France's 35 hour work week dies

Remove all ads!

In another blow to the ideals of the government's effectiveness in regulating the private sector, France's parliament is working to effectively kill the 35 hour work week.

French Lawmakers Back Law to Effectively End 35-Hour Week

Some of the memorable quotes from the article:

But wasn't the 35-hour work week supposed to increase the number of jobs?

No, obviously the gov't sticking its nose in where it has no understanding of the effects of its actions was the mistake.

8.6% is an 18 year LOW!?!? We here in the US haven't seen a rate that high since 1984. We also have not had double-digit unemployment since 1940.
Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population, 1940 to date

Wow, that is profound.

Another example of proof that marketplace does better with as little gov't interference as possible, and that the overt heavy hand of the gov't is bad for the populace.

Somehow though, I don't think anyone will learn anything from this failure.

 

DW, I can't remember, who was prez in '84?

 

Reagan was. He also predicted it, and had it down to 5.5% before he left office. Which incidentally is probably slightly low for ideal economic growth, as we need an sufficient available work force.

Give the Gipper his due, the base that he built, and the military that he created, while turning around an economy and nation that was in the malaise that was the Carter administration was an incredible feat.

It is nice that President Clinton was able to slash and burn our military to fuel his failing economic plans, for without Reagan's build ups, Clinton wouldn't have had this artificial slush fund to bolster the economy through the failed social plans of his first 4 years in office. Remember, in his second term he had to sign the Welfare Reform act in order to support, and gain support for his poor economic planning. In comparison to today's mainstream Democratic politicians, President Clinton was a fiscal conservative in his second term. Of course a lot of that was only becaus of the restraint that was forced upon him by a Republican legislature. This is probably the only thing that prevented him from repeating Carter's mistakes.

Personally, a few more Republican Senators and Representatives, and I will be rooting for a Democratic candidate to win the White House. Another 8-year stand off would probably be a good thing for all of us.

 

So did the rest of us.

And you saw how much we needed the huge military complex during the Clinton years.

Yes, and compared to today's Republican conservatives as well...

Keep em' comin' DW, my friend ...

 

This discussion is predicated on the assumption that you can rely on the unemployment rate statistics. There are so many loopholes and inconsistencies as to how this figure is calculated across countries, and across time periods in the same country that comparisons become very difficult. It sounds like a simple concept but it is devilishly difficult to calculate when you get into it.

 

All these arrogant governments. They try to actually do something about unemployement, and even succeed in some cases... Heretics! Sticking their dirty noses in their own country's economy... the nerve, the insolence, the blasphemy!

When will they understand that praying the almighty market god is the only way to go?

Sorry to all, no personal offense meant to anyone. Capitalo-fanatism just seems so rampant these days I can't help but rant.

 

DMC - I took the real thrust of this thread to be a comparision between the American "free" work system and that of those French "socialist" policies (we know those could never be anygood). It may not have been in the title of the thread but it seems to have been in the intent. But sorry if I was wrong about that...

 

No Chandos, the thread was not a slam on the French or a prop to the USA. It was intended to be a discussion of the ramifications of government interference in the public sector. I simply used the US for comparison as a matter of expedience, as I have very little background or access to other capitalist nations economic figures.

Unfortunately it got off to a bad start.

And now to close that bad start (hopefully):

I partially agree with this. Reagan built the military up as if he were preparing for a pre-emptive strike against a major force. It was part of the debatable policy of using the threat of being outpaced militarily to break (or more quickly break) the Soviet's economic back. However, I never said that President Clinton should have maintained it. My personal feelings are that it was appropriate to downscale the military, though not to the level that President Clinton took it to (Iraq would have been an easier nut to crack with another couple of Divisions). However, this money would have been better spent on developing our intelligence agencies, rather than squandered on unsuccessful and ill-advised social programs. Of course he also slashed the intelligence budgets as well to pay for the social programs of his first term.

