Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Jack,

Could it be that France’s problem comes not fron America, but socialism?

If workers are trained to demand more, and work less, will you get more demands, or less work?

Ahaa…the mystery for the EU would seem to be unsolveable.

Jack

Nicely said. I like the French, too, at least those I have met, and as a people they have made great contributions to the world. Remember the French Navy banner, “We are all American” after 9/11? Though I side with them in regard to Iraq, there are many other issues where they do annoy me, like their cultural snobbery. Regarding their relative productivity, I would argue it is almost entirely their work habits: 1,467 / 1,820 x 100% = 80.6%. Thus, at least 2/3 of the difference between us is due to fewer working hours.

Mental Wimp,

Though I side with them in regard to Iraq, there are many other issues where they do annoy me, like their cultural snobbery.

Riiiiight, and Americans don’t have this trait…

Zeek

A fair cop.

If workers are trained to demand more, and work less, will you get more demands, or less work?

Sounds like the US is heading towards the French Direction…

Jack, you may want to rethink your position on the EU being a benefit to our trade. The French may in fact be saving the US from that old addage, beware what you wish for.

Trade agreements are far more efficient on a nation to nation basis. Far more complicated with many more bureaucratic hurdles to jump when negotiated between economic bloc and economic bloc.

The EU has the potential of becoming somewhat impenetrable to US exporters if better deals can be struck with India, China, Japan, Malaysia, S. America, etc.

And the environment is a far higher priority amongst consumers in Europe who view the US’s record on this topic as dismal. Such perspectives can easily become impediments to trade with the EU.

Jack -

For some reason, I find myself secretly rooting for the “Non” camp in this poll. Ik heb geen flauw idee which way is actually better for Europe or better for the U.S., and frankly, mon cher, je ne give a damn pas. But the smarmy, supercilious superiority and presumption of the Eurocrat elite has turned up a mean, populist, American streak deep down in my otherwise rather European self. Maybe that’s the way liberals feel towards Team Bush: the uncontrollable urge to respond to every suggestion with a lusciously derisive “Au contraire”!

Wimp

Yes, a lot of the difference is due to longer U.S. hours. We also have a more flexible labor market. French productivity rates per hour worked are good.

David

You are right about the Euro perception about the environment, but the Euro perception is wrong. Having lived in Europe for about thirteen years, I know that the Euro environment is not nearly as clean in general. Places like Norway are as clean as places like Washington State or Alaska. W. Germany is like the industrial Midwest, maybe Indiana or Ohio. Southern Europe in general is more polluted than any place in the U.S. and to find levels like some places in the former communist Europe we probably have to go back beyond living memory in the U.S., maybe Pittsburgh of the late 19th Century.

What the Euros are better at is talking about the environment. But I believe over the long run the truth will overcome the rhetoric.

Chops, I know a good speech therapist if you need one, :-)

Wow. This article is crap. The French are “uneasy” and “disatisfied” with how America has turned out since our revolution so they will undermine the very effort that will make them more competetive with us in the current global economy? That’s quite a contradictory thesis. And you back this up with what? A vapid dig at their work habits? Actually, you back your thesis up with nothing. You do expend some effort in giving a brief overview of France’s economic condition over the past couple of hundred years but you mention nothing as to why the French are so disposed as they are toward the EU constitutional referendum. I expect more from you than poorly-veiled French bashing, Jack.

The European Union was created for Economic Reasons not Political. The problem is that the concept of a “United Europe” has twisted what is essentially a simple Business Arrangement. The French are not against a United Europe. They are against codifying what being a United European is in a Constitution.

I don’t know why the French may reject the EU, which seems like their own baby.

It is true that both sides as bashing the U.S. in the way I mentioned. I don’t believe that they will reject or vote for the Constitution only because of the U.S. They also seem to dislike their president with a passion and want to hand him a defeat. But the fact that the U.S. is prominent in something that should be a domestic issue is strange.

