Although I tend to believe that most politicians are decent, or at least as decent as usual people, plenty of them are corrupt. Limiting myself to Europe, there are people like Sarkozy and Fillon, those involved in the EU’s Qatargate scandal, the figures in Spain’s Gürtel and ERE cases, and so on. Then there are plenty of cases where politicians have benefited friends or companies from which they later received favors—here, there are far more allegations than convictions, but as a citizen, one gets the impression that if they didn’t end up in jail, it was because of some legal technicality, and that as a private person, one would have been in real trouble. Then there are cases where their behaviour is legal but evidently corrupt, with politicians moving from their political positions to highly paid corporate jobs.

So, there are plenty of corrupt politicians, but this isn’t the kind of dishonesty I refer to in the title. The reason why, in my opinion, politicians are fundamentally dishonest is that, while knowing better, they choose to kick the can down the road to avoid dealing with the consequences of what they know needs to be done.

We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.
— Jean-Claude Juncker

For example, all politicians know that climate change is going to be a huge problem, and that it’s in everyone’s long-term interest to try to mitigate it as much as possible. They know that this will cost a lot, and that people will have to give up things they like, or at least do less of them. They know that, in any case, a lot of money will have to be spent on adaptation. And all that money will not be available for other things—either less private consumption or fewer public goods. Less in any case. They know that life is going to change fundamentally. For worse. For many people. They know that agriculture, as currently practiced, is unsustainable—both from the perspective of climate change and from the perspective of things like soil health. They know that Europe should be electrifying everything that can be electrified, also for reasons of energy independence. They know all of this has to be done, and that it will be expensive. They know that windparks and electric grids will have to be built where people don’t want them. But, instead of realistically deciding how all of this will be paid for, telling voters how the burden will be shared, they pass some regulations and do little things here and there, almost hoping that nobody complains. Then, farmers, or people working in the car industry, are justifiably aggravated because the burden is placed solely on them rather than being shared by society. And they protest. And then the politicians’ reaction is to backtrack, even though they know something has to be done, and that delaying it only makes matters worse.

There are plenty of other problems like this. Take the aging population. This will transform society and has obvious consequences for pensions. As of today, in France, there is roughly one person over 65 for every three people of working age. By 2050, it will be one person over 65 for every two workers. In Germany it was better and it will be worse. This means that if nothing changes, each worker will have to contribute 50% more of their income to the pension system than they do today. Politicians know all of this. Every single one of them. They also know that the longer they wait, the worse the problem will become, because people will have less time to adapt to what’s coming. Less time to come to terms with what will be possible—or not—when they are 65 or 70. Instead, they all tell their voters that it won’t be them footing the bill. And yes, politicians also know that immigration could alleviate the problem, and that it’s madness to try to reduce it, but that argument is basically absent, probably because it feels politically too dangerous.

If politicians were honest, they would telling voters about such problems that “this is a big problem. It will cost a lot to solve it but we have to do it. We have to think about how to share the burden, but some of it is going to fall on you.” Instead, what they do is to either ignore the issue, do some whataboutism, or take symbolic actions and pander to their base—left, center, or right, it doesn’t matter, they all do it—telling their voters that they already carry too much of the burden themselves and that it is up to others to do it now. All of this, while knowing better. As I see it, this is the fundamental dishonesty of politicians.