Do you really? Or do you actually want to sustain your standard of living as safely as you can?
Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together?
I don't know what will happen and what the root causes are (labor laws might not contribute much to the picture, I really don't know), but at least we should be somewhat cognizant of the fact, where the industries of the future are currently built and where they are not, and have a fantastic explanation of why this is not going to be a super big issue.
> Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable?
It's quite an assumption that it's unaffordable. In the last decades efficiency has been only increasing, but working hours per week aren't significantly going down nor are the salaries noticeably higher.
Where does all the extra efficiency go to? It's pretty ok in my book if it goes to social security.
The EU has been like this for a long time. If it was going to become unaffordable to sustain it that would have happened years ago. Of course in the longer term anything could happen but I find it hard to believe it would happen because of the EU labor laws.
One has to come to terms with the majority of people being better off in each individual interval under strong labor protections (because they are by definition mediocre) while likely being worse off over time as a group because of the pie not growing. Who gets the growth in pie is also highly unequal within the group large swaths can also be worse off over time. Ie third world labor got almost all of the pie that went to labor over the last 40 years. First world labor is at best treading water. Its still right to favor innovation because the group is better off and its more freedom supporting but lots of unhapoy people dowm that path.
I think it depends on the industry. If it's printed circuit boards, then it's China. If it's software and financial services, then the US. If it's health and science research, then probably Europe.
In fact, where industries are built is even more granular: Shenzen and the Bay Area. Even within the US, big cities have tried building their own tech hubs, and failed. Economic policy may have played a minor role in building NYC or SFO.
> Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable?
The GDP/capita of e.g. France is 10x what it was in the 1970s. There is nothing "unaffordable" about the European social safety net, except that there are political pressures to dismantle it (right-liberals like the Economist)
You can have your cake and eat it too. It's called the Danish model, although Denmark does not completely implement it. Make it cheap & easy to both hire & fire people, but then take care of people who are fired through a generous safety net. High taxes pay for the safety net.
Explicit taxes are better than implicit taxes. Forcing companies to provide social services such as employment guarantees or health insurance to employees makes taxes look lower than they actually are.
There is a small problem -- more innovative society next door will get richer and eat you anyway. So lets enjoy the good times and be weak men while it lasts.
Let them get richer, the same people who talk with these threatening remarks also talk how capitalism isn't a zero-sum game, someone else becoming richer doesn't mean someone else getting poorer, right? Just means getting richer at a slower rate, Europe is pretty rich on global standards, let's keep getting a bit richer while others get the chance to reach these levels.
The article is really making the point that shitting on workers is OK—desirable even!—so that individual companies can make trillions of dollars. “Innovation” to the author equals making money, and being unable to sack hundreds of people at once with complete disregard for them or the social impact it causes is seen as a negative.
The case is very simple: Working on risky ventures requires the ability to lay people off when the venture is not profitable. When only 1/5 risky ventures is profitable, you can't expect a business to take a risk if the likely result is severe financial penalties for failure.
I understand the argument the article is making. The point I’m making is that “innovation” which consists of a select few being better off at the expense of the majority is not something to be celebrated.
The article (which is great) is written from the perspective of "large old established companies innovating". This is something that is fairly elusive even in the different environment of the rest of the western world, I think.
Startups have a different set of constraints in Europe, one of which is the safety net for the people trying to become "ramen profitable".
Sweden is relatively good at creating innovative companies but is pretty friendly towards small companies especially.
Europe does lag behind though for many different reasons. One big is that the single market of EU is on paper large but in practice it is a lot of different countries with very different cultures and languages.
> Europe does lag behind though for many different reasons. One big is that the single market of EU is on paper large but in practice it is a lot of different countries with very different cultures and languages.
This is the biggest one. The single market is not really "done", and all attempts to deepen it face enormous resistance by national electorates that is now at the point to vote against anything that comes out of the EU.
For example, in order to sell a product in the Netherlands you have to have a sticker in Dutch, even though >90% of population understands English. That's a tiny thing, but makes a supply chain that much more complex.
For digital services it's even worse, the laws still differ significantly per country. Where I work we want to expand, but we still have to do it per country...
I think most in Europe prefer the better living standards and higher life expectancy for most of the population.
The american style lack of employment protection may play a part in fostering innovative companies, although I suspect being the primary superpower with the world's reserve currency may also play a part too.
How is being incredibly innovative making everyone in the US happy? I just see a lot of division and unhappiness right now. And some very rich people.
As an European, I don't agree with the analysis: it's not labour law that has stifled innovation, but the post-WWII generation that chose to try stopping the train of history.
Those born between the late 40s and 60s want NOTHING to do with innovation, people, from every social background and culture; the development model imposed after the war has killed Western Europe. From being the former greatest secular innovators, we've become the last wheels on the cart, still with some pockets of excellence, but not for long, and most don't want to capitalise on them. This is without even considering the high-treasonous nazi governments in almost all EU countries that pursue foreign interests against our own. Because this has been happening for decades, to put it plainly.
