[extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....)

[Hugh Crowther]

Somebody once told me, possibly PJ o'Rourke, that the French are just
Germans with good food. I love the supercilious irony about relative living
conditions.

> From: "JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>
> Reply-To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:28:27 +0100
> To: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com, ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....)
> 
> Randy wrote (10.11.2003/10:45) :
>> 
>> Greg wrote
>> 
>>> The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any
>>> other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The
>>> problem arises when state power is fused with the form through
>>> corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like
>>> blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government
>>> favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that
>>> manage to garner preferential treatment from the state.
>>> Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but
>>> these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm
>>> by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU --
>>> viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics,
>> 
>> But how do you define "harm"?  The strikes in Europe are simply the
>> expression of solidarity of the people and have resulted in the
>> superior living conditions of the French (and other NW European
>> countries), as compared to the Americans:
> 
> Randy,
> 
> I wish the picture you are drawing of France was true.
> 
> France has 10% unemployment (that's NOT counting people on social
> welfare, only people who were employed some months ago) and rising.
> The social security (meaning free health services) has a HUGE deficit,
> so it won't be able to carry on very long that way.
> 
> The government has every difficulty to make the least reform, because
> of the unions and strikes, especially in the public service.
> Meanwhile, problems accumulate, and seem to never get solved.
> 
> Here's my current view of things: Liberty and responsability directly
> correlate with collective prosperity through creative competition. If
> you are not sure you want to say to the weak: "find a way to make
> yourself useful or die", and to the strong: "you're welcome to become
> a half-god by accumulating wealth", because you value equality, and
> the support of the weak, you can do it, but it will lower collective
> prosperity. Even in France, there are many people who work very hard
> the whole day only to sustain themselves. I find it reasonable to be
> appalled at it.
> 
> Neither the US nor France are at one extremity of the theorical
> spectrum. But France is a bit more on the equality-support side. It
> has some good aspects (humble people feel more empowered and less
> "enslaved", and there may be a general "quality of life" and more
> relaxed approach of things), and it has some bad aspects (less
> prosperity, which means even more support needed, and so on in a
> vicious circle).
> 
> One thought which I never heard voiced, but which seems rather obvious
> to me, is that by being more on the liberty-responsability end of the
> spectrum, the USA pay the "inequality price" for some of its
> creativity, that is then available for free to other countries. It
> might be that Europe would have been forced a long time ago to get
> back to more liberty-responsability if it couldn't use what the US
> create (think computers, Internet, etc.). I'm not an economist,
> though.
> 
> I don't think there is one definite answer about
> liberty-responsability versus equality-support. Within the bounds of
> our ape psyche (and maybe beyond), the redirection of competitive
> "instincts" into production at the exclusion of coercion (which is
> what the political philosophy of liberty is about seen at our
> contemporary light) may well be the best way to go. It has to be
> acknowledged that it does pressure individuals, though, even if more
> collective prosperity tends to make things easier even for the weak.
> In the end, it's probably more difficult in France than in the US due
> to less prosperity, but the perception people in lower situations have
> of life may be a bit better and less harsh, which possibly produces a
> "better atmosphere".
> 
> Silly French joke: You know why they chose the rooster as the embleme
> for France? Because it's the only animal that still sings even with
> his feet in the mud. I am afraid this is what you get with too much
> equality-support: some kind of warmth with material misery.
> 
> Jacques
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> The average American works 25% more hours than the average French.
>> 
>> And the average French does not have to ever worry about getting
>> cancer and not being able to pay for treatment--medical care is
>> provided by the state without charge in  France.
>> 
>> Likewise, they do not have to worry about saving up for their child's
>> education -- it is provided without charge by the state.
>> 
>> Plus, if the job comes to an end, there is long term unemployment.
>> 
>> The French obtained this superior lifestyle through strikes and other
>> tactics. So where is the "harm"? Or did you mean "benefit"?  :-)
>> 
>>> or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main factors
>>> derailing free trade in the >world.  The evil doesn't lie in the legal form
>>> per se, but in the sell-out of state power.
>> 
>> American govt sells out 10 times worse than any of the NW Euro
>> countries. The European citizenry would (and have) shut down their
>> countries if they think they have been sold out.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -------------
>> The United States of America: If you like low wages, you'll love long hours!
>> 
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