What impact has populism on our democracies? What are the common misconceptions of China in the West? Are the views of Russia and geopolitics in general evolving? And what is the role of modern France in Europe? Leszek Jazdzewski (Fundacja Liberte!) talks with Guy Sorman, an economist and a political scientist. He is the Chair of the Board, Center for French culture, New York University and a Professor of Economics at Paris University(Sciences Po). He is also a Visiting Professor at Beijing, Moscow, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires University Political advisor to French President Jacques Chirac, Korean President Lee Myung Baek, Argentina President Carlos Menem. He has been a Deputy Mayor for the City of Boulogne, France, since 1995, and a syndicated columnist (France, Spain, USA, Latin America, Japan).
Leszek Jażdżewski (LJ): What has been the role of political ideology since the 1980s? As John Maynard Keynes once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Has your view of liberalism changed over time?
Guy Sorman (GS): From the very beginning, my liberalism has not been an ideology, but rather a learning process – learning about facts that are not only economic, but also cultural. Liberalism is, therefore, a consequence of observing the reality.
Donald Tusk once said – at the very beginning of his career, before he was in charge of the government, – “I’m not for liberalism, I’m for reality.” He added that when we talk about economy, we should look at what works and what does not. This approach is aligned with my position on liberalism.
I have been a fan of liberal ideologues. You have them in Poland, actually, but in France, we do not. I have changed a lot since the early 1980s. I am taking into consideration the position of my opponents much more than I did when I was younger. Because if liberalism was totally right, then 100% of the people would be liberal. This, however, is clearly not the case. So, we have to ask ourselves why are 100% of the people not convinced by our argumentation? Here, I take into consideration one of the weaknesses of liberalism, which is that we are not very good at taking into consideration collective passions, myths, and the concept of identity, which has been extremely strong in the recent years.
I would say that my liberalism is strong. I am very much committed to reality. But I am also more open to the arguments of my opponents and to the concept of identity. Even if I do not recognize myself in it, I do admit that for many people, national, religious, and cultural identity is something real. It may be a myth, but myths are real in politics.
This is probably the biggest shift in my views between the 1980s and now. When I say this, many people say, ‘Well, you are not a liberal anymore. You are a Marxist, because you take reality into consideration.’ Yes, I do take reality into consideration. But I also take into consideration the fact that many people totally disagree with me.
LJ: Has liberalism been abused as an ideology in the last fifty years by many who used it for their own political or economic gains? Especially by the so-called ‘elite’, which is very much criticized today, not just by populists. Was it inevitable?
GS: I do not think it was abused. You have to take into consideration at what time are we talking about. For example, in the 1980s, liberalism was really like a fighting ideology, but it was absolutely necessary at that time because we had in front of us another fighting ideology – Marxism. So, if you say, ‘I fight ideology with facts,’ it is not enough. You fight an ideology with another ideology. Now, when it comes to socialism and Marxism, nobody believes in those ideologies anymore, so we can become more realistic.
This is why I would not say that liberalism has been abused. What I would say, however, is that some people are better than others at adapting to the real situation, but we need to adapt. When facts are changing, we are changing, but the basic principle remains the same. We look at reality and history and we see what does not work. We look at which system makes people happy, and which one makes them less happy. So, there is an evolution. If liberalism was abused, it was done by an insignificant minority.
LJ: One of the advantages of the populist nationalism is the fact that it provides a strong humanitarian sentiment. Do you think there is anything that liberal democratic tradition can offer in this regard? Or, perhaps, the liberals should try to reconcile with nationalism – as they did in the 19th century during the Spring of Nations, for example?
GS: The 19th century was quite a unique moment, as the liberals were at the helm of the national fights, the national struggle for independence. It was the case in Poland, Spain, and in many other countries. If we were to compare liberalism to populism or to nationalism, the strength of populism is that populists do not have to demonstrate that they are real, so they can simply mobilize passions – and it is easy to mobilize passions.
On the liberal side, it is much more complicated. We have to constantly explain the fact and to justify ourselves. Therefore, I do not think there will be a reconciliation between liberalism and populism. When it comes to the relationship between liberalism and nationalism, it is also quite complicated because of the weakness of the liberal philosophy and the liberal behavior, and the fact that nationalism is very difficult to understand. In general, passions are very difficult to understand.
One of my good friend, a very famous liberal philosopher, Jean-François Revel, once said, ‘I cannot understand why people go to a soccer match and applaud their team. It makes no sense. They are not playing!’ In response to that, I told Jean-Francois, ‘Well, you have to take into consideration passions, including the passion for sports.’ It is a real factor that we have acknowledge. Even though we do not really have any philosophical tool to explain them, we have to accept the fact they exist, and we have to work with them in order not to merge populism, nationalism, and liberalism.
