Alain Caillé: "It is normal for the rich to pay more than today"

Marianne: “If I were a candidate…” appears as a sort of political program or suggestion, proposing around fifteen “tipping measures”, an expression that you borrow from Michel Rocard. What is it about ?

Alain Caillé: These are measures which, like the RMI [minimum integration income] or the CSG [generalized social contribution] in their time, seemed barely imaginable but which, once adopted, are such that no one imagines being able to go back. Reforms, too, which are upstream of all the other possible reforms because they affect the depths of society.

Who are these proposals aimed at?

I would first point out that this text, which allowed me to clarify ideas, was favorably received by my convivialist friends. This is very encouraging, because they represent various ideological and political horizons, say from the left of the left to the center right.

READ ALSO: Against neoliberalism: convivialism, the art of living well together

Part of my bet is therefore held: there is indeed a set of things to say that concern the French as a whole, rather than a particular category of population whose parties are aiming for the vote. It is indeed necessary to be able to speak as well to those whom I call the precarious, the integrated, the segregated and the globalized.

You share with rebellious France the idea of ​​producing a new Constitution by a citizens' assembly. Another main ambition that you outline is to restore a more participatory, less “delegative” and “vertical” democracy in the company. That's to say ?

Concerning the new Constitution, the reference is rather the experience of the Chilean Constituent Assembly. The second measure that I am presenting, in the same order of ideas, is the organization of one or two citizens' conventions per year, the conclusions of which would be submitted by right to a referendum if Parliament does not adopt them.

Emmanuel Macron or his successor could not get rid of it out of hand as he did with the Climate Convention. It seems to me that this should satisfy the yellow vests. In companies, it is becoming urgent to institute co-determination in France, with equal sharing of the board of directors between shareholders and employees. It is already practiced in Northern Europe where, curiously, the economy works better than in France.

What are the individual kWh and CO₂ quotas you offer? The electorate that votes the most and the political, media and cultural elites – even when they want to be “green” – are hardly determined to give up a hyper-energy-intensive way of life. How to succeed in imposing a limitation when they practice and propagate a culture of unlimitedness?

Faced with the looming climate catastrophe, we must begin to imagine forms of energy rationing. For example with a kWh pass. Each individual would have a quota of kWh or CO₂. His account would be debited on the occasion of each energy expenditure. Those who exceed the authorized ceiling would buy back rights to consume from those who have not used the amount allocated to them. As the richest are those who cause the greatest danger of climate change, it is normal that they pay more than today if they want to continue. If they are not convinced of the merits of the measure, their children will know how to make them change their minds.

Considering that the national scale is insufficient to respond to the major international challenges or stand up to the great powers, you advocate the construction of a more participative European confederal republic. Is this project achievable with the constraints of the treaties and with States whose culture and interests do not go in the direction of more democracy?

As the objective is to recover economic sovereignty linked to political and social sovereignty by freeing itself from the veto of countries with tax havens which block everything, it is clear that they would not be part of it. Neither do democracies like Hungary or Poland. However, the subject is indeed not on the agenda for the moment. A project of this type was defended twenty years ago by the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer. The French did not want to hear about it. I tried in vain at the time to organize a public debate on the subject. Nobody wanted to be.

The Germans, then gaining dominance over Europe, no longer talk about it either. When they find it difficult to sell their cars to the Chinese, and if the United States no longer manages to overcome its internal divisions and ceases to appear as the shield of Europe or makes the Europeans pay too heavy a price, the question will not be able not to arise again. The heart of the matter will be the Franco-German core, as Jacques Julliard has long asserted. Other peoples – the Italians? the Spaniards ? – will follow.

Your program resembles, in an embryonic form, that of a political party. How do you envision your ideas being translated on the militant field and in institutions?

At the moment convivialism already plays a metapolitical role. The ideas he defends infuse little by little. It remains to allow, in fact, their effective application. A way seems to me to open. The CFDT, for example, has brought together around it 65 important networks of civic society in the Pact of the power to live which defends 90 measures. It's too much. It is planned to quickly reduce them to a few key or… rocking measures.

The popular primary, which has more than 450,000 registered voters accepting its "common base", has entered the landscape. All these forces of civic society could form what I call a political citizen's cooperative, gathered around a few rocking measures that it would do everything possible to get adopted. The political parties could not remain indifferent to it.

READ ALSO: What is convivialism, this ideology that aims to offer an alternative to neoliberalism?

* Alain Caillé, If I were a candidate… For a friendly policy, Le Pommier editions, 2022, €3.50.