They shape a landscape both varied and very simpleThe risk of lacking electricity peak a few years is knownThe object is inert but is in a great activityThe Union still has problems to solveOf courseIt is a completely new scenario is to writeWhat face the immediate future with serenityThe simultaneity of two events raised issues clearlyIf some consider the discussion closed it is nothingLately even President Bush seems to be woken upBut we do not want to remove the regional levelsFor their 8th Symposium, organized in partnership with "Les Echos" tomorrow in Paris at the Ministry of the economy (1), the former students of the ENA, CET and Polytechnic chose the theme: "public and business actors against the dictatorship of the short term". The Presidents of the three alumni associations here explain their choice.
Those who live on the day the day happily live for themselves, but we unfortunately live in their conduct. "This sentence of cardinal Richelieu, who strangely echoes in these times of elections, is nearly four centuries-old. Pierre Mendès France has revived it a day, in highlighting his famous book "Govern, it choose" (1953). In the program text, he picked up the objective should be that of any Government in one sentence: "put an end to the policy to the small week", with "politics of the expedients", with "empirical échenillages". At these manoeuvres dilatory Mendès opposed with simplicity "policy choice". It was the time of the Fourth Republic and its ministerial instability. General de Gaulle, with the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, then heard restore unity of views and continuity in the conduct of the business... but the denaturation of its institutions allowed the old demons of democracies and the human temperament that does sleep never long, France as abroad, to wake up.
It is said that in strictly political terms the question that our three alumni associations have decided to treat on their 8th international colloquium is not new. Democracy is by nature, subject to the dictatorship of the short term, more than any other type of regime not because the electoral timetable which punctuates its existence and is involved in major directions. And economic life is necessarily affected by the tension between short-term considerations and public decision making. Any decision-maker, be it political, official or business leader, facing, permanently, in the decision making and, therefore, to take risks. It is not necessarily easy to decide, so to take, whether it is an act of Government or the choice of an investment. How to assess more clearly, more surely possible that must prevail in an arbitration, short-term or long-term requirements requirements It sometimes decide quickly and for the moment, because the common interest. But the economy, as the Government of men, is not the only immediate benefit. The existence of a human community must register in the long term, which sometimes involves choices painful, even more difficult to understand for the individual that it is a natural, understandable, tendency to favour his immediate interest and that of his own.
The dictatorship of the short term has therefore always existed and has never ceased to influence the decisions of those who drive States, firms, any human entity. But it took a singular dimension with the huge technological revolution which has boosted the globalization. Hyper-médiatisation, multiplication of the sources of information in real time, prodigious acceleration of all traffic and communication tools: public actors such as businesses always have the duty to arbitrate, but this duty now imposed on them an infinitely more compelling manner. Never pressure in the short term will have been as large, never the power of lobbies of any kind was also pervasive. The legalization of the society, the development of litigation fever exercise increasing control... and furthermore ambiguous. Public opinion this Nebula eternal is more elusive than ever and painfully felt his whims. The lesser weakness at the Summit is now instantly perceived as such and disastrous consequences. Shareholder or voter, the individual became the individual-King and loses little by little the meaning of the collective values. However, new requirements emerge, that draw a possible rehabilitation of long-term choices: the balance of our demographic regimes and, especially, the imperatives of sustainable development, it is unclear yet if it will be our salvation or if it will in turn become our new democratic tyrant.
But, to resist the dictatorship of the short term, must be that those who run Public or business actors means and credibility needed to justify, accept, sometimes impose the most legitimate decisions. Must have a clear strategic vision, built, courageous, and to act in a legal and institutional environment secure. In a Word, our society is ready to become aware of this truth that has not aged: "govern, it choose", when, on the other hand, do not decide, take the worst of the decisions and condemned to die Sustainable development could be an alibi to ease our consciences or would he announce a return of pendulum, a rise in real force of the arbitrations of long term, even a dictatorship of the long term, army of the precautionary principle, would ultimately paralyze as well as our decision systems
These are issues that intends to ask the Conference that our associations organise together March 29 and meet once more French and foreign public and private officials.
