
50th Anniversary of May 1968, Paris:  Memories of an Illusory Revolution - behoove
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/29/may-1968-paris-memories-of-an-illusory-revolution/
======
lkrubner
1968 was a crucial turning point in the economic history of France. After 1968
France enjoyed almost 20 years when the working class saw large gains in
wages. Income inequality shrunk dramatically. See here:

[http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and-
inequ...](http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and-
inequality/#xtor=RSS-32280322)

an excerpt:

In France the years 1945-1967 are marked by high rates of growth, but also by
a movement of reconstitution of inequalities, with, at one and the same time,
a steep rise in the share of profits in national income and the reconstitution
of highly ranked salary scales. The share of the 10% highest incomes which was
barely 31% of total income in 1945 gradually rose to 38% in 1967.

...The break came in 1968. As a way out of the crisis, General de Gaulle’s
government signed the Grenelle Agreements which included, in particular, a
rise of 20% in the minimum wage. The minimum wage was officially indexed on
average wage gains in 1970 and, most importantly, all the successive
governments from 1968 to 1983 felt obliged to grant very high ‘special hikes’
almost every year in a social and political climate far from stable. The
result was that the purchasing power of the minimum wage rose in all by over
130% between 1968 and 1983, whereas at the same time the average salary only
rose by about 50%, whence a very strong compression of pay inequalities. The
break with the previous period was clean and wide-ranging; the purchasing
power of the minimum wage had risen by barely 25% between 1950 and 1968,
whereas the average salary had more than doubled. Driven by the strong rise in
low salaries, throughout the years 1968-1983, the total payroll rose
significantly faster than did production; as a result there was a considerable
fall in the share of capital in the national income. All this took place at
the same time as a reduction in the number of hours worked and an increase in
paid holidays.

------
behoove
I found these reflections interesting. Since she was there at the time and
doesn't draw any simplistic conclusions, I thought the essay might make an
interesting HN post. It's a political site, but the article is not so
politicized.

This one is slightly more ideological but still more personal and also quite
interesting: [http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/05/some-
reflecti...](http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/05/some-reflections-
on-may-1968-now-half-a-century-ago-.html). I found it pretty consistent with
Diana Johnstone's piece.

~~~
amaccuish
Thank you for this. It sad that these protests came to nothing. Marx is more
relevant than ever.

Do you have any good french language sources?

~~~
duncan_bayne
Marx is relevant? Socialist intellectuals have been moving the goalposts for
decades, after failure upon failure to achieve their stated goals.

[http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/hicks...](http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-
content/uploads/2009/11/hicks-ep-chart-56-evolution-of-socialist-
strategies.gif)

To put it bluntly, Marxism has failed dismally in every place and at every
time it's been tried.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. The parent
dipped a toe in that tarpit, but that's no reason to jump in.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
amaccuish
Sorry was merely stating why I was greatful for the source. Perhaps I should
have phrased differently. Sorry :)

------
baud147258
I've never understood how May 68 is so important. What was changed afterward
that makes this period so important to be remembered 50 years later? Could
someone explain this?

~~~
lkrubner
1968 was a crucial turning point in the economic history of France. After 1968
France enjoyed almost 20 years when the working class saw large gains in
wages. Income inequality shrunk dramatically. See here:

[http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and-
inequ...](http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/05/08/may-1968-and-
inequality/#xtor=RSS-32280322)

~~~
baud147258
But I don't why this is so important that this particular months has to be
commemorated, long after any economic changes has faded away.

------
duxup
French posters and Spanish civil war posters were so great. The events (the
Spanish Civil War) was terrible, but man the art in the posters is always very
compelling.

------
pydook
I see it as a irony that in 68 there were many communist activists in the
West, while Czechoslovakia - socialist country - was invaded by 'allied'
eastern bloc armies. Reason was that local politics shifted towards what was
called "communism with a human face", meaning it introduced freedom of
expression.

Any attempt to implement Marx ideas resulted in unimaginable amount of
suffering and injustice, scarring nations for decades to come. I am dismayed
that he still has so many followers, and quite a lot of them seem to be
Westerners.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
It's because the West never really experienced mass-scale communism. The two
things closest to it are: (1) some socialist ideas implemented in rich
countries like in Scandinavia, where you pay huge taxes, but at the same time
you receive quite a lot from the state in different forms, (2) small-scale
communist communes, such as the Longo Maï which, as far as I can tell, still
functions since '68, although the spirit is different - and they accept
donations, so it's difficult to say the commune is self-sustaining (and
nowadays it's practically impossible anyway).

------
duncan_bayne
It's fortunate for France that the revolution came to nothing. Marxist
policies have destroyed every country that has embraced them.

USSR.

North Korea.

Cuba.

Vietnam.

China.

Those that have recovered have done so to the extent that they have
_abandoned_ Marxism. Economically speaking, even fascism (e.g. China) is
better than Marxism.

It's probably better from a human rights perspective, too. This was first
published in 1988, but is still highly relevant:

[https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marxist-
dreams-...](https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marxist-dreams-
soviet-realities)

 _How many died altogether? No one will ever know. What is certain is that the
Soviet Union has been the worst reeking charnel house of this whole awful
twentieth century, worse even than the one the Nazis created (but then they
had less time). The sum total of deaths due to Soviet policy — in the Stalin
period alone — deaths from the collectivization and the terror-famine, the
executions and the Gulag, is probably on the order of 30,000,000._

~~~
rangibaby
I don't think that any of those countries were prosperous before Communism
either.

\- Gulag-style camps and secret police already existed in the Russian empire.
USSR managed to have an "industrial revolution" over 20 years and beat Nazi
Germany, then was the first country to space and was one of the world's
superpowers right up until the end.

\- If you look at the history of both Koreas post-WWII, you will see that the
economic system has little to do with how DPRK is now.

\- Cuba has done OK considering the embargo. Cf Haiti

\- Colonialism and the Vietnam War did more damage to Vietnam than Marxism
could have

\- Again if you look at how poor the situation in China was pre-civil war you
will see that the claim that Marxist policies "destroyed" China is false.

> What is certain is that the Soviet Union has been the worst reeking charnel
> house of this whole awful twentieth century, worse even than the one the
> Nazis created

I think it is hypocritical to call the USSR worse than the Nazis when at least
80% of the German casualties of the war were on the Eastern Front, thanks to
Stalin's brutal policy to industrialize the country.

~~~
Muromec
>USSR managed to have an "industrial revolution" over 20 years and beat Nazi
Germany, then was the first country to space

That's just half the story. Space exploration was built on slave labor
(everybody knows Gagarin, but who would remember Korolev and Ghlushko?) and
all the industry largely rots because it proved to be not competitive after
USSR collapse, so eastern block is poor in the end and still has to bear the
cost of forced aspect of it.

~~~
dgut
This. A space program is not very impressive if your population has to live
under dystopian conditions.

