Revue - Revue française de finances publiques n°162/2023 - 31

Public finances imprisoned in a society of the absurd
XXIX
of stabilising or even balancing and rebalancing dysfunctions of all
kinds, whether economic, political or social. Weakened by years of
lack of clear doctrine as well as by recurring responses determined
either by habits or by theoretical prejudices, it is no longer able to deal
with them effectively. In other words, the central issue is the proper
regulation of the public financial system. The need to reconstruct,
beyond any ideology, a public financial model attuned to the realities
of the contemporary world, is thus urgent. The aim is to give a new
meaning to public finances - a meaning determined according to a
multi-faceted scientific approach. This is all the more necessary as the
multi-rationality at work in social systems has powerfully contributed
to writing doubt and relativism into the interpretations and decisions
and set off an enthusiasm of sorts for technique and practice as the
only anchor point appearing solid and reassuring. Gaston Jèze, almost
three quarters of a century ago, warned against such an illusion when
he wrote: " We must never tire of repeating it: practice alone, without
scientific knowledge, is empiricism and routine. [...] Those who have
not meditated at length on financial problems using the scientific
method are incapable of directing the public finances of a State: it is
materially impossible for them to find solutions to the major financial
problems. They lack boldness; they confine themselves to what exists;
they stop at the detail " 5
.
The ad hoc responses doled out in a hurry, and the absence of a clear
overall project, reflect an overly analytical way of thinking - in other
words, a real deficiency in big-picture thinking. Unless this way of
proceeding is brought to a halt, whereby it is often nothing more than
an assembly of solutions without real consistency, this situation, which
reveals an inability to create new institutions, can only get worse. The
aim is thus to stimulate the intellectual courage of citizens and their
representatives, in other words to take into consideration and foster
a creative capacity to invent a new social bond. The aim, in a global
world of public finance control, is to prevent the " bankruptcy " of
States so that the social solidarity organised by the public community
is not reduced to its simplest expression, or even disappears.
For all these reasons, it is urgent and even crucial to define a doctrine
that forms the foundation of a new public financial governance model in
a world in metamorphosis, punctuated by successive economic, social,
health and geopolitical shocks of all kinds. Without ever forgetting
that today, the permanent or quasi-permanent crisis is considered part
5. G. JÈZE, Cours de finances publiques, Giard, 1925-1931.
RFFP n° 162 - Mai 2023
Revue - Revue française de finances publiques n°162/2023

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