Get ready for riots. Macron trying to increase pension age in France

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Still not convinced the mania worldwide for *increasing* the pension age is a good thing, mind.

At the absolute worst, it seems pretty close to a necessary evil.

Those on the left should want the electorates to back pro-worker policies. This seems much more likely to happen if more voters are workers (or classed as working age).

Pro-natalist policy is limited in its effectiveness and often neglected, particularly with respect to housing; electorates are skeptical of immigration, too. Unless and until there are more solutions to ageing itself (governments aren't doing nearly enough here), we're going to have ageing populations. These tend to be quite comfortable to keep pensions growing at the expense of everything else (the rest of the welfare state first, debt and taxes next).

The buck has got to stop somewhere. People who are too sick to work obviously need guarantees and manual labourers may need to retire earlier than the rest, but otherwise, raising the state pension age seems the easiest solution.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The presupposition that goes into this approach, which is itself reasonable if you concede that presupposition, is that other aspects of current work culture like working conditions and working hours have to stay the way they are, in other words, that no matter how much automation happens we still have to prop up or even increase the total amount of time people spend working.

That's not the only valid presupposition. There's still value in raising the pension age even if all basic needs can be met with fewer workers than before.

As consumers, voters are going to keep valuing cheaper stuff and policies they believe will deliver cheaper stuff (and curbing consumerism is well beyond Macron's capabilities). Unfortunately, this often translates into an incentive to squeeze workers. The incentive is most strongly counterbalanced by the fact that voters are also workers. This incentive is absent for pensioners. If the proportion of the electorate which draws the state pension rises, the electorate is likely to make things worse for workers.

Giving people more time to do things other than work is a foundational leftist goal going back hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years. Let's not just give up on it now of all times in history.

I agree. We should have a four or three-day workweek, and more 62-year-olds should have a stake in making this happen.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The presupposition that goes into this approach, which is itself reasonable if you concede that presupposition, is that other aspects of current work culture like working conditions and working hours have to stay the way they are, in other words, that no matter how much automation happens we still have to prop up or even increase the total amount of time people spend working.

That's not the only valid presupposition. There's still value in raising the pension age even if all basic needs can be met with fewer workers than before.

As consumers, voters are going to keep valuing cheaper stuff and policies they believe will deliver cheaper stuff (and curbing consumerism is well beyond Macron's capabilities). Unfortunately, this often translates into an incentive to squeeze workers. The incentive is most strongly counterbalanced by the fact that voters are also workers. This incentive is absent for pensioners. If the proportion of the electorate which draws the state pension rises, the electorate is likely to make things worse for workers.

Giving people more time to do things other than work is a foundational leftist goal going back hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years. Let's not just give up on it now of all times in history.

I agree. We should have a four or three-day workweek, and more 62-year-olds should have a stake in making this happen.

This is a reasonable argument, but based on Macron's now-extensive track record of crass rightism masquerading as enlightened liberal post-post-post-ideological galaxy brain, the chances that the specific policy being protested is part of an overall vision even remotely similar to this are about on par with the chances of one of my roommate's pet geckos getting elected Pope.

Macron can (and sadly, will) be as ghoulish as he pleases, but the structural impact of this policy (on the electorate, that is) remains the same. A greater proportion of it will now have an incentive to support pro-worker policies.

Edit: I'll easily take this over what the UK Conservatives are doing, which is extolling the virtues of the triple locked pensions while making it harder to strike.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://www.ft.com/content/0629e392-5b28-4114-9f52-2a00ed804e47

Macron decides to ignore Parliament. He is the hero who France needs but not what they deserve.

libertarians hating democracy, what else is new

Article 49.3 effectively makes this a confidence vote rather than just bypassing Parliament. This doesn't ignore Parliament's powers; it just forces forces MPs to choose between keeping the current government and blocking this part of its agenda.

In principle, I think it's a good thing this kind of mechanism exists (although there may be a problem with the legal mechanisms surrounding votes of no confidence/Macron threatening to call elections). If governments can't pursue their own key agendas, there are cases where they should give the keys to alternative administrations which can. The Brexit Bill Ballad of Theresa May springs to mind.