A nation binds itself to what is most constantly necessary and healthy in economics by applying five precepts:
The primacy given to these precepts constitutes a rigor. A nation that, for whatever reason, fails to comply with them condemns itself to the accumulation of disparate tactics and corrupt expedients that serve as economic policy. The latter tends to be what, in this art, is likely to become positively and durably appreciated by public opinion only if three preferences that complement each other determine it: the preference for the general interest to the detriment of sectional interests, the preference for the essential to the detriment of the accessory, the preference for the structural to the detriment of the ephemeral and the sensational.
Aspirations for greater economic equity without a sustained effort of conceptual rigour and political vigour push to the bottomless wells of ever more compassion that does not remedy the causes to be reduced.
Always austerity in economic administration at all levels consists for many in refusing to do or to continue to do. But the lavish or harmful character of a refusal or an acceptance is only relative to at least one of the constitutive precepts of the policy to which one adheres. The shortcoming of a power that sees itself as too little "pedagogical" is that of its politics. And the zero point of convincing the defense of a government course of action is: there is no other way.
What is a candidate preparing for election or appointment to a high office when he campaigns with his arms full of intentions, but with a vague and often incoherent mind about the principles that will guide him once elected or appointed? He reduces his ability to make the general interest prevail over the individual interest, including his own. He is undermining what his authority will be.
From an electorate, little or badly trained in discerning the general interest in the maze full of perverse effects of the economy, inevitably emerges a body of elected officials in its image. The political responsibilities of the teaching bodies are considerable.
Better administration, or as one wishes to manage better, as well as better training, without recourse to more rigorous designations and more vigorous rules, quickly reaches its limits. Sufficiently elaborated that its basic doctrine is composed of initial proposals of economic science and major orientations of economic policy, Objective political economy, or objective economy for short, is a reservoir from which to draw rigour and vigour. What do those most inclined to reject the offer of this exploitation intend to preserve?