Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
The point of life is not to spend as much of it working as possible. The point is creative, human, emotional, aestethic, intellectual, hedonistic pursuit.

Economic growth and progress need to be geared towards that.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is inhabited by worker ants who think people ought to work fourteen hours a day, six days a week, 50 weeks a year, from age five until death. This, its proponents triumphantly claim, means more production and thus is superior. They are right it allows for more economic production and bitterly, bitterly wrong in mistaking it for higher standard of living.

Unfortunately, capitalism is a winner takes all system. If your neighbour declines seeing his chiuldren grow up so he can slave his life away working, he wins all. Such is the nature of the rat race.

By it, the pinnacle of evolution, the creative ape, reduces itself to the level of the worker ant.
That's all nice and good (I'd agree with you to some extent about most of the world being overworked), but France takes this to an EXTREME. You can't have a 35 hour work week, retirement at 60 with 70% of your salary, and five weeks vacation and be competive with the rest of the world. It simply does not work. With increased lifespan in developed nations, people are living longer. Unless you simply want to tax everyone at 60% of their income, there is simply is no way to afford this and stay competiive. Reality blows.

Btw, it was the socialists who lowered the retirement age (seems logical right?). Well, one has to look at possible alterior motives. Allowing workers to retire, opens up jobs for others, reducing the umemployment rate. It seems more of a way of manipulating economic data that actually caring about the worker.