Reading the remarks appeared to be classic

The Pittsburgh Summit has not yet occurred, but Wall Street has already won. Nothing will really change. There is no limit to the bonus. There will be no new instances of financial regulation. And, especially, bankers will not pay the price of a great privilege since the collapse of the Lehman House: whatever happens, the Government will be there to prevent their bankruptcy. Of course, there will be more technical precautions, such as strengthened capital requirements. But not premiums, insurance or constraints on the size or the portfolio of activities.

These non-avancées have nothing to chance. They are the result of intense lobbying work, led first by the American financial community in Washington. "It seems that the big banks did that increase their political weight since the crisis began," was before the summer Simon Johnson, a former Chief Economist of the IMF, in an article breaking (1). With a simple argument: If you do not save us or even if you put sticks in the wheels, it will be disaster.

Indeed, bankers are not the only to play the jurisdiction of the fear. The times of crisis are favourable to the well-organized lobbies, who know how to take the opportunity to win bingo. In Europe as in the United States, automakers have benefited in recent months of aid, impossible to capture in ordinary times. Other more anecdotal examples show that the drama benefit that knows how to exploit them. Remembered for example at the time of the French bseiu engineering. In 2002, by relying on the emotions aroused by a pair of fatal accidents, they managed to pass a proposed law in imposing six months of the colossal work questionable utility, providing them with fifteen years of business!

The lobbies were certainly good reasons to exist. In a democracy, special interests have any legitimacy to express themselves and to exert pressure. In France, the National Assembly and the Senate are working on a legal framework for their activity. Sometimes even the lobbies to contribute to the general interest. If there is France a text defining the rules on exposure to electromagnetic waves, it is under the pressure of a mobile telecom operator who wanted to know what to take to implement its antennas. But it appears as if a balance had been broken.

Back then in memory "Supercapitalism", a book published two years ago, under the pen of Robert Reich (French Edition in Vuibert, in 2008). This American academic, who was Minister of labour of Bill Clinton, is denouncing the increasing influence of corporations in the United States on the policy decisions over the general interest. By multiplying the examples: in ten years, the number of lobbyists has tripled in Washington. Google had to be put to avoid to be swept by Microsoft which has long been understood how to pass legislation favourable to its activity. Etc. Reading, the remarks appeared to be classic. He leaves but a swirling message. And if dikes had surrendered It is the best way to explain the impossibility of getting a serious reform of the health in America, the colossal efforts made by the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies to prevent. The question does not arise only across the Atlantic. It is in France, with, for example, the efforts of the giants of the mobile phone to prevent the arrival of a new rival, that seem to resonate to the Elysee Palace.

Once companies have excellent reasons to advance their cause. The real problem is in the face. Politicians who sometimes give the impression of release management. Because they are linked to the world of business, directly or through their advisors. Because they have other cats whipping. Because political action is more complicated that economic pressure is increasingly strong. Yet, this is the general interest is at stake with the special interests. Thus the basis of democracy.