So President Sarkozy feels that we should all judge national performance using wider and more “social progress” attuned criteria does he? As Mandy Rice-Davis once famously said: “Well he would, wouldn’t he!”
Without wealth creation no country can deliver more and better benefits for its people. The longer holidays and the more efficient health service that the French enjoy comes from a social agreement to give up more of the individually earned cake for the possible benefit of the many. What the Country cannot escape from is the need to bake the pie in the first place. We all as individuals can make value judgements and consequent choices about what countries do with the wealth they generate, how they divide it up, at what level of esteem they place the emphasis on environmental issues for instance, or training, or public transport, or cultural development… all things which the French President would want used in getting France nearer the top of the league … oooooops! Oh la-la … je regrette … I meant things he would want counted in the assessment of a Nation’s success.
But without wealth creation, without the making of profit and the payment of tax there from; in short, without the economic success of Business, then, no matter how much it may annoy and frustrate trade unionists, environmentalists, some politicians, many in the public sector, some journalists … and obviously the French President, no-one would have the luxury of making those choices in the first place!