I was in Norway when they voted on EU membership (and rejected it). I don’t think the U.S. was mentioned once in the debate. Why are the French so concerned with us?

Not us, Jack, our leadership!

Jack, I am guessing here, but, I would think two factors bear directly on Euro environmental problems. 1) Eastern bloc countries who have not had the time nor resources to catch up, and 2) population density per land area being significantly greater than in the US, assuming you are using the US as a standard of measure.

However, the fact that they are confronted by environment problems makes them sensitive to the need for more clean up and better practices. Which seems perfectly straight forward.

Aldous, that is my understanding as well. But, creating a united economic consortium cannot be accomplished among a host of nations with vastly differing laws of commerce, sanctions, enforcement, etc. without some degree of homogenizing the political consortium of all those countries to the extent that commerce operates on the same set of principles, laws, and enforcements within the union.

The EU is not poli-sci or economics 101 stuff, it is 999 level in complexity and plausibility. The fact that the EU has come this far, is nothing short of miraculously amazing, to me. When I first learned of discussions of an EU back in philosophy classes in 1979 or 1980, I thought it was an impossibly idealistic notion.

When the Euro currency became a reality, I realized how very, very wrong I was. The committment of the people to the EU concept is one that will not be denied.

And in light of the Asian Pacific Rim agreements and China’s newfound economic diplomacy squeezing Europe’s future on the East, and NAFTA and the US unilateral agreements squeezing Europe’s future trade capacity on the West, Europeans demonstrated some of finest long range thinking and anticipation witnessed in modern times to have begun working on the EU more than 2 decades ago.

And now globalization is upon them and they are reasonably well prepared to capitalize on their long range efforts and foresight. To Europeans, I tip my hat for these such amazing abilities in foresight and tenacity.

the typical American puts in 1,820 hours a year, while his French counterpart clocks up a mere 1,467 hours. They put in five or six fewer weeks per year, and three fewer hours per working week.

And yet the French worker beats the American worker in productivity per hour. Maybe if we were more productive, we’d get guaranteed pensions and two months vacation every year…

David, regional unions are the wave of the future. Look for a North American Union in the not too distant future with Spanish and French as co-equal languages.

“…regional unions are the wave of the future….”

Yup! A wave that started in about 1776, and has left the rest of the world scrambling to keep up! :-)

The EU will have a lot of problems establishing itself, but they’re mostly problems that we faced in the early days of our Union. It took about a hundred years and a civil war before Virginians and New Yorkers started thinking of each other as countrymen. T

he EU is already further ahead than we were in our beginning. They have a common currency, a history of free trade and travel, and a common rival — us!

References to the total # hours worked by an individual in the French work force compared to the same for a US worker and, the productivity % level that follows invites furter analysis.

You would have to factor in (among other things) the following :
1. Does the reference factor in gender
2. Are the hours inclusive of people with “exempt” payroll status (salaried not hourly)
3. Does the performance efficiency compare “like products”
4. Is the production technology (ie automation)
5. BIG ONE - are workers in both locations MOTIVATED by the same factors
6. Do cultural differences affect the working schedules

You can tease out the parts of productivity, but you can’t let any of those parts stand alone.

French productivity per hour worked in slightly better than American. But they work so many fewer hours that total productivity is much lower.

What happens to productivity when you add time and workers? The per-hour productivity drops as you bring in more marginal resources.

The French unemployment rate is almost twice the American one. That means that millions of Americans are fed into the American average that the French leave sitting at home. This draws down the average.

As for time, we have all done work that has taken (say) eight hours. If we cream off our most productive six hours, our average productivity would be higher, but we wouldn’t get the job done.

So you could increase your average per hour productivity by getting rid of all but the best performers and then limiting them to their best working times. But there is a bottom line to this, as evident in the French example. You have the satisfaction of pretending to win, while still losing ground with every passing year.

