20 thoughts on “Marine Le Pen on the Farming Crisis in France”

1. What’s a syndicalist? I am all for supporting the peasants. I am not sure exactly how it needs to be done, but the globalist capitalist prescription of cranking out food where ever it’s cheapest, pricing it according to what the market will bear, and so on, does not work for farming. What is a good thing for, say, gadgets, and brings the price down, is a disaster for farmers — they overproduce, the price goes down, and they can’t make a living. Catch 22.

   I have been running around the web for years asking how this needs to be fixed. To no avail. My grandfather was for real coops — the kind where all the profits are divided among the farmers who belong to it, after the managers are paid their wage. In other words, real coops where the farmers own it, not the state, and not some corporation. He ran a very successful one. And the American populists at the end of the 19th century felt the same, and ran many such coops quite successfully. (What did them in was IMHO their betting on politics in the end.)

   • My introduction was descriptive, not normative. Europe is different from the USA, and requires some explaining.

     Syndicalism is the merging of the state and large private enterprises. The enterprises remain in private hands, but are highly regulated and subsidized by the state, which thereby has a big say in commercial practices.

     Mussolini’s Italy is the classic syndicalist state.

     • So how is syndicalism different from fascism?

       • Softer power. Oligarchy instead of dictatorship. Some input from elected representatives.

         France has always been like that, as far as I know.

         • Yeah, sounds right. Some would argue that the whole west is like that… that fascism was not defeated, it morphed into “soft fascism” after Hitler mucked it all up.

           Anybody have pointers on sane agrarian policies that actually support small farmers?

   • I believe tariffs should be introduced to protect the farmer from the cheap imports which are assisting in bringing down the farmer’s profit that he needs to re-invest in his property, machinery and to cover other expenses.

     You will get much argument from ‘economists’ who believe that protectionism does not work, but if you look back over the West when the West maintained tariffs against cheap imports we had none of the problems that are so apparent today under so called ‘free trade agreements.’

     Cheap imports in the form of fresh meat and meat products, fresh fruit and vegetables, canned and dried goods, and even seeds, are cutting the farmer (and this is happening throughout the West) in all Western countries out of the landscape. While cheap food is desirable by the consumer, what happens to a country that has lost its means of producing what used to be cheap and plentiful food for the whole population when the cheap imports become less and less reliable?

     Then add the turning of the thumb screws on those farmers who have managed to survive that deliberate Globalist plan by chain supermarkets who will only buy – and this is regardless of the natural and adverse conditions the farmer has to battle every year of him being on the land – at a certain price to maximize their own profits and the effect that the waiting Banks, salivating at foreclosing on the farmer who can’t make that next payment has on the farmer, then you have the conditions that are causing so many farmers to take their own lives.

     Who’d be a farmer today?

     • I know lots of people who are. I wish I was. I love the peasant life. But the only way to prosper as a small farmer is the way the Amish do it — feeding the family first and foremost. The old fashioned farmstead. And a community that helps one another, and keeps out of debt.

       I too think that some sort of protectionism is necessary for farming. But not the way it’s done now, handouts for the big guys. Well, the Farm Bill will come up in ’18, I think. It would be nice if Trump had some real ideas in that department.

2. we’re just a few decades away from the extinction of the mammoth, so I see little point in sitting around the camp fire and discussion the philosophical ideas of the best way to organize mammoth hunter society. Our current economic system is the mammoth and we can see the end from where we currently stand. Soon Marx, Hayek and all their lesser brethren will be as pointless as the philosophers of long past mammoth hunting societies.

3. Supermarkets are the problem. They ruthlessly exploit their suppliers. They don’t care if they drive them to suicide but they will care if all the suppliers go out of business. State intervention is necessary in such a market.

   • The profit margin of grocery stores in the US is tiny. Thus, much attention must be focus on controlling costs.

     The Walmart model is what I think you are describing. Relentless pressure on suppliers and shippers.

4. Continental Europe is collectivist in outlook. Whereas England had always been outward looking. The USA inherited that trait and thrived on it. That’s why continental Europe hates us. We’re not like them; they are elitist in outlook and we are egalitarian; for example, both the USA and England thought the motor car should be affordable for most people. Continental Europe thought they should only be owned by the elite – perhaps until the 1930s and 1940s with the Citroen 2cv and the German vw. The great rift, I believe was when King Henry VIII broke with Rome. We became our own masters and both the Catholic church and their slave countries hated us for this. For the best part of 500 years they’ve been trying to bring us back into the fold and the EU, with the connivance of the Roman Catholic church has been plotting to make this happen.
   The English speaking world is exceptional and we should not forget that. We are not collectivist in outlook and if we want to prosper for another 500 years we cannot afford to let the collectivist nations subdue us.

