LONDON LABOUR LUMPED

by the Sandwichman

Conservative Boris Johnson was elected mayor of London yesterday. Mr. Johnson first came to the Sandwichman's attention two years ago with his imaginative description of the lump-of-labour fallacy as "Colbertian".

Posted to MaxSpeak, April 20, 2006

Boris Johnson is Conservative MP for Henley. According to Mr. Johnson, the French lump of labour is "Colbertian", which is to say mercantalist (in France, by the way, the lump-of-labor fallacy is sometimes referred to as le malthusianisme). In today's Telegraph, Johnson wrote:

At last someone at the top of French government has rejected the Colbertian lump of labour fallacy, the idea that there will be more work to go round if you restrict the amount that each person does, an economic misconception that has turned potentially productive French workers into lumps of inertia.

Last May, Mr. Johnson wrote in the Telegraph:

The reason the French have massive and chronic unemployment is that they are governed by an élite still gripped by a demented belief in the Colbertian lump-of-labour fallacy. They have excessive taxation, regulation and bureaucracy, and the last thing the French (or anyone) need is more detailed prescriptions from Brussels about the labour market or anything else.

Meanwhile, his Wikipedia entry describes Mr. Johnson as is a "self-centred pompous twit" who "cultivates an image as an eccentric, straw-haired fop, disorganised and scatty..."

''It would be unfair to say it looks as if he dresses at a charity shop, because no charity shop would accept stuff in that condition.'' (Simon Hoggart, The Guardian).