Ooh! Ooohhhh! steve, I can answer this one: “5. BIG ONE - are workers in both locations MOTIVATED by the same factors”

The French work in order to enjoy living. The Americans live in order to work. Cultural difference, don’t you know…

Jack,

However the French vote on the European constitution it will be very little to do with anti-Americanism. It is true that Europe and America have very different attitudes to economic activity, and it is true that a large part of the debate in France (and elsewhere, where it has been discussed at all) has focussed on the effect of the constitution on public services, workers’ rights and trade policy. Many people in Europe are worried that the constitution will enshrine neo-liberal policies, and spell the beginning of the end of public services.

That does not mean that people in Europe are anti-American, or want to stop the US living by those values, it just means that we feel it is better for us if we live by our so-called social democratic policies. And we are not wrong. For all the GDP, productivity and wealth statistics you can post, we can point to higher life expectancy, better (and fairer) access to essential services, lower crime and prison populations, and lower rates of poverty. So it’s all a complicated balancing act, and neither side of the Atlantic is “wrong”.

In addition to this, the EU is regarded as elitist, bureaucratic and undemocratic. People are worried that they are being hoodwinked by the financial and political elite of Europe. This is highlighted by the debate in Europe and by the constitution itself. The vast majority of major parties in Europe are campaigning for a “yes” vote on the constitution, as are the editorial lines of most of the mainstream media. And who the hell wants a 200-plus page long constitution written in bureaucratese anyway?

Paul

Good points.

What I worry about is the sustainability. I know that this is usually what Euros say about the U.S., but I see it from a different point of view.

The growth rates in the U.S. are significantly higher than in France. We are talking only a couple of percentage points most years, but that compounds fast.

Both side of the Atlantic have a problem with the growing dependent population. Europe is much worse off in this respect than the U.S. Both Europe and the U.S. will have to grow their economies just to maintain living standards in the face of the growing dependency. I am not sure France will make the jump (I am not even sure the U.S. will do so well).

I am also depressed about Europe from a demographic point of view. As an American, I took comfort in Europe being … well Europe. When I visit now I see old Europe – literally old people. The young people are often non-Europeans who are poorly integrated into European society.

Immigration is a good thing, but it has to be done right. The U.S. takes in many millions of immigrants. Despite the gnashing of teeth, these immigrants are usually integrated into American society or at least the American economy in short order. Even in today’s multiethnic America, the children of immigrants usually assume American demographic characteristics after a few years. They even get fatter (not a good thing, but an illustration.) In Europe the sons and daughters of immigrants from the 1960s are still foreigners, maybe even more so in attitude than a person who actually just arrived from a foreign land.

It seems to me that a big reason Europe has more trouble integrating immigrants is its economic policies and the chronically high unemployment rates. France and Germany suffer rates of unemployment that we haven’t flirted with since the Great Depression. The same socialist state that protects established workers makes it more difficult for newcomers to establish themselves as anything but wards of the state.

So I agree about today’s Europe. It is pleasant with many benefits for the people. But this is to a large extent built on the achievements of the past and this generation is contributing less to the future than needed to sustain the system.

All this is also a problem in the U.S.. I am not unaware of that. But Europe looks like it will get to the edge first. A world without a strong and stable Europe is very frightening.

I don’t think you need to worry about Europe collapsing into anarchy just yet. We’ll be here for a while yet. It’s important to remember that Europe is not a country, it’s a collection of states with wildly different policies and outcomes. The UK, for example, has a lower unemployment rate than the US, and Sweden, possibly the most “socialist” state in the EU, has an unemployment rate way below the EU average. With regards to Germany and France, I believe (caveat: I am not an economist!) their current problems are directly related to globalisation and their solutions to those problems through the 80s and 90s. Whilst these solutions are causing them problems now, try telling that to industrial areas of Britain which were cast to the winds of globalisation in the 80s and are only now starting to fully recover. Also, they will suffer further because of the enlargement of the EU, which is causing large falls in unemployment in the new Eastern European members, and there’s no prizes for guessing where a lot of those jobs are coming from (of course, a lot are simply from increased trade, but not all).

