that we produce fewer magnetoscopes than
other countries, even though we are perfectly capable of
manufacturing them instead of importing them from Japan.
Thus, we have tried to create a new dynamic industrial policy
through structural reforms.
Kurzweil:
Aren't these reforms similar to those of other countries?
Japan, for example, has been able to reduce its production costs
of cameras or television sets, and therefore almost no one else
makes them any longer.
Estier:
I don't think that's the only reason. In France there is
legislation guaranteeing a high level of social security, and that
naturally increases considerably the prices of certain products.
France must continue to improve its social programs, and this is
what a number of French entrepreneurs complain about: it raises
costs.
If
you compare us to other countries, not only Japan, but
the Far East, for instance, where manual labor is extremely
inexpensive and no social security exists, then you realize why the
costs of textile products, for example, which are often "smug–
gled" into France, are infinitely lower than here. So we must
address the problems facing the French textile industry.
Kurzweil:
What you are talking about, then, is the need to protect
French industry?
Estier:
Yes. But the situation is complicated by the fact that we
belong to the European Community, the ten countries that have
founded a Common Market and have done away with customs
laws and duties among themselves. In fact, products that are not
