polity
Originally published in French as Le progrès ne tombe pas du ciel © Libraire Arthème Fayard, 2019
This edition © Polity Press, 2020
Script excerpt from ‘Rocky Balboa’ © 2006 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc., Columbia Pictures
Industries, Inc. and Revolution Studios Distribution Company LLC. Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing.
All rights reserved.
Excerpt from ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon/Lenono Music (GMR)
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4143-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Amiel, David, author. | Emelien, Ismaël, author.
Title: The new progressivism : a grassroots alternative to the populism of out times / David Amiel, Ismaël Emelien ; translated by Andrew Brown.
Other titles: Progrès ne tombe pas du ciel. English
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references. |
Summary: “The architects of Macron’s success lay down the foundations for a new progressivism to counter the populism of our times”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019050900 (print) | LCCN 2019050901 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509541416 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509541423 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509541430 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Liberalism. | Populism. | Political participation--Social aspects. | Democracy. | Pluralism. Classification: LCC JC574 .A43813 2020 (print) | LCC JC574 (ebook) | DDC 320.51/3--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050900
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050901
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No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624
Thank you for reading this book! Do not hesitate to tell us what you thought about it: leprogresnetombepasduciel@protonmail.com
Thank you to the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, for showing us that politics was a matter of conviction and that a benevolent determination could move mountains. Thank you also for placing in us the confidence of which we hope to be worthy every day.
Thanks to Alexis Kohler for showing us what total commitment in the service of the general interest means. Thank you also for listening patiently to our pleas, even at late hours of the day — absurdly late sometimes.
Thanks to Hanane and Eve, for their proofreading but also for their support, their presence — quite simply, their love.
Thank you to our parents, for (almost) everything.
Thanks to Sophie, our editor and (in spite of that) friend. Thanks to John, who saw it useful to have us translated — and to Andrew, who carried that exhausting task to the end. Thanks to all those who have read one or more of the many successive versions of this book, and whose benevolence has been equalled only by their rigour: Marcel, Thierry, Marie, Hubert, Timothée, Léonore, Luc, Martin, Julien, François S., François T., Simon, Rémi, Ariane, Antoine A., Laurent, Dominique, Sylvain, Shahin, Jean-Francois, Antoine F., Daniel, Quentin.
Thanks to those who ensured that the past decade spent fighting for the ideas contained in this book was, first and foremost, a story of friendship, especially Stanislas, Cédric, Benjamin, Emmanuel, Julien, Sibeth, Quentin, Stéphane, Ludovic, Jean-Marie, Sylvain, Adrien, Nathalie, Alexander, Clément, Philippe.
Thank you to all the campaigners who have already shown that these ideas are worthwhile only if they are implemented, in particular (but not only!) Jean, Didier, Fanny, Clara, Missak, Juliette, Olivier, Thomas, Victor, Vincent, Thibault, Joé, Julien, Valérie, Christian, Grégoire P., Houda, Pacôme, Bensih, Bruno, Audrey, Aurélie, Mathieu, Zineb, Pauline, Marion, Grégoire D., Arnaud, Fatima, Serge, Selen, Mathieu, Marine M., Étienne, Paul-Hugo, Raphaël, Aziz-François, Marielle, Pénélope, Sandra, Marine B., Etienne, Stéphane, Aigline, Mathilde, Tess, Julie, Maëlle, Alexis, Jean, Christophe, Grégoire A., Pierre, Renaud, Léo, Caterina, Guillaume, Déborah, Éléonore, Schoitchi, Caroline, Frédéric, Philippe. Thank you to all those who enabled this legacy to prosper, at the headquarters of La République en Marche! and in all the territories of France. Our apologies to those who will not find their names here — this would have required several dozen more pages!
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron was elected President of the French Republic. We were among those who helped to plan his En Marche! movement; we were responsible for the campaign strategy and its programme, and thus we both played a very active part in a political venture that most people viewed as impossible, namely the election of a man who had never run for office and who, a year earlier, had no party, no elected officials, no activists, and no funding. In a country marked by record levels of mistrust, we worked for the election of a man who proclaimed his confidence in the ability of ordinary citizens to return to the path of economic, social and political progress. In a country that had voted ‘no’ in the referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005, we worked for the election of a man who wore his commitment to the European project on his sleeve. In a country falling prey to populists who, both on the far left and the far right, shared a hatred of elites, we worked for the election of a man who had experience both as a banker and as a senior civil servant.
This election demonstrated one thing: the dice can always be rolled again. This is lucky, since the populists seem to have the wind in their sails worldwide: both in the old democracies (France, Italy, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden, and others) and in ‘illiberal democracies’ (Hungary, Turkey, perhaps now Brazil?) and authoritarian countries (China, Russia, and most of their allies). So, is Emmanuel Macron’s election an accident of history, a statistical blip together with the election of Donald Trump to the White House, Brexit, the triumph of the Five Star Movement and the Northern League in Italy, and the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil? Or is it nothing but a French particularity? We do not think so.
To understand what is happening, it is less important to focus on these populist victories than on the defeats suffered by the old parties. The elections won by the populists are not enough to prove them right, but they undoubtedly demonstrate that the traditional political elites are wrong. They were wrong not to have spotted in time the flaws in the great narrative on which they had concurred since the fall of the Berlin Wall, namely the inexorable connection between democracy, liberalism and the market, in which popular support and economic development went hand in hand. The warning came from Asia, with the creation of a Chinese state, both capitalist and authoritarian; and the issue has also arisen in Eastern Europe, where it is claimed that ‘democracy’ is not the same as ‘liberalism’. There is now a huge question mark hanging over the heart of the Western world, with an American president who rejects free trade and despises pluralism. The elites were wrong not to have understood that the ‘progress’ that seemed obvious to them — technological innovation, the globalization of trade, the extension of individual rights, cultural diversity — in fact only benefited an ever smaller minority of the population. They were wrong not to have seen how vehemently they were being rejected just when they seemed to have triumphed. But they are also wrong, now that they are weakened, just to stand by and watch in stupor as their opponents rise to power. They may cross their fingers in the hope these opponents will run out steam, but they are failing to supply themselves with the intellectual and political means to prepare a real counteroffensive.
