Here the idea that private companies should be able to fire at will is taken as a given. It's just not controversial. Lefties want higher government benefits, progressive taxation, and stronger unions - all of those are part of the left wing political culture here, but protection against being fired just isn't, except for public sector jobs, and that has to do with preventing the creation of political patronage systems.
And if I might hazard a criticism of my own. Unions are being presented here as representing the general good. I don't think they do, nor should they. Their job is to represent the interests of their members. I find the idea that they somehow represent the interests of society as just as crazy as the neoliberal delusion that management does. The reason that I want stronger unions is because I believe that that is the only way for employee bargaining power to be balanced with that of management. But that's it.
I do think that coverage of France in the US sucks, which is why I've avoided wading into this debate until now - why nitpick when you mostly agree, plus my knowledge of economics is pathetic ;)
Here the idea that private companies should be able to fire at will is taken as a given.
I think we realize that, Marek. But what is astonishing is how deep this cultural difference runs, how impossible it seems for Americans who hold it (not all do, of course) to even conceive that another way of seeing this might exist on the face of the earth. In other words, it seems to me that it's one of the constitutive myths of America -- freedom, rugged individualism, mobility, the businessman-as-hero -- all these are dovetailed in there. Other countries don't do things the American way? That's absurd, they're crazy, etc.
Otherwise, I think you're right about unions. But precisely, balancing employees' bargaining power with management is a pretty important contribution, imho, to the well-being of society at large.
