INTEREST GROUPS AND INCOMES POLICY IN FRANCE
| Date | 01 March 1966 |
| Author | J. E. S. Hayward |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1966.tb00926.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1966 |
INTEREST GROUPS AND INCOMES POLICY IN FRANCE
J.
E.
S.
HAYWARD*
THE
SOCIO-POLITICAL
IMPLICATIONS
OF
A
NATIONAL
INCOMES
POLICY
IN
the 1960s, incomes policy and interest groups have both come into the
forefront of political concern. Particularly within the sphere of social
and economic policy, it is increasingly accepted that decisions should only
be taken after consultation or even in concert with the affected interests.
Particularly when well organized, these interests are thereby provided with
an opportunity to influence policy.
As
Raymond Aron expressed it when
considering the Masst Report on Incomes Policy in 1964: ‘The State
intervenes too much in the working of the economy to rely solely on market
mechanisms. If it wishes to reduce constraint to
a
minimum, it must find
among the representatives of socio-economic groups the appropriate inter-
locutors, who are concerned about the stability of the whole as well as their
special demands. Perhaps the immediate purpose of an incomes policy is
to find the partners to a dialogue who agree to speak the same language as
those who are responsible for achieving economic equilibrium’.‘
In conditions of social and economic stability the distribution of incomes
does not emerge
as
a
political predicament. However, when the aspiration
for and the achievement of
a
rapid rate of economic growth disturbs the
distribution of incomes between the social categories of people represented
by organized interest groups, political tension results. Problems of ‘parity’
or ‘comparability’ arise, with those falling behind
-
either in fact or in their
own estimation
-
constantly seeking to catch up. In conditions of semi-full
employment and where productivity is not increasing fast enough to absorb
the demands made upon it, inflationary pressure becomes an increasing
problem, bringing in its train balance-of-payments difficulties.
As these factors have been present in most Western European countries
since the Second World War, Governments have been driven to seek
a
remedy to inflation in policies of wage restraint and then, more broadly,
in the formulation of
a
national incomes policy. In this delicate task, they
have associated the major interest groups even more closely than is usual
in other economic policy matters;
a
corollary of the politicization
of
the
economy being the need to ‘concert’ policy ever more closely with the
interests where collaboration is indispensable. In return, it
is
understood
that the groups consulted should seek the satisfaction of their members’
interests in the context of the consequences of their action for the whole
LC
Figaro,
28.2.
1964;
cf.
F.
Bloch-Laint:
A
la
recherche
d’une
‘Cconomie
conccrtcc’,
Editions
d8
*
Lecturer in Political Institutions, University of Keele
’Epargnc,
1959,
passim
165
I
66
BRITISH
JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL
RELATIONS
community. There is no pre-established harmony between these interests,
business organizations and trade unions in particular being more accus-
tomed to industrial conflict than to consensus.
The conflict between organized interests, as Professor Dahrendorf has
persuasively argued, is based fundamentally upon positions of superiority
and inferiority occupied by different groups within a community’s power
structure, leading to conflicts about ‘the legitimacy of relations of
authority’.2 An important aspect of such conflicts is disagreement over the
share of the national wealth accruing to particular interests
;
especially
the interests of labour, represented by the trade unions, and of capital,
represented by the business organizations. It is consequently significant
that
a
pioneer in the task of bringing the abstract categories of traditional
liberal economics face to face with reality in this field should have demon-
strated the degree to which differences in earnings’ expectations (and to
a
lesser extent attainments) tend to reflect and to sustain social differences
derived from status within a power hierarchy, in
so
far
as
any rational
criterion can be discerned.
As
Barbara Wootton wrote ten years ago of
British wage structure, ‘In fact almost the only consistent feature
of
the
whole picture
is
the principle that those who give orders expect (though
even this rule is occasionally broken in practice) to be paid more than those
to whom such orders are given.’3 It is, therefore, not surprising that to
governmental preoccupation with inflation, there has to be added the
concern
-
particularly among Socialists
-
with social equity, the challenge
to the privileged access to wealth enjoyed by those occupying positions of
authority.
