Why I love the "Blogoshphere" (and now France?)

I have been excited to see the results of the French election in favor of the conservative and pro-American candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Despite the rioting that has taken place (largely due to Sarko's promise to bring order to chaos that are the Paris suburbs), Sarkozy achieved a comfortable victory on his platform of turning France from a "workers paradise" into a place where the paradise doesn't get in the way of work getting done.

Below I have copied exactly a comment thread from a blog that I read by a great writer who is a self-proclaimed socialist. It follows a post about May Day (laborers holiday) on More Hockey, Less War in which the unnamed author (though I believe that I have seen him called Ben in a comment) of the site wishes all his readers a happy May Day. He makes a short but fairly persuasive case about the glories of the labor movement and bemoans its slipping prestige.

Read how this goes after he receives a criticism of his post and falls back on the socialist utopia of Jacques Chirac's France.


6 Responses to “Happy May Day!”

Comment from JustaDog: May 1st, 2007 at 9:53 am

Socialism and all its forms - including worker’s unions - eventually destroy economies. Just ask France, their having to return to private enterprise!
the idle rich - where do you get these idiotic phrases? They don’t work with people that are informed. By idle rich are you referring to the few ultra-rich that have over $100 BILLION targeted for charitable causes?
How much do you contribute?


Comment from Himself: May 1st, 2007 at 10:13 am

France has to “return to private enterprise”? I wasn’t aware they had ever departed from it. But no matter.
Ask any French worker, with their 35-hour work week and what the WHO in 2000 called “best health system in the world” (free choice of private practitioners, with 85% reimbursement by the single-payer government insurer), if they’d be willing to trade for our broken system.
The fact that the idle rich toss back a fraction of a penny for every dollar they skim from our labor doesn’t make them productive. It just helps them avoid taxes.
But thanks for playing!


Comment from Wacky Mommy: May 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am

Funny, I was thinking of the French twice this month — both times while we were making visits to the emergency room. Our medical emergencies (one for me, one for Wacky Girl) didn’t happen during the “acceptable hours” of nine to five, Monday through Friday. Damn you, unpredictable bodies! For my visit: we got there a little before five p.m. and got home at 11 p.m. We’ve paid $200 so far for that visit — and that’s with our “good” insurance. (More bills to follow, unfortunately.) For my daughter — shorter time frame — 5 p.m.-ish (this is our witching hour, apparently) and home a little after 8 p.m. Ditto: bills to follow.
A friend of mine was in France last year (for the school year) with her spouse and their three kids. Ear infection for one kid, in the middle of the night. No problem — doc came to house, diagnosed, prescribed medicine, left. Total cost was $25. And they weren’t even citizens. Damn, that rocks.


Comment from Matt: May 1st, 2007 at 11:37 am

I hadn’t planned on commenting on this one, but after the previous 2, I thought I’d take the opportunity to be a centrist (a rare thing for me).
I cannot say that I am a supporter of organized labor as it is constituted in the US today, but I do have immense respect for those who stood up against the Mafia-style ownership of industry that existed 150 years ago. Currently the union rolls are becoming increasingly dominated by public employees unions while the unions of industry, service and others are decreasing. The labor movement has served its purpose (and I DO give them credit for work-week limitation, child labor laws and weekends) as a counter-balance to management, but its increasingly left-leaning political activism is doing a disservice to those it claims to represent. I do not see how a teacher should be asked to pay dues to fund an organization that lobbies for the right to abort the very children they are expected to teach (sorry about the dreaded anti-abortion reference, but this is the example with which I am most familiar). If the UAW was only interested in doing right by its members, it wouldn’t saddle the “Big 3” with the untenable compensation packages that are crippling the auto industry. I know that right know you are either thinking or shouting, “What about the CEOs and their huge salaries and bonuses?” and I must say you’re right. However, that is business model problem, not a social issue. As Thomas Sowell states so cleverly, “If high-quality CEOs were a dime a dozen, no one would pay 11 cents a dozen for them.”
As for the French example; I am not so sure that given an opportunity, many of that utopian society’s members would not choose to come to the true land of opportunity. I would venture that many of the unemployed youth that have rioted several times in past few years would jump at a chance to come here and work 45-50 hours/week at the national average $17+/hour (more than I make at this point). They would likely find a job easier in our sub-5% unemployment-rate economy than in France where it’s closer to 10%. Plus, they would be able to keep more of what they earn with a tax rate that allows the working classes keep a much greater percentage of what they earned with this hard work. It checking these numbers I also found that France has a lower tax rate on evil corporations (and presumably the semi-evil ones) than the US while taxing their workers at a significantly higher rate. See http://www.worldwide-tax.com/index.asp#partthree.
Disagreements aside, this is a great post in its stimulation of thought and discussion.
Sincerely,“Right-winger”


Comment from Matt: May 1st, 2007 at 11:47 am

Oops! I referred to “the previous 2 comments” and while writing another one snuck in. I guess now it should read “the first 2 posts”. Record corrected.
Per Wacky Mommy’s sneaky comment, I will say that $25 socialist co-pays would be nice (God knows I could use them), but remember that nothing is free.
Just because I don’t celebrate the holiday myself, I can still wish you all a happy May Day!


Comment from Matt: May 7th, 2007 at 7:48 am

I’m NOT saying I told you so, but as a corollary to my previous commentary I must point out that it seems that (per the election results) not even a majority of the French are on board with French socialism. The center-right candidate Sarkozy’s victory seems to indicate that most of his nation desires a more open, capitalistic economy and possibly a less adversarial stance in regard to the US. I have no illusions that he will send troops to Iraq or grovel at the alter of Uncle Sam (he is French after all), but he has made some very un-Chirac type statements which probably led to his election.
I thought, based on the thread discussion, that this was an interesting news item. Thanks for your blog and its always well-expressed opinions.


Please note 2 things about this interchange.

1. Ben (or whatever his name is) is one of the most thoughtful and CIVIL leftists with which I have been in contact on the net. In an earlier debate regarding Che Guevara, he was obviously annoyed with my argumentative (but good-natured) comment and yet he responded in kind.
2. Ben makes no attempt to rebut my comments, nor has he since our first back and forth when he called me out as a "right-winger".

If you like good writing and are not prone to get angry with socialist rhetoric, I would highly recommend this site.