Your statement is a red herring designed to divert attention from the real argument, which is that President Clinton would have destroyed the US economy had he not had the ability to totally neglect the military (and yet still have a viable fighting force) for the majority of his time in office. Unfortunately, Reagan didn't create a supersized intelligence community for us, so the cuts to those programs hurt us far more.

If you chose to believe that all Republicans are like President Bush, then I have to concur. However, just as there are the Joe Liebermans of the Democratic Party, there are those in the Republican Party who are sickened by Presidents rampant spending.

HB,
Finally someone with some insight that is not clouded in emotion and/or vitriol.

I will concede that point to you; however, it is the only comparison available. Perhaps I should have been better served to stay within the borders of France, and look at the effects to their economy.

Moving forward in that vein, it would seem logical to the layman that if you reduce the working hours of the majority of workers, someone has to do that work so more jobs would be created. It is also great politics, as who wouldn't like to cut their working hours while making substantively the same pay? But when you look at the macro effects to the economy and productivity, and the micro effects to the employers, the costs create a situation where expansion of existing businesses and start up of new business becomes prohibitively expensive. This will eventually lead to a shrinking job market, the exact opposite of what was promised and expected. Of course the opposite of what is promised and expected is the number on product of expansive overreaching governments. But then for most of us (those living in nations with free elections), we are part of the populace that elects them (time and time again), so we are getting exactly what we are asking for, as was beautifully demonstrated to us by Oxy.

There are times when government intervention is necessary (the classic case being natural monopolies, such as utilities), but in cases like this overt political ploy to curry favor with the masses, it proves that people are for the most part really sheep. Not only do they not want to be responsible for themselves, but won't even hold those that they entrust their welfare to responsible for their performance.

 

I have to admit that I know woefully little beyond the basics of how the workforce affects the economy. That having been said, is there any specific reason why a 40-hour work week has been developed in most of the Western world? Have work weeks of different lengths been tried, all to ill-affect, and thus been scapped in favor of a 40-hour work week?

Here we have a rather obvious case of a 35-hour work week being tested. Of course, other than the fact that it is a 35-hour work week, there's not really much more information on the subject. For example was everyone making the EXACT same salary for working 35 hours as they were for working 40 hours? I can see how that policy would wreck any economy. It costs business just as much as it did before, but they are effectively only 7/8 as productive as they used to be. Your productivity goes down by 12.5% yet your operating costs remain the same.

OTOH, if the only paid the workers 7/8 as much as they used to, I really don't see how a 35-hour work week would have as much of an impact. And that's the crux of this problem. You see, the opposite would probably happen if you changed it the other way to a 45-hour work week. The ramifications would completely be dependent upon what the change would have on worker's salaries, as that, ultimately, seems to be the driving force behind the economy.

 

Marxism is the answer. Well, actually the discovery of people who sell stuff that marxism boost sales and turnover. I don't know the exact dates and time-frames (my memory is sooo blurry), but I think the original 70 hours week (farming) was changed as around 1900 someone had the idea to make saturday a day you don't have to work (and a great time to consume stuff, because you have no spare time, when are you going to spend your money and what for?). And in the time frame from 1930-1965 the 40 days week was introduced. Except of course for certain sectors (like transport, construction, restaurants and bars) and employees on the second step of the hierarchy.

For the US, this knew concepts were imported by Ford, I guess. Raising the wages of his employees and giving them spare time gave them the means to buy the very cars they produced themselves and with the spare time even a chance to drive them.

Well, 2 problems. They in fact did pay 7/8. So, everyone got a pay-cut. But the problem for the state was, that the state income sank. While people had less money, making consumption plunge. And now, private consumption is at a abysmal low in France.

The ups were the huge gains in productivitiy and the factual lessening of legal restrictions for employers. (Factual advantage of a 6:00-8:00 and come again 16:00-17:00 schedule).

On I side note: one of the problems of mainly central European economies is the extreme low domestic consumption, and the 35-week made that impact in France even worse.



(