Pouliot on Royal’s discrimination positive and referendums
“Ségolène Royal, the current front-runner for presidential nominee for France’s Parti Socialiste has said that she would put the issue of discrimination positive to a referendum”.
Positive discrimination –or affirmative action- is a policy tool intended to “correct” an inequality of the chances among a given population.
Positive discrimination is often used to provide equalized chances to “under-represented” groups, i.e. to members of a minority. They will be those who come from poorer neighborhoods and have scarcer opportunities to get good education, health care, and work good jobs.
There is much debate about the legitimacy of such a measure; I will not take part in that argument but will develop on the political coherence of putting it to a referendum.
That said, if the social tool is meant to buttress the opportunities of one or more minority groups, it is highly paradoxical, considering the actual nature of our democracies, to put it to a referendum. Indeed, one has to grasp the difference between a Millian elector and what we shall call a Smithian elector. John Stewart Mill believed that people would progress to become such empathetic individuals that they would confound the general interest of the people with their own. Adam Smith, holding a different point of view, argued that the economy would reach proper equilibrium if everyone endeavored to fulfill his or her own desires. It is of course assumed that a Smithian individual would approach elections as he approaches the market.
A Millian elector would certainly see that aggregate utility would be enhanced by a pertinent and well-achieved positive discrimination for it gives more to the minority in question than it takes away from the majority. Plus it bolsters the equality of the country as a whole. To a Smithian elector asked if he is willing to allow a handicap to someone potentially competing with him for a job, the answer is all too obvious.
As the existence of growing individualism in modern Occident needs not to be argued, it seems clear to me that the Smithian elector has not yet progressed to become a Millian one. Therefore, my prediction is that a positive discrimination project to be put through a referendum is stillborn. It is even more so considering that the French Muslim minority does not vote in high proportion because of its low confidence in representative institutions.
Hence, I accuse Ségolène Royal of hypocrisy. As everyone in this race to presidency, she is trying to court Le Pen’s supporters –the radical nationalists- and France’s social liberals at the same time. The paradox has to be pointed as it still is nothing but words for it is impracticable. It’s promoter, once at l’Élysée, would thus only make the decline of France even more abrupt.
Pouliot ---- Smoking lies
It is now common knowledge that cigarettes are addictive, and it is an almost unchallenged common belief that the tobacco giants are making their products more and more addictive.
However, in the midst of these persuasions, scientists are concluding that cigarettes are not more addictive than they were one or even ten years ago. Still, the tobacco corporation’s advocacy remains a feeble one, as if they weren’t willing to use these newfound facts to defend themselves. So what’s the story?
The vulgarization of scientific data concerning the levels of active addictive ingredients in cigarette tobacco has been “widely misleading” says Dave Romanow, a fellow at the London College University who is actually doing research at the University of Sydney, adding “we have a very well furnished bank of data grading the concentration of addictive ingredients in cigarettes over the past three decades, and they show significant increase for none of the labels observed.”
“Put plainly, cigarettes are just as they were 20 years ago” utters François Dutelin, the outspoken secretary of Médecins de France, and a heavy smoker himself.
Then where does this believe comes from? Why is it now almost conventional wisdom that the tobacco giants are adding addictive ingredients if they aren’t?
Many point at the lawsuits, the archetype of which is the famous RICO case opposing the US Department of Justice to the tobacco industry. The RICO case was founded on five allegations, of which only one concerned nicotine levels and addictive ingredients. The official claim is that ”corporate members of the industry are adding ingredients such as ammonia to allow nicotine to enter the smoker’s blood faster.”
So what the tobacco producers really are doing is enhancing the effect of their product –or, from the standpoint of the consumers, upgrading their quality. Robert Mckinley, research supervisor at the Milan School of Medecine, acknowledges: ”the long term physical effect, the development of a need for nicotine, is almost or completely unchanged.” As pointed out by Frank Hopkins, a New York State senior procurer now specialized in medical issues, a quantitative addition of addictive ingredients would be legal suicide: “adding addictive ingredients or raising nicotine levels would be so obvious, even the tobacco empires wouldn’t last ten minutes in a court room with backed accusations of the kind against them.”
Nevertheless the belief survives the facts. One would think about the many alleging articles or the Hollywood box office “The Insider”, featuring Russel Crow. But what remains the guiding strength of such a persuasion is the widespread perception of tobacco corporations as mean, wealth thirsty and perverse enterprises –not a completely unjustified one. As wrote Glen Gordon in her best Seller The Truth About Tobacco: “any intricate or ill-intentioned scheme you can think of, they have probably already achieved.” But in this case, obviously, the rule of thumb fails the truth.
In this whole story, the most intriguing part remains the tobacco corporations’ attitude. Why not present these facts instead of the actual feeble arguments? Why not defend this case with vigor instead of the now demonstrated weakness? The truth is for once on their side, and they stay mute.
The tobacco industry obviously knows about this and they are responsible for this stain remaining on their image; this hit at their reputation is taking more and more the allures of a self-inflicted wound. The truth is actually “as simple as it is Machiavellian”, says John Mitchell of the Stern University School of Business: “this feeble denial is intentional and aims at maintaining doubt around the addictiveness of cigarettes.” As a matter of fact, Mitchell claims, in a recent paper written jointly with colleague and friend Marsia Delingo of the Rome Center for Empirical Psychological Studies, that “the smoking public will believe that cigarettes are more and more physically addictive; a belief which, in turn, will make them more and more psychologically addicted.” Such a psychological phenomenon –developing a certain tendency from thinking you have it- is called the self-fulfillment of prophecies, and pulling the trick is just as easy as effective.