On integration of immigrants, it seems that everywhere has similar problems. In the US, blacks especially, but also hispanics, have way lower life expectancies and other life outcomes than whites, a similar problem to the UK with people from the Indian subcontinent. But again, levels of immigration vary from country to country in Europe. France in particular is reknowned for being a very insular country, and has a large fascist vote. Germany for obvious reasons has less of a problem with fascists, but also has its problems with immigration. The UK has probably the most success with integration, but also some pretty large race-related problems in the past, for example massive inner city riots back in the 80s, along with some unsavoury election debates on immigration.

As for the pensions issue, I think it will sort itself out over time. I’m only partially saying that because this post is already way too long, but also because I think it can be fixed by incremental changes over time, and that people will realise gradually realise what needs to be done. I’m not planning on just surviving on a state pension when I reach 65, put it that way…

Paul

Your very thoughtful analysis resonates (or resignates, in some circles) with me. Your comment on globalization hits the nail right on the head: we are all in this together. The challenge is that as the economy is globalized, the average standard of living in all countries will seek a common level. If the total economy does not grow as fast as the standards level, then the more advanced countries will see a slipping of their standard of living. We have seen this in the US over the last decade or so. It’s the simple law of averages. It implies that the advanced economies must do everything they can to raise the productivity of the less developed nations as rapidly as possible. I’m not sure where this fits with the parallel thread on the role of a UN-like body, but I suspect they are related.

Paul

I was thinking mostly of Germany and France.

The UK and Ireland are more like the U.S. In fact the French always worry about ANGLO-Americans.

I lived in Poland for seven years and Norway for four. I liked both places and admire the people.

The thing that you can’t get around is demographics. Even the Poles and the Irish, who heroically reproduced up until about 1990 are now approaching the level of the others.

Without childen, there is no future.

It is a problem of all developed countries, not just Europe. But it is worse in much of Europe and Europeans are less able to assimilate immigrants.

It implies that the advanced economies must do everything they can to raise the productivity of the less developed nations as rapidly as possible.

Mental, I’m with you on this one. I’m pretty sure globalization is the key to global stability. There’s a really good book, “The Pentagon’s New Map”, that connects foreign policy with the global economy.

Basically, the guy says we need to strengthen existing democracies and the relationships between democracies, while helping non-democratic states integrate and become democracies themselves.

Some people think that’s what President Bush is trying to do, but Bush is just doing the second part while ignoring the first part. That gives us the worst of both worlds.

“1) Eastern bloc countries who have not had the time nor resources to catch up”
Seems to nme that Easterm Bloc countries have had as much time as anyone else to catch up, after all as a country they are a lot older than the US. Could it be that the socialism and communism held them back?

Umm… Duh.

AP

Actually Tom makes an excellent point.

The comparison of the countries of eastern and western Europe shows very graphically the vast superiority of free market democracy over state directed communism. People are too quickly forgetting how horrible communism was as an ideology and way of organization. I hear young people say that communism could be a good idea. I hear old people look back nostalgically (as old people do) to the time when they had no trouble, at least no trouble they can recall in their golden stupor.

I think it is appalling that college students still wear shirts with Che on them. He was not even a competent commie.

I was in Berlin right after the wall came down. The East was a real mess. A half century later, they still hadn’t recovered from the war. After a short time with the free market, the mess was all cleaned up and things looked good. Than the memory started to fade. People remembered the good times and forgot that they even middle class people lived – literally – in buildings that would be deemed uninhabitable even in the worst U.S. ghettos. Now they see the nice, repaired buildings and it is hard to remember how it was.

It is a gift that time softens the edges of hard times, but it is a curse of men that they forget.

One anecdote.

