[lbo-talk] "Is Dominique Strauss-Kahn on the Left?"

JC Helary brandelune at gmail.com
Sun Jul 11 07:05:57 PDT 2010


On 11 juil. 10, at 22:35, SA wrote:


> He was one of the main forces behind the 35-hour workweek, which seems pretty non-neoliberal to me.

On the contrary. To be able to make that 35h workweek into law, Aubry and DSK had to make major concessions to the right (Medef etc). The resulting law was in fact a severe backlash for low wage workers since it added a huge amount of flexibility in their schedule (pretty much allowing managers to schedule the weeks worked x 35 hours over the course of a full year, with little notice).


> His main schtick is that France shouldn't fear globalization and the French left ought to "switch software" in favor of - and this is his keyword - "social democracy."

Like France has not been a "social democracy" for half a century already... DSK is a typical example of the "caviar left" and would not look out of place in Sarkozy's government.

The main difference between the PS and the current right (represented by the UMP, Sarkozy's party) is the source of their income. The PS depends on membership fees, mostly, the UMP on rich tax payers (evaders) donations. That makes people from the PS less likely to be fully in bed with the _very_ rich, but as far as DSK is concerned I'd bet he's been in a lot of beds already.

Jean-Christophe



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