A nation of slackers

Matthew Yglesias over at TPMCafe gives Thomas Friedman the black eye he deserves for his recent articles which hold up France as the straw man in his arguments for unabated globalization. France, according to Friedman, is very much Old Europe and very much on its way into the museum (the Louvre, to be exact) unless it adopts some serious fiscal policy changes at the national level. Yglesias points to a study comparing per capita GDP in the US and Europe which argues that doing a little math shows that, surprise, the French are actually a bit MORE productive than their American counterparts but CHOOSE to invest in leisure time instead of material goods.

So France has fewer workers, working shorter weeks, and taking longer vacations -- that is why they make less money. Per hour of output, France is generating much more value than America is. If your buddy made 50 percent more than you because he was working 50 percent longer and had four weeks less vacation than you did, it certainly wouldn't be obvious that your buddy had a better job than you do. Similarly, while it's clear that the French have less stuff than we do, they have more leisure time, and it's not obvious that our situation is better. Indeed, it's not clear what "better" would even mean in this context.

Perhaps Mr. Friedman is the one who will end up shortly in a museum. Oh, and Mr. Friedman, that's LE Louvre to you!