The end of socialism

Having been in France for 10 months now it has come into my head and come up in conversation many many times that socialism in France is coming to an end.

Sure this is good if your in charge of a company or profit from a company, but is it good for average people with nothing to gain from privatization? Sure, things may run more efficiently once privatized. Don't get me wrong, I have alot of first hand experience with the dinosaur when socialism goes bad both at work and in trying to get a visa. But will society benefit?

Here are two examples...

(1) Last month there were large protests (Herald Tribune) against a new law that allows companies to fire any employee under 26 years old in the first 2 years with no documented reason. The government says it is to promote small businesses which tend to fail in the first two years, it allows them to move quickly if an employee is bad. This is in stark contrast to, say, the French laws about an individuals rights in matters of housing where if you don't pay your rent it can take years to evict you.

(2) The Marseille public transportation strike lasted for something like 40 days (see my post here) and in the end the workers got nothing except a court order that their strike was illegal. Very similar to the situation in NYC. Except, the Marseille transit workers are protesting for something tangible, the privatisation of the new tramway. Every-day on the street I see armies of private company workers working on the highly criticised tramway that will, critics say, simply be in parallel with existing bus and metro lines (forces buses off the same streets) with the added twist that it is private.

The end of socialism? I guess/think it is inevitable? Do you?

This post was inspired by a post by Gordon Watts