Dominique Michaut

After studying economics (Paris Assas) and continuing education in business administration techniques, Dominique Michaut worked as a management consultant in the distribution and agri-food sector, then with industrial groups and IT service companies. From 1978 to 2008, he assembled a set of initial proposals for economics. In 2014, he created the website lecodemain.net (“L’économie demain”).

In 2017, he published his “Précis d'économie objective”, from which is drawn the popularization of the main theses of strictly defined economics, the subject of this book. (See Dominique Michaut - Babelio).

Dominique Michaut has provided formal foundations to Paul Fabra’s renewed political economy. A major one is the bridge provided between macro-economy and micro-economy through a new analytical framework.

1. The fundamental concept: a new Analytical Framework

Dominique Michaut introduces equimanagement as both an investigative instrument and an operational tool. His central contribution is the systematic reintroduction of the dimension of savings in capital at all stages of business management, from pricing to commercial strategy. This corrects a truncated view of the firm.

2. The diagnosis: the neglect of capital and its consequences

The enterprise as a "Condensed Set of Markets": Before being a production unit, the enterprise is fundamentally a nexus of market exchanges (capital market at its founding, labor market, supplier markets). The accounting betrayal: modern analytical accounting, obsessed with flows (costs and revenues), has sidelined the crucial notion of rate of return (profit relative to invested capital) in favor of a narrow view of sales margins.

A Foundational Drift: This drift is exacerbated by the harmful influence of national accounting (designed for a wartime economy and ignoring capital) on commercial accounting, leading to a fatal "divorce" between flow accounts (income statement) and patrimonial accounts (balance sheet).

3. The technical solution: A new method for cost calculation

The technical starting point is solving the problem of allocating common (indirect) costs. Michaut proposes a revolutionary method:

• Rule: Allocate indirect costs in proportion to the direct investments made for each product or production center.
• Justification: This cost share represents a "rent" that each activity pays for the share of assets (capital) it uses.
• Objective: This method is the only one that does not distort the calculation of product profitability (profit/invested capital), which is the decisive ratio, far more important than the sales margin.

4. The Philosophical and Strategic Scope: Beyond Technique

A Liberation from Statuses: by considering the employee as an "internal supplier," the approach reveals the potential of the market economy to transcend the hierarchical and subordinate framework of labor law.

A new management principle: equimanagement leads to abandoning the false principle of short-term profit maximization. It pushes managers to anticipate market action, which tends to equalize profit rates.

The Ultimate Goal: By focusing on the rate of return of savings in capital, the enterprise better ensures its long-term sustainability and fairly serves the interests of all its stakeholders (clients, employees and shareholders).

5. In summary, Dominique Michaut's contribution is threefold:

• Conceptual: he provides a vision of the enterprise as an aggregate of markets where capital is central.
• Technical: he provides a coherent accounting method (cost allocation via investment) for measuring true performance.
• Strategic: he offers an alternative to short-term management, refocusing the enterprise on its long-term capital health.