The populations who, when young, sang "we are always twenty years old" today reject all innovation, and the cure is simply the social fracture that will lead them to marginalisation compared to their current dominance, unfortunately dragging everyone down with them.
Yes they are responsible for all the bullshit, and they keep voting for the same shit. It's maddening really, but how can it be different when they stand to gain so much via retirement benefits and other ways?
It's really the failure mode of a socialized system; you end up pegging generations against each other and the older participant have a lot of power to starve off the young, especially when their cohort is so numerically dominant.
Democracy is broken because everyone has the same right to vote, so an 80 years old bastard will be able to weigh in on the trajectory for the next 10-20 years in the same way as a young 20-30 something without ever having to suffer the consequences. It's just beyond stupid...
This article is so facile as to be meaningless. All it says is "making it easy to fire people is better for innovation," and then barely backs that up, as if it should be taken as writ that the author has found the one simple thing that Europe needs to fix. It talks about the "European model," but only really specifically mentions Germany (with a brief shout out to France in perhaps the only worthwhile section of the article, where it focuses on actual numbers) and doesn't really discuss anywhere else. It's certainly an opinion piece in that it showcases the author's opinion, but it doesn't do anything vis-a-vis persuasion.
Readit News
Because then the question arises: What if the current way of handling labor protection in the EU (as one of many components) leads to destroying yours and everyone elses standard of living, simply because it's unaffordable? Would you still argue that this is the way to go? Everyone going down with the ship together?
I don't know what will happen and what the root causes are (labor laws might not contribute much to the picture, I really don't know), but at least we should be somewhat cognizant of the fact, where the industries of the future are currently built and where they are not, and have a fantastic explanation of why this is not going to be a super big issue.
It's quite an assumption that it's unaffordable. In the last decades efficiency has been only increasing, but working hours per week aren't significantly going down nor are the salaries noticeably higher.
Where does all the extra efficiency go to? It's pretty ok in my book if it goes to social security.
As opposed to what has happened in the US, where everything is happy and everything is affordable. Innovation!
In fact, where industries are built is even more granular: Shenzen and the Bay Area. Even within the US, big cities have tried building their own tech hubs, and failed. Economic policy may have played a minor role in building NYC or SFO.
The GDP/capita of e.g. France is 10x what it was in the 1970s. There is nothing "unaffordable" about the European social safety net, except that there are political pressures to dismantle it (right-liberals like the Economist)
spotted the capitalist.
Explicit taxes are better than implicit taxes. Forcing companies to provide social services such as employment guarantees or health insurance to employees makes taxes look lower than they actually are.
In what ways, specifically? And which types of workers? Remember that labor laws aren’t exclusive to developers.
> It doesn't matter if it makes you feel sad.
Can we skip the transparent rage bait and personal jabs, though? There are other forums if you want to engage in that, I’m personally not interested.
Startups have a different set of constraints in Europe, one of which is the safety net for the people trying to become "ramen profitable".
Europe does lag behind though for many different reasons. One big is that the single market of EU is on paper large but in practice it is a lot of different countries with very different cultures and languages.
This is the biggest one. The single market is not really "done", and all attempts to deepen it face enormous resistance by national electorates that is now at the point to vote against anything that comes out of the EU.
For example, in order to sell a product in the Netherlands you have to have a sticker in Dutch, even though >90% of population understands English. That's a tiny thing, but makes a supply chain that much more complex.
For digital services it's even worse, the laws still differ significantly per country. Where I work we want to expand, but we still have to do it per country...
The american style lack of employment protection may play a part in fostering innovative companies, although I suspect being the primary superpower with the world's reserve currency may also play a part too.
How is being incredibly innovative making everyone in the US happy? I just see a lot of division and unhappiness right now. And some very rich people.
Those born between the late 40s and 60s want NOTHING to do with innovation, people, from every social background and culture; the development model imposed after the war has killed Western Europe. From being the former greatest secular innovators, we've become the last wheels on the cart, still with some pockets of excellence, but not for long, and most don't want to capitalise on them. This is without even considering the high-treasonous nazi governments in almost all EU countries that pursue foreign interests against our own. Because this has been happening for decades, to put it plainly.
The populations who, when young, sang "we are always twenty years old" today reject all innovation, and the cure is simply the social fracture that will lead them to marginalisation compared to their current dominance, unfortunately dragging everyone down with them.
It's really the failure mode of a socialized system; you end up pegging generations against each other and the older participant have a lot of power to starve off the young, especially when their cohort is so numerically dominant.
Democracy is broken because everyone has the same right to vote, so an 80 years old bastard will be able to weigh in on the trajectory for the next 10-20 years in the same way as a young 20-30 something without ever having to suffer the consequences. It's just beyond stupid...