Even the French will liberalize

M. Hodak said,

Kat,

Very interesting stats indeed. I can also personally relate to France. I was born there (I like to say I’m American by choice), and about half of my family is still there. One could fairly characterize most of them as depressed. Many of my generation were unable to find real jobs.

My experience, in agreement with your note, is that the French are stubborn collectivists. I’m not suggesting this will change overnight. I probably had cousins involved in the student marches last year protesting the proposed rules for youth labor flexibility. It was an idiotic sight to behold, but I was still awed that certain officials even bothered to propose these rules. Twenty years ago, not a single politician would have dared whispered backing for such a measure.

Instapundit.com (v.2) said,

http://instapundit.com/archives2/004736.php

“WHY EVEN THE FRENCH WILL LIBERALIZE:” A hopeful take….

CatoRenasci said,

I think Marc is correct about the stubborn collectivism of the French, a penchant of long-standing. Certainly, collectivism (and envy, the engine of socialism) is probably the source of most of the excesses of the French Revolution and is fundamental to Rousseau’s notion of the “general will”. The French yearn for a firm hand and an all encompassing system, and rail against a world in which reality diverges from their preferred system.

The prominent German philosopher and intellectual historian Ernst Cassierer, in his class book on the Enlightenment, distinguishes between l’esprit d’system and l’esprit systematique which, he argues, captures the difference between 17th century thought (Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza, etc.) and 18th century thought collectively know as the Enlightenment (the term, of course, is originally German from Kant – the French simply called those who did science and philosophy philosophes).

I’m not sure, however, that the French ever really embraced l’esprit systematique outside of science itself; rather one associates a thoroughgoing philosophical building of theory from fact more with thinkers like Locke and the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment. It is Cartesian rationalism that seems to characterize French thought, manners and behavior, rather than the more pragmatic sense of a Hume, Locke or Adam Smith (as a moral philosopher).

From my study of French history in the modern period, it seems clear a strong case can be made that most of French politics since the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 represents a refusal to accept the reality of the loss of French predominance as a military and cultural power and a cri d’couer to be accepted by the Great Powers well above France’s actual weight.

James said,

“France’s left wing is now pulling about 10 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 1970s and 1980s when they were able to elect a Socialist president. Last weekend, Royal got 25 percent of the vote. That means that 65 percent of France is currently to her right, and she needs at least 15 percent of them to win the Presidency. That puts her in a bind, since what she gains by tacking right risks losing support on her left.”

your math is fuzzy or my brain is.

65%+25%=90%

don’t you mean 75%? i assume she got the 10% from the socialists, since she is a socialist.

25%+15%=40%

where’s the missing 10%? wouldn’t she need an additional 25.1% to win or do you only need 40% in France?

Eric said,

Hello,

my name is Eric and I am French.
I live in France, I love it here, and I am a leftist (Socialist, Social-Democrat, call it as you like) at heart.

First, Kat, your stats are uncorrect :
Socialists themselves account now for 25% of the vote ; they are approx. 10% further left (greens, communists, antiliberals, and diverse trokyists) ; that makes 35% still at left ; anyway, the left is 1)waning 2)having a deep problem of positioning themselves : most of the socialist party wants to “recentrate”, some of them want to move closer left.

In short,the unity and ideas of the French left are battered these days.

But hold on ; there are two reasons at least that make the matters worse :

First, plenty of poor people,a traditional bedrock of leftist vote, fed up of the moghrobean-induced, suburban youth subculture of agressivity have turned out racist and now vote for the far-right ; while Sarkozy, by having a very tough, even racist and rude stance against the “racaille” (scumbags)of suburbia, has caught a very substantial part of the far-right vote, the left, who should be concerned at first by the suffering of the poor, neglected, european-descent people living with those “petits voyous” and who are, after all, their first target, still hasen’t come out on that delicate issue by fear of being called racist (although by now, that subculture is widely black-blanc-beur rather than beur only)…I know what I’m telling about, I lived in those “cities” for 37 years.
The day when comes a leader who says : ok, I’m a leftist, and as a leftist I shall restore law and order FIRST OF ALL, because what is the most UNFAIR is OPPRESSION to a community by another one, one can predict a leftist president right away…

Second, it’s true that the country has too much debt (although comparable to, say, England and Germany, and much less than Italy), too much unemployment, etc…But who was at commands of the state for the last 5 years, and who has been for 10 of the lats 12 years? you bet! the right!…it’s not the least of Sarkozy’s magic to have made the French (and Americans, it seems) forget that!

