Although it’s only just getting under way, it’s fascinating to see how the campaign is shaping. At the moment it has practically nothing to do with traditional left against traditional right, but with a conflict between two different approaches to democracy.

The writer of le blog politique says that Ségolène Royal will not make it into the 2^nd round because she has not got what it takes. France, the writer says, is not Sweden or Denmark, it needs a real head of state, a boss. A lot of people, not only French, would agree: leaders need to be strong managers, looking after everything so you, the citizen, can get on with your life.

But others say that system of top-down government no longer works, because it inherently breeds disillusion with the leader. Messrs Blair, Bush and Chirac are current examples of voter disillusion. Consequently, people vote less and less (even for last Sunday’s election of the UMP candidate, open only to committed, paid-up party members, nearly a third of the members didn’t vote). These critics of the command-and-control system claim that it would be better to move power outwards, decentralising it, giving responsibility to everyone. That idea is certainly catching on in France, and partly explains why Ségolène Royal has done so extraordinarily well over the past 12 months, defeating her “strong manager” rivals who were, 12 months ago, far better placed than she. The problem, or the question, of course is, what has this “soft” idea of taking power away from managers and giving it to everyone, got to do with the “hard” business of running a major country? Conventional wisdom says one is reality, the other for the birds.

Advocates of the second, decentralised approach point to one major, international company that works in this amorphous, let-each-unit-decide-for-itself way. It’s a big company, most readers not only know it, they carry its calling-card on them at all times. It’s called Visa. Visa, by conservative estimates, is one of the most successful companies ever created – in fact it is the biggest commercial structure in the world. Since Dee Hock set it up 30 years ago, Visa has grown an estimated 10,000% and still grows at 20% a year. Yet Visa is not owned by anyone, nor can you buy shares in it. It is a network of 22,000 banks across 200 countries, each bank respecting its own rules and the rules of its country, yet it also fitting into the trans-frontier Visa package.

How Visa evolved as a disorganised, deliberately chaotic organisation is a fascinating story in itself, a precursor of the internet and Open Source. To find out more, go to Wikipedia – another example of a highly successful open system. It’s that sort of system which some French voters are beginning to think may work for politics too. Thierry Crouzet, an influential French blogger, with some 3,000 visits a day, has much on his site well worth reading, and his new book Le Cinquième Pouvoir, deserves to be translated. Have a look too at his recent blog on Wikinomics. But Thierry does not imagine that open source democracy, or the 5^th power, will overnight replace the present system of government, any more than Open Source will replace Microsoft. But in the same way that Open Source was born as a reaction to Microsoft, and simply by existing has an enormous and beneficial influence on that company, so an open source democracy might breathe fresh life into the frankly unappealing politics dominated by Messrs Bush, Blair and Chirac.

“The real work of the 5^th power is done by little imperceptible touches, a slow accumulation of grains of sand, which will be capable of creating monstrous avalanches.”

Naturally, there are plenty of voters who see that as utopist twaddle, who feel a strong boss is the only workable answer. Perhaps next time they delve for their plastic card they should wonder who is the boss of Visa.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under French blogs - 5th Power, Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.