French Prime Minister François Bayrou will face a no-confidence vote from Socialist MPs after talks between unions and employers over a reform of the country's pension system failed to reach a compromise.…
Worker productivity has dramatically increased since WWII. A single worker is able to produce a lot more food, healthcare, and so on than they did in 1950. Of course there’s the common problem that a lot of the result of that productivity has been captured by the top. Probably less so in France than some other countries but still. If you look at the real economy, I think you might find that we are able to produce the basics needed with a small proportion of our working population. We already support a much higher retiree/worker ratio than we did a few decades ago and I think that’s the reason. There are many workers in unproductive sectors that didn’t exist before the financialization phase who could be doing more useful work too. All the computing and automation we build could be used to increase productivity in relevant sectors too, instead of maximizing the time other workers spend glued to their phones.
The living standard is also much higher now. More people expecting more help from the state with more complex problems.
Let’s for example take a premature baby that would have died 20 years ago can now be saved and can live a long life, but needing 24x7 care by medical staff.
Or the fact that our parents and grandparents live longer, but care and medicine cost a lot more.
I’m not disputing that the top takes too much, but the standard of care, medicine and other things cost too.
I agree, I can’t imagine the economic bonus gained by productivity is big enough to pay the medical costs at the end of ones life. Back in 1950 people had just a few years of life left when they stopped working. Now a lot of people have 10, maybe 20, healthy years left and another 10 in ill-health. There clearly is either a lot of money for a few years or a little money for a lot of years. Although i also think the wealthy and the top, now get a bigger piece of the pie now.
Worker productivity has dramatically increased since WWII. A single worker is able to produce a lot more food, healthcare, and so on than they did in 1950. Of course there’s the common problem that a lot of the result of that productivity has been captured by the top. Probably less so in France than some other countries but still. If you look at the real economy, I think you might find that we are able to produce the basics needed with a small proportion of our working population. We already support a much higher retiree/worker ratio than we did a few decades ago and I think that’s the reason. There are many workers in unproductive sectors that didn’t exist before the financialization phase who could be doing more useful work too. All the computing and automation we build could be used to increase productivity in relevant sectors too, instead of maximizing the time other workers spend glued to their phones.
The living standard is also much higher now. More people expecting more help from the state with more complex problems. Let’s for example take a premature baby that would have died 20 years ago can now be saved and can live a long life, but needing 24x7 care by medical staff. Or the fact that our parents and grandparents live longer, but care and medicine cost a lot more.
I’m not disputing that the top takes too much, but the standard of care, medicine and other things cost too.
I agree, I can’t imagine the economic bonus gained by productivity is big enough to pay the medical costs at the end of ones life. Back in 1950 people had just a few years of life left when they stopped working. Now a lot of people have 10, maybe 20, healthy years left and another 10 in ill-health. There clearly is either a lot of money for a few years or a little money for a lot of years. Although i also think the wealthy and the top, now get a bigger piece of the pie now.