14 Leaders The EconomistJanuary 20th 2018
(^2) tor, the country’s powerful labour unions call people into the
streets or cripple the country with strikes. Repairing the econ-
omy will take time—and cause pain. Butjust when patience is
needed, mob rule has become the norm.
The government’s first task is macroeconomic stability.
Youssef Chahed, the prime minister, deserves credit for stick-
ing to his guns over the tax rises and subsidy cuts that led to the
recent protests. (He had a nudge from the IMF, which has
agreed to lend Tunisia €2.4bn, or $2.9bn.) Even so, the govern-
ment, an unruly alliance ofnationalists and Islamists, has only
haltingly worked to bring down the budget deficit, which was
6% ofGDPlast year, and to hold down public debt.
No pain, no gain
Mr Chahed must also do more to disentangle the state from the
economy. Some 20% of workers have jobsin the public sector;
their wages consume almost 14% ofGDP, among the highest
proportions in the world. Yet firms run by the government are
stonkingly inefficient. The state oil company hired 14% more
workers over the past decade—during which time production
volumes fell by 29%. Poorly run companies stumble on be-
cause competitors face steep barriers to entry in most sectors
of the economy. Revenues from the sale of oil, gas and phos-
phate are not invested in infrastructure that might encourage
enterprise, especially in the neglected hinterland, where the
commodities are extracted.
Rich countries could do more to help keep Tunisia on track.
Yet President Donald Trump’s proposed budget would cut bi-
lateral aid to the countryby two-thirds. France has given rela-
tively little to its former colony. More important, America and
Europe could open their marketsto more Tunisian goods. In
2016 the European Union raised quotas for Tunisian olive oil, a
significant export, for two years. Such deals could be extended,
and more thrashed out—on Tunisian dates, vegetables, clothes
and machinery.
But the world can do only so much. The burden ultimately
falls on Tunisia’s leaders to mend the economy and make the
case for democracy. Their caution is prolonging the pain of re-
form. Tunisians acted boldly in choosing democracy. They
must be just as bold in pursuing prosperity. 7
L
ATER this month, if all has
gone according to plan, a
rocket called the Falcon Heavy
will take off from Cape Canaver-
al, in Florida (see page 66). Its
mission is to put a sports car in
orbit around the sun. The Falcon
Heavy isthe latestproduct of
SpaceX, a firm founded byElon Musk, an American billion-
aire. The car is Mr Musk’s own, made by Tesla, another of his
businesses. SpaceX has the explicit aim, besides making mon-
ey, of enabling people to travel to and colonise Mars. Before
then, the Falcon Heavy may earn its keep liftingsatellites and
carrying tourists on “slingshot” trips around the moon.
Mr Musk’s ambition is to propel humanity beyond its home
planet. But what is going on in space today also reflects the
shifting balance of power on Earth. In the days of the space
race between America and the Soviet Union, the heavens
were a front in the cold war between two competing ideolo-
gies. Since then, power has not merely shifted between coun-
tries. Ithas also shifted between governmentsand individuals.Wa c k y ra c e s
International competition is not absent from outer space. Chi-
na, for instance, is making noises about Mars. Last year it
deemed an expanse of desert in the country’s north-west to be
sufficiently Martian to be reserved as a training ground for
Mars-bound “taikonauts”. China is also movingits principal
space port from the north to the south of the country, partly in
order to take advantage of the extra launch velocity imparted
nearer the equator by Earth’s spin (see page 27). In America,
meanwhile, President Donald Trump signed an order in De-
cember directingNASA, the country’s space agency, to prepare
for a return of American astronauts to the moon.Yet in comparison with the 1960s, things are all quite slow-
moving. Actual target dates were notably absent from Mr
Trump’s announcement, and China’s ambitions for men and
women on the moon have a similarly lackadaisical feel to
them. This greater relaxation about matters space-related is in
part because the original race was seen as a crucial test of
whether capitalism or central planning was the better eco-
nomic system (though NASA’s effort was probably the most
centrally planned civilian operation in the historyof the Un-
ited States). The lackof intensityin space today reflects the cal-
mer nature of superpower rivalry on Earth.
It also reflects the diffusion of wealth and technology. The
number of “spacefaring” countries has increased since the
1960s, when only America and the Soviet Union counted.
Now—besides China and Russia—Europe, India and Japan also
have space programmes that can, and do, reach the moon and
other heavenly bodies with robot spacecraft.
As for the idea that a private individual could run a space
programme, that would have been laughable back then. Now
several are. For Mr Musk has rivals, from Blue Origin (backed
by Jeff Bezos of Amazon) at one end to a plucky, pint-sized start-
up called Rocket Lab at the other. (It hopes to make its first
launch into orbit in the next few days.) Lifting satellites into or-
bit is a proper business, and therefore properly the business of
businessfolk. The fact that a wealthy person is willing to spend
his money on such a fanciful space project as going to Mars is,
though, an intriguing departure—and a good measure of just
how rich some people have become.
For now, the world’s private space programmes, whether
commercial or quixotic, are mostly American. But the model is
spreading. Even China sports nascent rocket firms. The incipi-
ent race to Mars will include companies as well as countries.
That will make it a better test of economic systems than the
original space race ever was. 7The new space raceIn heaven as it is on Earth
Events in space reflect those back home