L'Institut Turgot - A Free-market Think tank
L’Institut Turgot intends to play a decisive role in the production and defence of classical liberal ideas in France and in Europe.
Built on the model of the Institute of Economic Affairs (London), Turgot is independent of all political parties and interest groups.
Turgot is supported by business people, academics, journalists, politicians, and active participants in civil society.
Turgot is more than a intellectual club. It is a think tank which publishes scientific studies on the problems of our time, and puts forward concrete solutions.
Every current of free-market thinking is represented at l’Institut Turgot.
THE ONGOING STUDIES
Health care:
Santé publique, Santé en danger
By JEAN-LUC MIGUÉ, published by l'Institut Turgot, éditions de l’institut Charles Coquelin, price 15 euros
The French health care institutions are in a deep crisis and, in the absence of comprehensive reform, the situation might rapidly become catastrophic.
In spite of official discourse, an unequal provision of care and services is taking hold. The population risks receiving worsening care for an increasingly unbearable burden.
We suggest here a detailed solution to the crisis, based on mechanisms allowing all the interested parties — physicians, patients, insurers — to make a more sensible use of the resources at their disposal.
MICROSOFT ET LES « GARDIENS DE LA CONCURRENCE »
BY FRANCOIS GUILLAUMAT
First in the United States, and then in Europe, Microsoft has been harassed for a decade by various "guardians of competition" in the name of dubious legal concepts. Such prosecutions rest on a false notion of economic efficiency, which leads to hampering real competition, preventing progress in production, while diverting entrepreneurial resources towards sterile pseudo-judicial wrangling. A « dominant position » on a free market rises from the daily choices of thousands of buyers, and none is protected from better alternative supplies.
Charges of "unfair competition" against Microsoft are therefore spurious, as the firm nurtures a whole eco-system of producers who take advantage of its operating system and the standardization services it provides to the industry.
LIBERER LE LOGEMENT
BY VINCENT BENARD
The policy of public housing has led to predictable social ills: segregation, ghettoization and decay. We intend to establish a statement of failure, and suggest remedies based on privatisation. To become a homeowner is to have an interest in keeping the value of one's dwelling. The privatisation of social housing will have to come with the freedom to resell such property and a policy of deregulation and liberalization of the housing sector, in order to restore freedom of choice and decision-making for all.
ETABLIR LA PRESOMPTION D’INNOCENCE
BY GUY MILLIERE
The Outreau affair, where people were falsely accused of molesting children, is but one of too many scandals which have shown the failure of the justice and the legal systems in France.
We plan to determine the underlying causes of those dysfunctions, and make proposals to ensure that the presumption of innocence will be effectively guaranteed and respected.
We will suggest that France introduce in its institutions the notions of habeas corpus and natural law.
We will describe the human consequences of the absence of a presumption of innocence, particularly its economic effects in the relationship between taxpayers and the government.
