Investing in austerity[Investir dans l’austérité]

This article explores the paradox in post-2008 fiscal policy between valuing public investment and spending on the one hand, and maintaining austerity on the other. It proposes to understand it with the concept of "Investor state". This one designates the redefinition of the role of the state in the economy after 2008 as an "investor". During this period, investment - redefined in economic rather than accounting terms - became not only a central tool of economic policy, but also a principle for legitimizing state action in general. As a result, anything that was not considered as investment - i.e., the majority of state action - was deemed inefficient and subject to budgetary cuts. Thus, the "investor state" regime constitutes an evolution from the era of the"consolidator state", as defined by Wolfgang Streeck: the objective of stimulating growth through public investment is integrated into fiscal policy, which is therefore no longer reduced solely to the goal of debt reduction. As such, it can be seen as a new fiscal order. But in any case, this new fiscal order does not break with neoliberalism. Rather, it represents a new mutation of neoliberalism, once again demonstrating the latter's resilience. Empirically the article shows how, from 2008 onwards, the French government began to promote investment by systematically contrasting it with other so-called "operating" or "current" public spending - i.e. mainly social spending and civil service wage spending. It also shows how this dual budgetary discourse has continued to the present day, despite the alternations and crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.