Seilliere describes the financial incentives planned by French Employment Minister Martine Aubry to encourage employers to shorten working hours and take on more workers as a plan to "partly nationalise businesses". He has advised employers to "harass the administrative and political decision-makers, who have all the means to do what they like, to make them aware of the diversity of companies and the enormous problems posed by the 35-hour plan..."

Krugman has dubbed this new socialist economic path the "doctrine of global glut". He says it is based on three "fallacious but widely believed propositions": 1. That global productive capacity is growing at an exceptional, perhaps unprecedented rate; 2. That demand in advanced countries cannot keep up with the growth in potential supply; and 3. That the growth of newly emerging economies will contribute much more to global supply than to global demand.

"In the formative stages of a doctrine, both the intellectual and the political establishment tend to regard them as unworthy of notice. Meanwhile, the doctrines can seem compelling to large numbers of people, some of whom have considerable political clout, financial resources or both. By the time it becomes apparent that such influential ideas -- say, supply-side economics -- demand serious attention after all, reasoned argument has become very difficult. People have become invested emotionally, politically, and financially in the doctrine,"

Krugman believes that such doctrines, in economics and elsewhere, often fail to get adequately discussed in their early stages. He calls for more discussion on the "global glut" before it becomes "a dogma impervious to logic and evidence..."

Krugman: "In the formative stages of a doctrine, both the intellectual and the political establishment tend to regard them as unworthy of notice. Meanwhile, the doctrines can seem compelling to large numbers of people, some of whom have considerable political clout, financial resources or both. By the time it becomes apparent that such influential ideas -- say, supply-side economics -- demand serious attention after all, reasoned argument has become very difficult. People have become invested emotionally, politically, and financially in the doctrine, careers and even institutions have been built on it, and its proponents can no longer allow themselves to contemplate the possibility that they have taken a wrong turn..."

Tony Carlyle of the Global Times reports that in the boom days of 1988 in Lojo, Finland, the plastics manufacturing company Orthex found that it could not keep its workforce. It was paying 30 marks per hour but just down the road at the paper mill workers could get 100 marks an hour. So the company decided to make itself more attractive by cutting working hours from eight to six and still pay the workers for eight.

Orthex was promptly expelled from the employers' federation and the unions became very suspicious. Now the company is besieged by study groups and both unions and employers say they are pleased with the results.

"a union survey of shorter working hours has found workers generally interested in negotiating shorter hours of work, and that they would consider some kind of financial sacrifice -- as long as full-time jobs were created as a result"

One unexpected saving was that time lost due to illness almost disappeared. Tony Carlyle reports that people felt better and their health improved. The same phenomenon was also apparent at the large Finnish tyre producer Nokia, who brought in a six-hour working day. Their staff suddenly stopped taking days off for illness altogether.

Sources -- Reuters 29 November 1997 "French employers turn up heat on work week cut "; Sydney Morning Herald 15 October 1997 "A global glut in the one nation" by Max Walsh; Global Times 28 August 1997 "The Six-Hour Day Works" By Tony Carlyle; PSA Journal December 1997 "Less work, more jobs, more fun".