|
Unfortunately it is yet another piece from the Economist defending neoliberalism, as it has done from the beginning. Europe is not short on issues, one would have to agree, but the (hidden) author basically frames labour protections as inefficiencies rather than social achievements or desirables, and assumes investor imperatives are the only measure of success. What fairness? And what is this nonsense with people needing shelter, food, and healthcare? The business enterprise, in this hit piece, should not be simply another tool for improving the quality of life and helping create a society that's worth living in, but the sole purpose of the society itself. The "cumbersome process for letting go workers comes with hidden costs" aren't really hidden, unlike the author, but transparent social protections ensuring fair treatment, preventing arbitrary dismissal, and stabilising demand. Something a decent society should fully embrace. > the sheer difficulty of shedding staff en masse—a reality of corporate life—steers Europe’s biggest companies away from making risky bets in innovative fields No, thank you. Europe's lag in high-tech sectors stems mainly from underinvestment, fragmented capital markets, and US monopoly power, not employment law. Labour rigidity has no strict correlation with innovation deficits (Germany, Scandinavia, France, Japan, and South Korea all had stronger labour protections than the US and managed to become rather innovative), but why bother with data when the point was simply to bash Europe for protecting its workers from predatory businesses? At best, the evidence is mixed and context-dependent (focusing on patents, for example, instead of genuine innovation)[0], and OECD and Eurostat long-term data show that some high-innovation countries have some of the strongest worker protections and unions. > investments in disruptive breakthroughs [...] require the ability for big companies to hire lots of staff, then later fire most of them if the projects don’t pan out Likewise, nonsensical economic justification for precarious work. For the most part, innovation depends on R&D funding, talent, and public infrastructure, not firing freedom (which businesses are guaranteed to abuse). Rather than treating humans as disposable risk capital, the author should take a look at US's own history and they will undoubtedly notice that a significant part of the innovation that it benefits from today was developed when the US had huge taxes, immense investments in R&D and public infrastructure. [1] Strong social and environmental protections should be the bare minimum for any democratic society. Remove that, and no economic system, whether capitalist or not, is worth having. [0] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report... [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259014512... |