*** LES ECONOMISTES ATTERRES: Changer d’avenir. Réinventer le travail et le modèle économique. Editions Les liens qui libèrent (2 impasse de Conti, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 42011836 – Internet: http://www.editionslesliensquiliberent.fr ). 2017, 236 pp. €17. ISBN 979-10-209-0493-5.
The Economistes atterrés (Economists Aghast - economists for an alternative economics) are opposed to neoliberalism, which they consider is bringing the world either to an end or at the very least a dangerous impasse. These economists provoke both rejection and interest depending on which section of society is the focus of their analysis. Their most recent book is also bound to create even more controversy because it calls for, “A step ‘to the side’ given the failure of austerity programmes, the worn out remedies (growth at any price) and misleading myths (stable and regulating finance)". It also explains in practice how it would be possible to break the vicious circle whereby “the dominant classes" control all the wealth and power.
The first issue that the 15 very different economists contributing to this publication tackle is the question involving the depletion of natural resources and which effectively sounds the death-knell for strong and permanent growth and which, they argue, on the contrary, should encourage new perspectives for producing and consuming and, “therefore ultimately creating a society by inventing new ways of living together”. The next issue subsequently involves the way in which our world is now fashioned according to the “new challenges" posed by the new masters of information, data and knowledge known by the acronym “GAFA” (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon). Will there be a rapid insecurity arising from this? Not necessarily, explain the authors, who are delighted that there are “new forms of cooperation and taking action together" facilitated by intelligent digital use. This also leads them to considering that a solidarity based economy and circulation of common goods could prove, “capable… of inventing other ways of producing and other ways of working for which the final goal is not exclusively making profit”. The future of work is indeed the following theme tackled by the authors, given that it is increasingly being undermined by financial capitalism and by those who are effectively its servants in the political world. It is therefore important that we “rethink work" and even “reinvent it”, which is what the authors seek to do by discussing the subject and the possibility of developing, “an alternative between, on one side, a universal and unconditional minimum income and on the other, a new common labour law, in favour of employees and those in alternative employment, which will accompany a general reduction in the working time carried out in a post-productivist productive model".
Finally, the last field of action examined is the one involving the regeneration of action at a public level on the basis of a “rethink in industrial policy" and, above all, the question of who will give the go ahead for “a movement in support of ‘common goods’ and ‘common management’ and who will revive the notion of “the public good" which transcends, “the status of public property and which has all too often in the past been the property of the state".
As a result of this examination in these four areas of action, a different and renewed vision of politics and democracy emerges at the heart of this book. The European dimension is not tackled in it apart from in a very incidental way and without creating any illusions in this connection. In the chapter focusing on the necessity of linking public investment to successful ecological transition, it is also pointed out that, “ideally Europe is the best place to ensure the appropriate new boosts”. Nonetheless, it is also immediately emphasised that, “nonetheless, we should not be expecting much in this connection" because it is true that it will require a lot of time before the, “Union understands that it has to be up to the task of the new challenges, which would require it disowning its closet neoliberal sympathies". Therefore, “although the identification of European cooperation still requires constant effort”, everything would suggest this would be made on a “national” basis. Is this not proof itself that these alternative economists can on some occasion leave us a little aghast too?
Michel Theys
*** KONSTANTINOS KOLMER: Euro-génocide : les mémorandums exterminent la population grecque. Glossaire des termes des mémorandums. Editions Livanis (98 rue Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 – fax: 3617791 – Email: webmaster@ livanis.gr – Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2017, 192 pp. €9.90. ISBN 978-960-14-3229-8.
“The Memoranda of Understanding" signed by Greece in an effort to satisfy the demands of its European “partners” over the past seven years has reduced the population of the country by 150,000 people and has doubled the rate of the dependency of each employee who now is now on average responsible for the care of “two people" one of whom is aged under 12 and the other over 65. The Greek population experienced a rapid decline due to a low birthrate and a massive flight by Greek citizens aged under 45 abroad. During the years of the crisis, no fewer than 500,000 people have left Greece and 170,000 of them did so in 2017. This demographic void is “compensated" by illegal Turkish immigrants and by the Muslim birthrate in Greece. In this book, the acknowledged economist and editorialist, Konstantinos Kolmer, warns that on the basis of this trend, the Greek population could be reduced in 20 years to… 7 million people, with 35% of them being the elderly, 800,000 children and 3 million of then being ill paid Muslim workers. According to the author, this would mark the end of Greek identity in the region and it would be a high price to pay for a 30% fall in national income, the closure of around 200,000 small and medium-sized enterprises and the exodus of the country’s youth. These would be the dramatic consequences of the imposition of prohibitive taxation, Capital controls and measures to reduce liquidity. The “primary surpluses" demanded by the European Union provoked a dramatic decrease in Greek production, which made full employment an “illusion”. Unemployment has also unceasingly increased since the country adopted the euro in 2002. This is due to a constant fall in productivity and competitiveness. Nonetheless, the fall in employment rates in Greece have very much been part of the situation since… the country joined the European Union in 1981, where entire branches of Greek production, tobacco, fisheries, shipbuilding, metrology and stock breeding have been wiped out and which the author argues has left tourism to become a real “monoculture" in the country". (AKa)
*** ALEXIS MITROPOULOS: Relations de travail et sécurité sociale dans la Grèce moderne. La déréglementation du travail, l'avenir des retraites et le nouveau paysage du système de l'assurance sociale. Editions Livanis (98 rue Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 – fax: 3617791 – Email: webmaster@livanis.gr – Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2017, 510 pp. €25. ISBN 978-960-14-3206-9.