It is very important to maintain a different position because democracy is basically about struggling and fighting for what you believe is the truth. So, the fact that we disagree is part of democracy and now we just want this debate to be civilized. But, clearly, it will remain a debate.
LJ: Is liberalism an elitist ideology? And what about populism, should we treat it as a part of the democratic spectrum and try to civilize it to make it a part of the democratic discourse?
GS: First of all, I do not consider liberalism to be the ideology of the enlightened elite. I do think that everyone not necessarily belonging to the elite and looking at the reality can accept the benefits of free market, liberal democracy, and the European Union, which is fundamentally a liberal invention and a liberal success. I would not say liberalism is elitist, I disagree with that. My position is very clear: I respect everyone, even people I do not understand.
If I do not understand populists, it is my own fault, not theirs. And I would not say we have to civilize them. I mean, maybe they have to civilize me. The most important factor is that we have to accept common rules.
Democracy is a process which is about common rules. If we look at the recent elections in Poland, the so-called ‘populist’ or ‘nationalist’ conservative party lost the election and accepted their loss (to a certain extent). This shows that democracy in Poland works and that we have to work within the system. If we despise our adversaries, they will despise us. This is why I never despise my adversaries. I may not understand them, but I always try to.
LJ: How does the experience of totalitarianism differentiate Western and Eastern Europe? And how does it influence the French intellectual tradition in particular?
GS: Totalism in France belonged to the past, and after 1944, it had no specific meaning. Even as an experience or experiment for the French people, during the war, most of the French people led a very normal life. Except for, of course, the Jews, the people in the resistance, left-wing intellectuals, and communists, for most of the French, life would go on as before. And therefore, totalism in France, even during World War II, was something very distant and superficial. This was not the case for my family, because we are Jewish.
In Poland, or in Eastern Europe in general, it was a different story, because totalism for you was a daily experience. That was your daily life, and it went on until 1989, which is basically yesterday. It is part of your life, of you becoming a citizen. This is why very often Western Europeans, including the French, mostly did not understand – and still hardly understand – the attitude of the people in Poland and in the Baltic states, to communism or the Soviet Union, and now to Russia. The reaction in France is to say, ‘Oh, the Polish, they exaggerate the danger!’ because we have never shared the suffering of the Polish people for such a long period.
LJ: What do you think are the main blind spots of the West when it comes to China?
GS: The main blind spot in the West in general, and especially among intellectuals, is the fact that they are often more blind than the ordinary people, because they are so full of their own ideas and principles that they do not see the rest of the world. Our ability to listen to others is very limited.
My books are all based on listening to other people. I remember when the book on China, The Empire of Lies: The Truth about China in the Twenty-First Century (2008), was published, I had a conversation with a leading French intellectual of that time, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and he asked me, ‘But how did you discover the real China in a way?’. I replied that it is very simple. I just listen to people. I do not talk, I listen. Meanwhile, our faculty to listen is very, very limited – and this is a source of misunderstandings.
As to remain on the Chinese example, we do not really listen to the Chinese people. We do not even listen to the Chinese leaders. I mean, China is not looking for war. They are not looking for confrontation. They are looking for respect. They have been poor for many centuries, they were colonized by Japan and by European countries. Therefore, they want their dignity back. And we do not understand that.
We immediately translate this claim for dignity as a manifestation of aggressivity. And they are aggressive when we do not listen. If we listen, they are less aggressive. So, the whole Western behavior vis-à-vis China is wrong, because we behave as if they were the enemy.
They are not the enemy. They are just different, and they want to be recognized as different. And, once again, they want to have the right to sit at the table of the most powerful countries with their most ancient civilization. They want to be respected. They are not looking for a fight. And again, to repeat myself, in the absence of listening to the Chinese, we tend to say the Chinese are a bit bizarre because there is more than one billion of them. However, listening to the Chinese would avoid a confrontation, which the Chinese do not want.
This observation is based on my own experience. I may be wrong, but if we go on like we have so far, not listening to them, there will be a confrontation. But it will be largely our fault, and not the fault of the Chinese.
LJ: Should we change how we listen to what the Middle East or the rising Global South are communicating to us? What do you think we can do differently? Because these regions clearly do not ‘buy’ our version of the reality.
GS: Yes, they do not buy our concept. The notion of Global South became prominent when the Russian war in Ukraine started, as the West discovered that the Global South was not supporting Ukraine. They did not support the fight for independence and the respect of international rule, which came as a huge surprise. Still today, the Western countries, Western governments, and Western observers do not really understand what is going on. They cannot comprehend why they do not they share our values and, more profoundly, why they do not like us?
