An liberal American blogger looks at the French riots:
As Keelin McDonell put it last week in The New Republic, these protests expose "a French progressive movement on the brink of collapse," a movement that is astoundingly conservative in its opposition to any and all change to the status quo of the French welfare state, a movement that "has become intellectually arid and xenophobic". After all, just to take this case, neither students nor workers (nor their political representatives) have "put forward an alternate plan to boost employment and secure a place for France in the international economy". I understand their concerns about globalization and the free market, and I share some of them myself, but I'm not sure how opposition to the new employment law and, indeed, opposition to all market-oriented reforms can be in any way productive. It seems to me that these protesters would rather the international economy didn't exist, that they are living in some halcyon past that exists only in their imagination, in their own personal and political self-romanticization.
I'd quibble with one little word. The rioters aren't conservative in their opposition to any kind of employment reform - they're downright reactionary. Brown shirts with long hair.
If I were Chirac, I'd lengthen the term to 3 years and for anyone caught rioting it would go up to 4 years. Then I'd tell the whiny crybabies that they need to work hard and do such a good job that the employers won't fire them.
Harumph.
Yes, it's odd to call them conservatives when they are rioting to preserve socialism.
I don't see that much daylight between the positions of the French protestors and the positions other current leadership of the Democratic Party in the USA. Where would those two groups disagree? The only difference I can see is that the French protestors are not trying to get elected to anything, which at least makes their ignorance of reality more excusable.
The party is over for Europe; France is just the beginning. Its going to be a hard pill for many Europeans to swallow when they realize working 43 weeks out of the year doesn’t work when the rest of the world works 50. It’s going to be a hard pill to swallow when the words “secure job for life” no longer have any meaning.
Reactionary statism is going to cause a lot of misery over the next few decades.
Hmm. I was going to go over to Paris with a couple of my kids soon. I wonder if I should worry about protecting my kids from the rioters. Wait a minute. The real question is, "Who's going to protect the rioters from my kids?"
What's really stupid about this situation is that the law change would HELP the young workers. The vast majority of them can't find a job, because no employer wants to hire someone they can't fire. If the employer knows they can hire and fire at will, they will be much more likely to hire in the first place.
Gee...I got "canned" at 43 years of age. Was the best thing that happened to me.
Started my own company and within three years was making $250K ...about three times what I was pulling in.
But it's so easy to whine that your boss doesn't treat you right, doesn't pay enough...
My boss is a hard task-master: here I am at one in the morning writing a project plan to present to financers on Friday and it'll only net me about $400K.
What a life!!