Alexis Mitropoulos has been a lecturer at the University of Athens since 1980 and he is incontestably one of the people best acquainted with social legislation in Greece. In 2012 - 2015 he was an MP for Syriza but he has distanced himself from his party by refusing to vote in favour of a 3rd memorandum and argued, “it is clear that the third memorandum of 2015, the new insurance law (2016), the degeneration contained within the complementary memorandum of understanding (2017) have resulted in a very negative European and global system which has provoked the violent demolition of the national insurance system of a European country, which has been paid for year after year by the workers and society as a whole at the price of the different efforts made and struggles engaged”. Subsequently, this has had absolutely nothing to do with “reform" to quantitatively and qualitatively improve the system but instead, “a hard line neoliberal anti-reform". The author explains that the consequences of the Katrougalos law, named after a very controversial Syriza minister, has had very serious effects on all Greeks, particularly young people and women. All of this has led to the introduction of a social system that resembles something straight out of the Victorian era and the successful production of poor people and society in the future that will be comparable to that which prevailed in the time of their grandparents. This account therefore provides extremely negative prospects for Greek society, the economy and the nation as a whole. The author calls on Greek citizens and young people in particular to get their voices heard and to resist as much as they can to this insurmountable descent into the hell bequeathed them. (AKa)
*** BERND WAAS, GUUS HEERA VAN VOS (Editors): Restatement of Labour Law in Europe. Volume I : The Concept of Employee. Hart Publishing (Kemp House, Chawley Park, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9PH, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 598646 – fax: 727017 – Email: mail@hartpub.co.uk – Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 2017, 805 pp. €175. ISBN 978-1-5099-1244-5.
What exactly do we mean today by the concepts of “employee” and “employer"? These concepts are central to valid social law in Europe, despite the fact that on the ground they are sometimes subject to the most radical developments. No fewer than 43 members of the European Labour Law Network set about trying to answer this question. The network was set up in 2005 and brings together experts from the academic community in 38 different countries. Since 2008, Directorate General Employment Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission has been involved with the work of its experts in an effort to understand the developments taking place in the labour law of Union member states, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. In this book, the geographical palette is even broader because it includes data about the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. For each country, a specialist from the academic world analyses the status reserved for employees or the way in which they are treated under case law. This approach has enabled them to identify the different problems and highlight the solutions that have been adopted to rectify them. Subsequently, they also facilitate a comparative approach in an area which, even within the European Union, has been the subject of only limited harmonisation. Therefore, as explained by Bernd Waas, the network's coordinator, in his introduction, the goal of this collective endeavour was not in fact to pave the way for this kind of harmonisation but more modestly provide reliable information about prevailing labour legislation in Europe in the broadest sense of the word and in this connection they sought to, “increase knowledge" and ensure that this knowledge is better understood. This goal has undoubtedly been achieved! (PBo)
*** Futuribles. L’anticipation au service de l’action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 – fax: 42226554 – email: revue@futuribles.com – Internet: http://www.futuribles.com ). November-December 2017, No. 421, 136 pp. €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-434-5.
The future of work occupies a central place in this edition of the French perspective journal headed by Hugues de Jouvenel. Will falling employment rates linked to the current wave of technology prove cataclysmic, as suggested by several different studies? The posts affected vary between 9% and 47%… it is in an attempt to verify these assertions that Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée examines an employment orientation study by the French Council of Employment, of which she is the president. On the basis of what employees actually do in practice (French employees in this case), this study provides a very measured account: although jobs (fewer than 10%) could possibly disappear due to automation and digitalisation, the vast majority of professions will in fact be obliged to transform and that the structure of employment is very likely to evolve in favour of very qualified workers. Based on 56 different investigations on the use of time in 16 countries over the period of half a century, the researchers Jonathan Gershuny and Kimberly Fisher (University of Oxford) confirm that the machine is not necessarily destroying employment but that it will be the most highly skilled workers and not the reverse, who will be obliged to spend more time at work. This point of view is also corroborated by André-Yves Portnoff, the director of the Observatoire de la révolution de l’Intelligence to Futuribles, in his article on the “Revolution of the immaterial”, which ensures that the creation of wealth will now be based above all on values, vision and determination. There is also an article on the revolution that could be created by quantum physics, as well as the customary “European column" by Jean-François Drevet, which also turns out to be intelligent and almost irrefutable appeal for abandoning inter-governmentalism within the European Union in favour of an evolution towards federalism and a more effective gauge of efficiency and democracy. (PBo)