So how can a French be a leftist? Simple : to be a leftist means to care for QUALITY OF LIFE, not just bare ECONOMICS…And, problem, quality of life just can’t be put in simple charts ; that’s why americanomics will NEVER be able to understand that…The 35 hours workweek may be a anathema economically, but it works very well for the people it was designed to : the poor employees, whose only relief in life is to see a few hours less a week the face of their tormentors (their bosses, that is)…The 35 hours do NOT concern managers and supervisors (an overpaid, overprivileged, overprotected and overpowerful cast here anyway), NOR does it concern liberal professions (lawyers, dentists, doctors,etc…), NOR does it concern “artisans” (bakers, plumbers, pizza vendors, etc…); it leaves plenty of people FREE to work as much as they can and fork a lot really in! after all, if MONEY and WORK alone were the matter, remember that before Mao in China lots of people were working EIGHTEEN HOURS A DAY (“WOW!”,must say the Americanomiker, his eyes glittering!)…
But, sorry guys, the French are not the LEAST WORKING people in Europe : this record goes to the nordic coutries(YES, THE NORDIC COUNTRIES!!), and Germany (YES, GERMANY!); in fact, only England (slightly), PORTUGAL and GREECE (a lot) have more workhours per week than the French : catching up Portugal and Greece!!what a program!!

I could go endlessly explaining and arguing the paradoxes of what is real quality life vs. short-sighted economics, but I don’t even NEED so ; just look at the stats :
USA has fallen from n

Anonymous said,

Mark,

your post is a remarkably interesting one, and your questions are very pertinent.

To your surprise maybe, I admit that French law is too rigid in France when it comes to lay off people ; but, as a leftist, I ask for a fair and secure (financially) social “cushion”, especially to the poorest and weakest people…If it were the case, I’d have nothing against a company just getting rid of some employee when it doesn’t want to work with him anymore…Why not? They must be fair financial guarantees and compensations, that’s all..
I have to say I am rather unique on that point of vue for a leftist…it’s really ossified out here in leftist minds.

Now, THE question! the one that TRULY divides the French Society..Why should it be MANDATORY for an employee to work a mere 35h when he’s full of energy and eager to do more in order to get more???

Remember that the 35hrs don’t concern the supervisors and managers (the “cadres”), and generally all HIGHLY EDUCATED, BIG SALARYMEN (who are often, like Engineers, “cadre-assimilated”), that is, most of the people who are “full of energy”, “natural-born winners”…Those people trade a undetermined
workweek for enormous advantages in terms of salary, retirement, working conditions, prestige,(to me the over-“encadrement” of French companies is a plague, but it’s not the point).
What’s left generally to the average employee is the lowest possible wage, lowest possible working conditions, lowest consideration ; the future of any serious, zealous, but not-too-much educated, not-overly courageous employee is gloomy in this coutry…And the perspective of unemployement is hanging over each one’s head like a Damocles sword…
To, say, two-thirds of employees in this country, getting a certain quality of life comes with the 35hrs and the 5-weeks holiday (a national treasure dear to all humble Frenchmen – if you want to understand this, watch the remarkable film “camping”, it tells a lot about it); working more is considered quite often too much to give away for too little a reward (an extra option on the family’s new car? a bigger TV set? HA!)…
Now, let’s suppose the 39hrs workweek law has passed…Well, on that very day, the boss will say to all his employees “now you can work more IF YOU CHOOSE SO ; of course, the people who still work 35hrs will be on next “charette”(a “charette”(cart) is a massive layoff, the absolute nightmare of the french employee), they’ll be also the last ones on the raise list, the last ones on the promotion list…it’s up to you! and one year later, NOBODY’s doing the 35hrs anymore! magic!
Do you understand, Mark?
Anyway, you’ll see yourself, for it’s exactly what Sarkozy intends to do, and the 35hrs is dead at short notice.
One more comment : during last government, the 35hrs law has been amended ; it was possible to make 220 extra hours a year (BUT PAID AS EXTRA HOURS, so not as FINANCIALLY interesting for businesses); even given the businesses reluctance to pay an extra 25% for those hours, one could expect both them businesses and the employees to rush to them ; the French have chosen : only 110 extra hours per year have been done on average …That tells all…