   • john in cheshire,

     The British were eager to join those ‘collectivist’ Europeans in the 70s, dumping the Commonwealth in the process. The Brexit margin was rather small, wasn’t it? So about half the UK population was happy with collectivism.

     • Socialism took hold in Britain in the ’20s and ’30s and with a vengeance after the war. It was hugely destructive of the British spirit, as it is everywhere. Socialism is premised on legislative theft so it’s clear it’s a radical departure from the spirit John in Cheshire describes.

       I don’t see Bremain as a vote for collectivism but perhaps you are closer to the reality on the ground.

5. French Agriculture is more a heritage issue than an economic issue. Protected for decades under the EU Common Agricultural Policy it is hopelessly inefficient and can only survive with taxpayer subsidies. In few other countries a dairy farmer with 15 or 20 cows could not make a viable living. But they are a powerful voting bloc and there lies their influence as well as the romantic notion the French have for the rural areas.

6. I don’t necessarily think she is wrong in the role of the French government in agriculture; just as it is a necessary function of government to protect its citizens against the use of force by other governments, so it is also necessary to protect them against the predations of corporate power and unfair trade practices originating from beyond their borders. What good is it to have cheap produce from heavily subsidized foreign producers when it puts local farms and workers out of business and out of the economic life of France?

   As always, one must ask “cui bono”…

7. I agree this is a heritage issue and I do believe it is worthy of being protected.

   20 years ago, when living in Switzerland we used to cross the border with France and grocery shopping over there. We used to find the quality of food better in France, especially pork and milk, and don’t get me started on bread and cheese and deli… Not even mentioning the wine (which is pretty safe from trouble, btw)! You cannot simply replace regional products with their long history tightly related to the geography, climate, soil, local plants and animals (that’s why French call it terroir, a word that means the land and all of the above, which is typical for the particular region)with some cheaper ones!

   You cannot replace them because they tell French history, French taste and a soul, and it cannot be substituted by some other products, just like the Mona Lisa cannot be substituted by a “Portrait of a Middle Aged Lady with Shaved Eyebrows”.

   • ‘Heritage’ seems more like an excuse to protect inefficient farmers at taxpayers’ expense. Let the market decide which products consumers prefer.

     • Efficiency works with nails and telephones. And cheap “crap food.” If you want *quality* food, you gotta think differently. I grew up with good food in central Europe. Then I came to America and saw what “let the market decide” had wreaked here.

       • Agreed.

         A race to the bottom benefits no one except the mega-farms with the deep pockets to buy the equipment needed to profit from economies of scale. A visit to an industrial feedlot would dissuade anyone from the notion that bigger and more efficient are always better…

   • Ava,

     Thanks for the translation.

     I also think you wrote one of the most important articles published by GoV:
     https://gatesofvienna.net/2016/11/children-parents-and-grandparents/

     You showed the importance of homogeneous, supportive communities for child-bearing, child-rearing decisions. In other words, diverse communities are death on producing nurtured children because all the burden goes on the parents to not only tend the children, but to pass on their culture and knowledge.

     As far as agricultural tariffs and the price of food, it is important to note that the small farmer of the Roman Republic was devastated by continually decreasing prices. The small farmer fell into debt, and was enslaved by the horrific laws of indebtedness. In fact, it was the widespread enslavement of the farmer class that led to the system of serfdom.

     The small farmer formed the backbone of the Roman army, so the ruin of the small farmer required the use of mercenary troops and the notoriously capricious and unstable governments of the Roman Empire.
     https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Law_of_Civilization_and_Decay/Chapter_I

     As I have pointed out, the economic model of the free market assumes the lowest unit price for commodity goods as the object of analysis. The lowest price is not, however, an objective of government. The objective of government is the happiness and well-being of its citizens, which is a totally different focus.

     Tariffs as a tool to maintain the quality of life in a country is perfectly legitimate, although it may result in higher unit prices. But quality-of-life is as important, or more important, than the best dollar commodity value. A certain amount of competition is healthy, and so is international trade. So, there is plenty of room for debate and maneuver. But, the emphasis on nationalism and maintaining the existence and well-being of the small farmer class is a very good feature.

     Of course, farmers themselves may have issues. Farmers in the US tend to favor migrant labor, because that lowers their worker prices. And if France doesn’t get immigration under control (stopped altogether) and its dependence on EU bureaucrats eliminated, France as a culture will be threatened anyway.

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