The difficulties felt by a growing number of ordinary women and men do not all stem from the same origins, but they all produce the same symptoms: the feeling of having no place in society, of losing control of one’s life and one’s freedom to choose. A huge frustration has been mounting, often in silence. It was initially confined to the most marginal fringes of the population. It then spread to the lower classes, especially the workers. It is now shared by the middle classes. It has accommodated itself to populism, but it can represent an opportunity as it opens up an historic space for new progressivists, even if they are latecomers.
The race is on, and the latter are running short of time. Emmanuel Macron cuts a lonely figure at the table of the UN Security Council, or that of the G20, while the populists have already begun to unite and create their ‘International’ — think of the links between the American alt-right (mainly comprising Trump’s most radical supporters) and the European far right, or the links that have existed for a long time between populists in Russia and in Latin America.
These forces are starting to organize, and we are convinced that Macron’s success will not suffice to beat them. This battle, in France and abroad, cannot be fought by one man, or by one government, or even within one country. It is a political imperative: there are many people worldwide who are experimenting with innovative responses to populism, but they feel isolated. It is also a strategic imperative: the cruel irony of history is that populism rears its head again just when the need to act together across borders has never been stronger. Without a union of progressivists, there is, for example, no hope of curbing global warming or controlling economic globalization.
It was in order to contribute fully to this fight, one that takes place at all levels of society and beyond the borders of France that, after two years spent working as advisors to President Macron, we decided to leave.
Our first priority is to clarify some aims and methods of the new progressivism: this is the goal of the present book, which we wrote in the light of our French experience. For progressivists are no longer entitled, in any country, to make mistakes. We seek to win power, of course — and we here set out some potentially key elements for achieving this. But we also seek to exercise power — something often more difficult for progressivists than for populists.
This seems counter-intuitive. Many believe that electoral victory cannot be won without falling back on the tricks used by the populists: the lie (euphemized as ‘alternative truth’); demagogy; and a virulent nationalism, often tinged with racism. In short, there is a widespread feeling that progressivists cannot win elections unless they ape their opponents. In 2017, Macron demonstrated that this was false: you can win by telling the truth, by avoiding engaging in personal attacks, trusting the intelligence of voters — and even by showing goodwill! You can win, above all, if you put forward a positive, exciting programme, one which touches the citizens’ heartfelt expectations and is not limited to denouncing the madness of populists, or opportunistically welding together mere fragments of the electorate.
The same people assume that, once power has been won, the advantage will now lie with the progressivists, who will be able to draw on their skill, if not their experience, to run public affairs — while populists are often short of such skill and experience. Everyone can still remember how long the Trump administration needed to set itself up, or the game of musical chairs that ministers in the Brazilian populist Bolsonaro’s government indulged in just weeks after it took office. Again, these people are wrong. Implementing progressivism is a daunting task. Progressivism is not a conservatism and, if it is to transform society, it needs to overcome all the forces of inertia ranged against it — particular interests, of course, but also, quite simply, habits. It must break with the politics of the old school, and in doing so it runs the risk of attracting the wrath of all the old guard, who hate the fact that the game is no longer played by the rules they had learned by heart and that they thought were immutable. But progressivism cannot resort to the simple slogans of populism, since society is not changed for the better by angry tweets or capricious decisions.
Progressivism needs to bring on board the majority in each country if it is to embark on its long adventure. To this end, it needs to make a proper diagnosis of society. It needs to say what it is itself, where it is going, for whom it is fighting; it needs to invent its own method. It needs to live up to people’s expectations, and not to set out a hazy mixture of pragmatism, modernism and technical management: this has been, in too many countries, its natural temptation, one which distorts and weakens it. This is what, in France, Macron is taking great care to avoid. But it also needs to respond to the suspicions that it may arouse. What is its goal? Why (and for whom?) is it acting in this or that way? Today, its opponents are all too happy to answer on its behalf: they say it that it is acting for ‘the rich’, ‘city dwellers’ or ‘the beneficiaries of globalization’.
We therefore wish, in these pages, to clarify a certain number of questions. We believe that progressivism is only beginning to spread across society; it is very far from having delivered its full potential. The most important thing, in our view, is not that we won an election or finally managed to hold the traditional political forces to account. The most important thing, in France, is to fulfil the promise of this victory, and to provoke, enliven, and strengthen progressivists everywhere else so that they in turn can tackle today’s problems with the values and principles that we defend and — why not? — with the method we are proposing.
The purpose of this book is to bring together the new pro-gressivists wherever they may live, beginning with those who are not even aware of each other’s presence, and to provide them with a manifesto that will allow them to recognize each other and find guidance in current or future political debates. If we cite many concrete examples, this is simply to illustrate the principles that we are proposing, and to try to convince you of their scope.
We do not pretend to be academics. We do not pretend to have a ready-made programme, even less a full definition of the new progressivism. We do not wish to close the debate here but, on the contrary, to keep it open, and invite you to continue it. Based on our experience, we have no other ambition than to point out causes and ideas worth fighting for, and indicate a method to adopt. This book is binding only on us. But our secret hope is that it will encourage you too to play a part in politics, now that it has again become a great struggle.