The Ghost of 1789: Napoleon’s Axiom, Piketty’s Capital, and the Crisis of Modern France

Born in 1769, Napoleon was nineteen when the French Revolution began in 1789, turning twenty that August. Fiscal crisis, entrenched privilege and popular revolt were shaking the established order. More than two centuries later, young French citizens face a different but unsettlingly familiar challenge: economic insecurity, declining confidence in political institutions and uncertainty about their future. What happens when a generation loses faith that the established order can deliver opportunity and fairness?

France’s predicament brought to mind Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014). Piketty argues that when returns on capital persistently exceed economic growth, wealth can concentrate across generations, entrenching inherited privilege. His analysis raises a fundamental question: can a society offer genuine equality of opportunity when economic advantage increasingly depends on inheritance rather than individual effort? Progressive taxation and public investment are central to his proposed response.

Frédéric Bastiat offers a contrasting perspective. Writing amid the upheavals of 1848, he warned in The State that the government could become an instrument of competing interests seeking privileges at taxpayers’ expense. He famously described it as “the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.” His warning remains relevant wherever public power protects established interests rather than serving the common good.

France’s fiscal position brings both arguments into focus. In 2025, public expenditure amounted to 57.2 per cent of GDP, the budget deficit reached 5.1 per cent, and public debt stood at 115.7 per cent of GDP. These figures expose the difficulty of sustaining France’s extensive social model amid weak growth and mounting fiscal pressures. They do not, by themselves, prove that the state is too large or that redistribution is to blame. They pose a more important question: are public resources being used effectively to reconcile social protection, economic dynamism and fiscal sustainability? (INSEE; OECD)

In an October 2026 intervention in Le Monde, Piketty argued that real funding per higher-education student had fallen by around 20 per cent since 2017. He highlighted the difficulties facing young people who work hard to qualify for further education but cannot secure a place. This exposes a central contradiction: what does meritocracy mean when access to opportunity falls short of individual effort? Inequality concerns not only wealth, but also access to the education that enables economic independence.

Piketty and Bastiat illuminate two sides of the same problem. Piketty warns that concentrated private wealth can undermine meritocracy; Bastiat cautions that public power can entrench privilege. Neither perspective alone provides a complete solution. Poorly designed subsidies, tax concessions and regulation can protect established interests, while indiscriminate austerity can undermine education, infrastructure and social mobility. The challenge is to ensure that public spending expands opportunity without imposing unsustainable burdens on future generations.

For a French citizen turning twenty today, the stakes are tangible: affordable housing, meaningful work, quality education and economic independence. Inherited wealth can shape life chances before competition begins, while ineffective institutions can further restrict them. The test is whether hard work still offers a credible path to advancement.

The lesson of 1789 is that fiscal distress can become a crisis of political legitimacy when compounded by inequality, entrenched privilege and declining public trust. The Revolution also showed how demands for justice can give way to demands for order when institutions fail to respond to social expectations.

For Greece, the French debate carries particular resonance. After a decade of fiscal adjustment, Greece faces the continuing challenge of translating fiscal discipline into broader opportunities for its citizens. Sound public finances matter, but so does the effectiveness with which public resources support education, employment, housing and social mobility. Both countries face the question of whether institutions can combine economic sustainability with a credible prospect of a better future for younger generations.

Napoleon’s maxim reminds us that generations are shaped by the circumstances in which they come of age. The ghost of 1789 does not predict another revolution in France or Greece. It offers a more enduring warning: when privilege persists and opportunity disappoints, public trust erodes. Democracy depends not simply on balancing the books, but on whether citizens believe that effort can be rewarded, institutions can be trusted and the future remains open to them.