THE
DISPARITIES
IN
THE
DISTRIBUTION
OF
FRENCH
INCOMES
Before examining the attempt to secure an incomes policy in France,
it is necessary to put this in the context
of
the consequences of the changing
character of the French economy for the distribution of income between
different categories of people. The dynamism of the post-war French
TABLE
1
Change in Occupational Distribution
Occupational Category
Farmers
Agricultural workers
Employers (Industry and Trade)
Professional and Senior Managerial
Middle and Lower Managerial
White-collar employees
Workers
Service personnel
Others Total
‘954
O’
/O
3 983 840 20.8
1
151
520 6
2
295 840 12
554 240 2.9
1
139 540 5.9
2 078 480 109
6 465
100
33.8
983 780 5.1
499
040
2.6
19 151 380
100
in France,
1954-62
1962
yo
Dzyerence
3
011
600
15.8 -972
240
829
600
4.3 -321 920
1
996 560 10.5 -299 280
761
040
3.9 +206
800
1
490 500 7.7 +350 960
2 416 300 12.6 +337 820
7 024
040
36.7 +558 940
1
042 020 5.4
+
58 240
592
800
3.1
+
93 760
19 164 460
100
+
13
080
%
-
25
-
28
-
13
+
34
+
30
+16
+8
+6
+
20
2
R. Dahrendorf,
Class
and
Class
Conflict in Industrial Society
(Routledge
&
Kegan Paul,
1959),
3
B.
Wootton,
The Social Foundations
of
Wage
Policy,
1955,
2nd ed. (Unwin,
1962),
p.
67;
cf.
p.
176;
cf.
170
ef seq.
pp.
39-40,68,128-30,165-66
INTEREST GROUPS AND INCOMES POLICY IN FRANCE 167
economy is
a
commonplace. The process of rapid industrialization and
urbanization has led to notable changes in relative importance of the
different sectors of the economy as shown in Table
I
.4
The shift from the primary sector, embracing the farmers and agri-
cultural workers, who still formed one-fifth of the working population in
1962,
to the secondary and tertiary sectors, is the result of a steady migration
to the towns
of
about
I
60,000
people or about
3
per cent of the agricultural
population per year. However, the rise in the number of subordinate
employees from
just
under
50
per cent to nearly
55
per cent has been
particularly marked amongst white-collar employees, indicating
a
further
shift from the secondary to the tertiary sector. The heavy fall in the number
of employers and the more than compensating increase in the size
of
managerial staffs indicate increasing concentration in French industry
and to a lesser extent in trade,
a
decline in the number of firms being
matched by an increase of the scale of the survivors. This process has been
accompanied by
a
rapid increase in the earnings of the senior salaried
staffs
of
business.
Though the marked change in occupational distribution out of poorly
remunerated agriculture into industry and the provision of services has
had an equalizing influence upon the distribution of national income,
immense inequalities exist and are increasing between incomes. The
economic correspondent of
Le Monde,
Gilbert Mathieu, has calculated on
the basis of the report of the
Commission d’ktude jiscale
in
1961,
that the
pyramid of French incomes was of the order
of
I
:
I
,000
for the extreme cases
and
I
:
350
for the extreme groups.s The
Directeur des Etudes konomiques
of
the European Coal and Steel Community, Pierre Maillet, has published
some official figures for
1956
(see Table
2)
which show that
7.8
per cent
of the richest French households received
29.7
per cent of the national
TABLE
2
The Distribution
of
French National Income in
1956
Income
in
thousands
of
Francs
0-2.2
2.2-3.5
3.5-6.0
6-9
9-1
5
15-30
30
do
60-100
Over
100
No.
of
Households
%
22.4
13.0
24.7
18.0
14.1
6.2
1.3
02
0.1
Share
of
National
Income
YO
3.3
5.6
17.5
20.0
23.9
18.4
7.7
2.2
1
*4
4
Based upon census statistics published in
Citoyens
60,
Jan.-Feb.
1964,
p.
13.
The percentage
of
the French working population employed in agriculture was
61%
in
1850,40Y0
in
1910,32y0
in
1930
and
20%
in
1962.
(M. Debatisse in his contribution to
La
N&
Sept.
’1963,.
p.
92,)
6
G.
Mathieu, “L’in6galitt des revenus en France et la ‘politique des revenus’
”
in
Cahzers
du
Centre
d’Etudcs
Sociulistes,
April-June
1963,
p.
4;
cf.
Mathieu’s articles in
Lc
Mod,
20-21.8.61
and
Lcs
Tmjs
Modems,
Sept.-Oct.
1962,
p.
409
et
seq.
For a somewhat different interpretation see
J.
Boissonnat,
La Politique des
Revenus
(Seuil,
1966,)
pp.
67-68.
C
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