How The Welfare State Dies

Zerohedge reports:

the fact that socialism evidently doesn’t work, doesn’t mean people will want to give up on it – especially not if it works for them personally. In this case this definitely applies to France’s union leaders, whose organizations represent almost a State-within-the-State.

Although the French unions have lost 80% of their membership over the years, they continue to wield immense political power. They don’t really need members, as they are partly funded by the State and partly by employers, who are coerced by law to hand over truly stunning amounts of money to them (e.g. a single large company like the power utility EDF is forced to pay more than $700 million to the unions per year).

The only sector in which union membership hasn’t collapsed is the public sector. It is a very good bet that this is the sector of the economy in which the least amount of productive work is performed. For those ensconced in it, it is a highly privileged sinecure well worth fighting for though.

Given that much of France’s transportation system is state-run, the unions retain the ability to bring the entire nation literally to a standstill – a fact much feared by politicians. Voters hate being unable to commute, and obviously, economic output and tax revenues tend to suffer greatly every time the union bosses give the order to paralyze the transportation system. No government has as of yet proved capable of reforming the system or diminishing the power of the unions in the slightest.

The Welfare State means a special privilege society.