AGEFI Luxembourg - avril 2024

Avril 2024 9 AGEFI Luxembourg Fiscalité / Economie ByProf.BrunoCOLMANT,Ph.D.,Memberofthe RoyalAcademy of Belgium N eoliberalismis liberalism "after." It is a rehabilitation ofwhatwas known as the "classical economists," fromthe end of theXVIIIᵉ to the beginning of the XIXᵉ, who considered that the State should stay out of economic creation and that itwas necessary todevelop the theory of supply, i.e., to stimulate production, whichnaturally led to its demand through the income it helped to generate. This line of thought has been evol- ving for two centuries and was, of course,playedoutbyMarxattheend of the XIXᵉ century and, above all, by John Maynard Keynes in the XXᵉ century, whose theories accompanied the late 1930s through to the 1970s, i.e., from the Great Depression topost-war reconstruction. NeoliberalismhasitsrootsinfierceoppositiontoJohn MaynardKeynes.Thiswastheso-calledMontPelerin Society, founded in 1947, of which Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were members. Both wereawardedtheNobelPrizeinEconomics in1974and1976 respectively. This rehabili- tation of liberalism was triggered, among other things, by the coincidence of unem- ployment and inflation in the 1970s, which was incompatible with the rejected Keynesiantheory.Theterm"stagflation"was used at the time. It was the inflation of the 1970s that led to the need to rehabilitate capital, whosepurchasingpowerhad been eroded by inflation. Neoliberalism took hold with deregula- tion, but above all, with the conviction that the market eco- nomy was more effi- cient thananeconomy in partnershipwith the State. Theneo-liberalmarketeconomy,whichhasdis- tantCalvinistoriginsandcanbedescribedasproduc- tivistandutilitarian,isbasedonthepremisethatevery factorofproductioncanbelikenedtoasecuritytraded onthemarket.Inthismarket,theprotagonists-buyers and sellers - constantly evaluate future utility. In a market economy, all factors of production must be fragmented; everything is composed, decomposed, and recomposed according to economic evolution, andallsocial,regulatory,orintermediaryconcertation layersmust bedismantled toobtain the purest possi- ble market in terms of reconfiguration of factors of production. The problem is that whenwe enter a neoliberal mar- ket economy where the value of everything is mea- surednot bypast productioncostsbut byanticipated future utility, we suck in the volatility of the future, which in fact, leads toperpetual crises. Forty years ago, the West entered an Anglo-Saxon market economy that brought us growth, prosperity, andinnovation.Thispoliticalconfigurationgradually enveloped the globe as its two counter-models - Marxism-Leninism and Maoism - collapsed. This immersion in neoliberalism was not the result of a fad. It stemmed from a growing reaction to, and contestation of; states deemed too big, inefficient, bureaucratic, intrusive, and fussy. The emergence of neoliberalism coincided with the political direction taken byMargaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. They were res- ponding to the economic disaster that confronted the Westernworld in the 1970s, characterized by awave of inflation and massive structural unemployment. Thisinflationwasnohistoricalcoincidencebutadirect consequence of the United States' abandonment of the BrettonWoodsAgreement in 1971. These agree- ments, negotiated in July 1944, had imposed a gold standard that led to stable exchange rates. Neoliberalism was thus born out of the monetary disorder of the 1970s. Following in the footsteps of Milton Friedman, who argued that moneywas neu- tral and that inflation could only have been created byexcessivestateintervention(inthiscase,theBretton Woods monetary agreements linking the various Western currencies prior to theAmerican decision of 1971), it was agreed that state interference in the eco- nomic sphere had to be limited in order to combat inflation.MiltonFriedmanwasfirmlyopposedtothe gold standard. Neoliberalismalsocoincidedwithastructuralchange in capital and labor relationships. In the 1980s, in contrast to the economy of relative scarcity that had preceded it, scarcity shifted to the demand for goods and services ina context of progressive globalization, progressivelydeprivingworkersofafairshareofpro- ductivity gains. ThisisAdamSmith'sfamousinvisiblehand,atheory according to which all the individual actions of eco- nomicplayers,guidedbytheirself-interest,contribute towealthand the commongood. Yes, it is so invisible thatwe have not seenmuchof it. Some thoughts on neoliberalism BEYON SHAPIN TING 20 CELEBRA D THE EX G TAX A Y YEARS OF INTEGRIT PECTED DVICE Design by takaneo.com L e ministre des Finances, Gilles Roth, s'est déplacé à Londres du 20 au 22 mars 2024, dans le cadre d'une mission financière permettant de renfor- cer davantage les liens avec le Royaume-Uni. La réunion bilatérale avec le secrétaire économique du Trésor et ministre en charge de la place financière de Lon- dres, Bim Afolami, portait avant tout sur le renforcement de la coopération bilatérale et les priorités respectives des deux pays dans le domaine des services financiers. Leministre Roth a dans ce contexte sou- ligné que «nos places financières comp- tent parmi les plus internationales au monde, tout en étant très complémen- taires. Depuis des décennies, le Luxem- bourg agit par exemple en tant que hub de la distribution de fonds et de la ges- tion d'actifs pour les gestionnaires de fonds britanniques. En tant que centres financiers de premier plan, le Luxem- bourg et le Royaume-Uni sont en outre idéalement placés pour aider à mobili- ser des capitaux privés en faveur de la transition verte. Il s'agit notamment d'un domaine dans lequel nous souhai- tons renforcer notre coopération.» Leministre aprofitéde sondéplacement pour rencontrer des hauts dirigeants du secteur financier britannique. Les diffé- rents acteurs ont souligné que leLuxem- bourg joue un rôle clé dans leur stratégie européenne et qu'ils continueront à dé- velopper et à étendre leurs activités au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg. Ainsi, Gilles Roth a réitéré : «Le déve- loppement de notre place financière, mais aussi de notre écosystème d'inno- vation, est une priorité pour ce gouver- nement. Ainsi, il est essentiel d'assurer un environnement propice permettant au secteur financier d'innover et de sai- sir de nouvelles opportunités, y compris dans le domaine des fonds alternatifs et des actifs numériques.» Le ministre a également eu un échange aveclaCityofLondonCorporationetdes représentantsd'institutionsfinancièresde la place de Londres sur les défis du sec- teur financier au Royaume-Uni et dans l'UE dans l'environnement macroécono- miqueetgéopolitiqueactuel,ainsiquesur les principales tendances et opportunités dans le domaine des services financiers. Enfin, le ministre des Finances a assisté à un événement de Luxembourg for Fi- nance (LFF), rassemblant des profession- nels du secteur financier, lors duquel il a souligné:«LeRoyaume-UnietleLuxem- bourg comptent parmi les économies les plus internationalisées dumonde et abri- tent des centres financiers de premier plan. Le Luxembourg reconnaît la néces- sitédedisposerdemarchésfinanciersou- vertsetinterconnectésàl'échellemondiale afindefournirlesmeilleursservicesànos entreprises et à nos citoyens». Source : ministère des Finances LeministreGilles ROTH en déplacement à Londres dans le cadre d'unemission financière «Le Royaume-Uni et le Luxembourg comptent parmi les économies les plus internationalisées dumonde » Gilles ROTH, ministre des Finances, à la réception de Luxembourg for Finance ©MFIN