The answer is quite simple: Global South does not like us in general because we do not listen to them. The Global South countries are very different, but all or nearly all of them have been former colonies – the Arab countries, India, China, whole Africa, have all been colonized by the West. The decolonization is still not completed. The former colonizers, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and Italy have not yet understood or recognized what colonization meant for the people who have been colonized.
Therefore, the explanation of the hostility of Global South vis-à-vis the West in general lies in the historical work on the meaning of colonization and the meaning of Western imperialism. This has not really been debated or understood yet. The French president said that the colonization of Africa has been a crime against humanity, which is an incredible statement from a French president, but it went nearly unnoticed. Still, it was a step in the right direction.
We have to enter into a discussion with intellectuals, scholars, and Global South, and try to understand what we did to them. We thought that we brought civilization, but that is not the way they remember it.
LJ: Will the next president of the United States become the new bastion of democracy, or can Europe take over this role? Are we going to face Russia alone in the war in Ukraine? How do you see the future of liberal democracy without the strong Pax Americana behind it, if it is the future we are to face?
GS: First of all, the United States have always been reluctant partners in the fight for democracy. If you remember World War I and World War II, the United States came very lately in the war, and they came only when their own interests were in danger. I think that in the future it will be the same. If the confrontation with Russia, for example, becomes more complicated, the United States will likely intervene once they realize that their own interests are at stake.
In light of this assumption, asking ourselves whether we rely on the United States is nothing new because you could ask the same question in 1940. And so, my answer will be yes, the U.S. will always join us against autocracy because their own interests will be threatened, but they will never intervene at the very beginning. They will usually be a late-comer. Therefore, we have to get prepared for that.
I do not think that Europe will be lonely in the defense of democracy against autocracy, but we have to build strengths to be able to resist or to fight until the Americans join us. We will never be alone without America. But the United States, again, may be late and we are not ready for that.
LJ: In regard to the role of Russia, the French seem to understand it better than many others that there will be no future geopolitical European order without Russia. How do you see the future, assuming that the United States do not leave us on our own but rather limit their presence compared to its current extent? Should we accommodate Russia, or rather stop thinking about it and just try to defeat them?
GS: I really do not like the term ‘accommodate Russia,’ because to accommodate Russia right now would mean to accept Vladimir Putin’s victory. We have to make Putin, or his successors understand that we will never accept what they are doing in Ukraine and try to discourage them from doing it again and against other countries.
Therefore, we should certainly not accommodate them. We have to be extremely strong and firm. At the same time, this is very complicated because we must hope that Putin is not Russia and Russia is not Putin.
Our capacity to intervene into domestic affairs in Russia is extremely limited. We did that in the 1970s and 1980s by supporting dissidents. But now, first of all, there are no dissidents, because they have all been killed or exiled. Moreover, we really do not understand what the Russian people think.
We should not underestimate the support for Putin because he represents law and order, and people fear civil unrest. Therefore, the road ahead of us is extremely narrow, but we should support the civil society. Nevertheless, I am not extremely optimistic as regards our capacity to have the civil society gain power and to get rid of the of the dictators in Russia. Additionally, we shall forget the dream that after Putin, when he goes away, he will be replaced by a democratic leader. He may be replaced by an even worse dictator. This is why, right now, we have to fight and resist.
LJ: What is Emmanuel Macron’s vision of Europe? Even though he has been very ambitious, he achieved very little, at least so far. How do you assess what he already did and what he might yet achieve? And what is current the self-image of the French and how it might influence the future of the continent?
GS: The paradox of Macron, and the paradox of the French, is the fact that we are right, but we are unable to explain why we are right. Most of the French governments are usually extremely ambitious and pro-European – and Emmanuel Macron is probably the most pro-European leader we have ever had. Our ideas are great, but we are not very good at conveying them to the outside world. We are always being accused of being arrogant, and we are arrogant.
This is also Macron’s problem. He is right on nearly everything – on Europe, Russia, the relations with Africa – but he is so typically French, which means so typically arrogant as the French elites are, that in a way it is a kind of suicide to advocate the best ideas with such a wrong style and with a total lack of modesty and cooperation with other political leaders. This is the French paradox.
Guy Sorman will be a guest during the forthcoming edition of Freedom Games, a festival of ideas held annually in Łódź, Poland. This year’s edition will be held on October 18-20 in EC1 Łódź. The European Liberal Forum is the Co-Organizer of the festival. See the draft program here: https://igrzyskawolnosci.pl/en/program/#20241018
Edited by Dr Olga Łabendowicz
This podcast is produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with Movimento Liberal Social and Fundacja Liberté!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are responsible for the content or for any use that be made of.