I was talking to my housekeeper in Poland. She was an intelligent, but not well-educated woman. One day she was telling about communism, when she would go to the store and there was nothing on the shelves, except sometimes pickles and vinegar. She complained how bad it was. The next day, we were talking about prices and she complained that in today’s Poland she didn’t have enough money to buy what she wanted. I reminded her that the day before she had told me that a few years ago there was nothing to buy at all and now (since I knew how much she got paid) she could certainly afford decent food. She just said, without a hint of irony, when there was nothing to buy, at least I had money.

Jack, obviously I can’t answer for uneducated people. My response is still: Duh.

Even the Poles and the Irish, who heroically reproduced up until about 1990 are now approaching the level of the others.

Hey, Frenchies are doing their part! ;-)
According to latest statistics, Irish and French (in this order) women had the best birth rate of all EU in 2004:
[2004 french population stats]

Back to EU constitution referendum debate, as a french myself, I’m still undecided…

In one hand, we have what seems the logical next step for EU, moving to a more politic and democratic level than the actual free market bureaucracy-driven union.
It sounds easy to consider this a big step forward, knowing from where we came and how amazing this whole EU idea could materialized in so short time period since!

In other hand, you have a 200 pages long document, so-called “constitution”, pretty much empty of what frenchs are used to find in a Constitution (shared big values, democratic organisation, Human Universal Rights).
Instead, it’s looks like a compilation of all previous treaties, bloated with economics focus, without any, well, “Grand Vision” :-).

The committment of the people to the EU concept is one that will not be denied.

And it’s why I guess I’m not alone to consider this text very disappointed for EU’s constitution. It feels not good enough as it should have been…
It’s like you can feel the whole EU concept deserves a way better constitution. And, as improving Constitution is not an easy process, doing it right in the first place matter more.
Obviously, with so differents countries, histories, languages and cultures it’s very hard to get an agreement from everyone on each point.
It’s why it’s both a hard and an historic moment for us europeans.

Think that, if this constitution is ratified by every EU members, it’ll be the first *ever* constitution declaring that over 450 millions of people agreed to be against death penalty…
It’s my prefered argument when i’m thinking about voting yes, in fact. Okay, China, India or Russia can still, theoricly, do better before the EU, but I’ve my doubt…

EU […] have a common currency, a history of free trade and travel, and a common rival — us!

Sorry but, like France opposition to Irak war had shown, UE’s first common rival is itself. Moving from hate and wars to peace and union is walking always on the edge.

Anyway, whatever win sunday, it’s time french focus on increasing their work hours, right?
At least to ease US vs France work hours debates in the future…
(As if work is always/still a matter of quantity and not quality. Like quality and vacation don’t share anything. Tsss.)

I don’t know why the French may reject the EU, which seems like their own baby.

It’s an (economic) union of several countries and without them the current UE will be vastly different or even will have disapeared since years. But if you want to play “who start it” game, I guess we can say EU is the baby of Germany and France… Don’t ask me who’s the mother!

Anyway, most Frenchs don’t reject EU, except for the usual nationalists. In fact, as EU start to become a reality in each one’s life, it’s more a fear about future than a real reject.
Most of the pro-no camp thinks it’s a necessary backward step for a better jump in the future.

the fact that the U.S. is prominent in something that should be a domestic issue is strange.

It’s not a domestic issue, because we’re debating about the place of EU in Globalization, not the France’s one (which is way smaller than she thinks, like everybody know ;-))

Why are the French so concerned with us?

Because we like annoy you?
No, clearly this anti-american card has been overplayed by our pro-yes government. I guess our president Chirac lost it while playing De Gaulle. Different period needs different attitude.
The simple fact, according to polls, that a majoritiy of frenchs don’t buy the “vote yes for a stronger EU against US” show how it’s NOT working and how this referendum is NOT about US vs EU in french minds.

PS: sorry for poor english.

Philippe

Great English and good to have your opinion. Let us know what you think on Monday. I would be interested in your analysis.

Congratulations on the population thing.

I don’t like the EU, but I like the alternatives (or lack of them) even less. I hope the EU carries in France. Of course, next you’ve got the Dutch.