America needs to be more like Europe (lazier and less religious, for starters)

[BrainGlutton]

From “The Atheist Sloth Ethic, or Why Europeans Don’t Believe in Work,” by Niall Ferguson, in The Telegraph, 7/8/04, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/08/07/do0701.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/08/07/ixopinion.html:

Everyone knows that Americans have much shorter holidays than Europeans. While German, Italian and French workers enjoy, on average, more than 40 days of holiday a year, the average American has to make do with just two weeks. But this is only part of a growing transatlantic disparity in patterns of work.

There are, for example, many more Europeans out of work than Americans; over the past decade, US unemployment has averaged 4.6 per cent, compared with 9.2 per cent for the EU. Another difference is in labour participation. Between 1973 and 1998, the percentage of the American population in employment rose from 41 to 49 per cent. But in Germany and France, the equivalent percentage fell to, respectively, 44 and 39 per cent.

<snip>

This gap between American and European working hours is of surprisingly recent origin; 25 years ago, it didn’t exist. Between 1979 and 1999, the average US working year lengthened by 50 hours, nearly four per cent. But the average German working year shrank by 12 per cent. The same was true elsewhere in Europe.

How are we to explain this divergence? The obvious answer is European legislation such as the French 35-hour week or the recent British reduction of the hours worked by junior doctors. Another theory points to differences in marginal rates of taxation. But I cannot resist suggesting another possible explanation - one that owes a debt to Weber’s famous essay The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which he wrote almost exactly a century ago.

Weber believed he had identified a link between the rise of Protestantism and the development of what he called “the spirit of capitalism”. I would like to propose a modern version of Weber’s theory, namely “The Atheist Sloth Ethic and the Spirit of Collectivism”.

The most remarkable thing about the transatlantic divergence in working patterns is that it has coincided almost exactly with a comparable divergence in religiosity. According to a 1999 Gallup survey of religious attitudes, 48 per cent of people living in western Europe almost never go to church; the figure for eastern Europe is just a little lower at 44 per cent.

In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, less than one in 10 of the population now attends church at least once a month. Only in Catholic Italy and Ireland do more than a third of the population worship on a monthly basis or more often.

By contrast, more than twice as many North Americans as Europeans attend religious services once a week or more. And scarcely any Americans could be characterised as atheists, compared with 15 per cent of Europeans.

The claim that Britons are the most Americanised of Europeans does not stand up well in this regard. When it comes to religion, the British are west Europeans, not eastern Americans. Fewer than a third of Britons surveyed in a recent BBC poll agreed with the statement “My God is the only true god”, compared with half of Americans. Fewer than a fifth of Britons say they would be willing to die for their beliefs, compared with 71 per cent of Americans.

I do not say that this is the sole explanation for the fact that London today is lethargic while New York toils away as usual. But there is surely something more than coincidental about the simultaneous rise of unbelief in Europe and the decline of Weber’s work ethic.

While Ferguson does not explicitly take sides, the tone of the article seems to imply that European sloth and atheism are problems. If so, I say he has it backwards. It’s American religiosity and the work ethic that are the problems! The Euros have the right idea about what life is all about! Fun, leisure, enjoyment, and good health! If you don’t believe that, consider all the other important ways in which the Europeans’ lives are different – and, I would argue, much better than ours!

From “The American Paradox,” an article by Ted Halstead, in the February 1, 2003, edition of The Atlantic Monthly – http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=1155:

Nothing illustrates America’s profound contradictions more starkly than a comparison with other advanced democracies: among these the United States is either the very best or the very worst performer on a wide range of social and economic criteria. We are simultaneously the leader and the laggard among our peers—almost always exceptional, almost never in the middle.

Without question we are the richest, most powerful, and most creative nation on the planet. Our economic and military might stems from our embrace of a particularly high-octane brand of capitalism, supported by financial markets that are deeper and broader than any others, labor markets that are more flexible, and a culture of entrepreneurialism that is unparalleled. These attributes have turned America into the world’s unrivaled engine of innovation and wealth creation. We boast more patent applications than the entire European Union; almost three times as many Nobel laureates as Britain, our closest competitor; and more business start-ups per capita than almost every other advanced democracy. One in twelve Americans will start his or her own business, evincing another outstanding American trait—our great tolerance for risk. And our export of movies, television shows, music, and fast-food chains makes us, for better or worse, the dominant cultural force on the globe.

But like the Roman god Janus, America has two faces. Despite being the richest nation on the planet, we suffer from higher rates of poverty, infant mortality, homicide, and HIV infection, and from greater economic inequality, than other advanced democracies. We have far more uninsured citizens, and a lower life expectancy. On a per capita basis the United States emits considerably more greenhouse gases and produces more solid waste. We spend more per student on K-12 education than almost all other modern democracies, yet our students perform near the bottom on international tests. We have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and among the highest proportions of single parents, and American parents have the least amount of free time to spend with their children; indeed, the average American works nine weeks more each year than the average European. Our performance on many social indicators is so poor, in fact, that an outsider looking at these numbers alone might conclude that we were a developing nation.

How do we reconcile these two faces of America? To a remarkable degree the United States seems to have exchanged social cohesion and a broad-based middle class for economic dynamism and personal freedom. Have we abandoned what used to be referred to as the common good?

<snip>

THE TWO FACES OF AMERICA

This list of “bests” and “worsts” is based on a variety of sources—including statistics from the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and a number of other groups and experts—but the basic criteria are consistent. Among advanced democracies, America had to rank in the top three for a category to be listed under “bests” and in the bottom three for a category to be listed under “worsts.” (Where applicable, all rankings were determined on a rate basis or as a percentage of population.)

Bests-------------------------------------------------Worsts

Gross domestic product------------------------------Poverty
Productivity---------------------------------------------Economic inequality
Business start-ups------------------------------------Carbon-dioxide emissions
Long-term unemployment---------------------------Life expectancy
Expenditure on education---------------------------Infant mortality
University graduates----------------------------------Homicide
R&D expenditure---------------------------------------Health-care coverage
High-tech exports--------------------------------------HIV infection
Movies exported---------------------------------------Teen pregnancy
Breadth of stock ownership--------------------------Personal savings
Volunteerism--------------------------------------------Voter participation
Charitable giving---------------------------------------Obesity

I say we’ve made a bad bargain. Compared to the Europeans and other peoples of modern industrialized nations, we’ve chosen to pay the wrong prices for the wrong benefits. We would be better off if we were less religious. If we worked less. If we had more democracy. If we had more of a welfare state. If we spent more of our economic output on collective rather than individual goods. If our wealth and income were more evenly distributed and our social classes were a lot closer together than they are now. What do you say?

[SteveG1]

Maybe we are in this pickle because we are a country that does things to excess.

Having a strong work ethic is good. Working yourself to death for a pittance while the kid who inherited the company gets richer (with no personal effort) is bad.
Having a huge and efficient farm system (more food available) is good. Gorging ourselves to an early grave is bad.
Personal freedom is good. Expecting freedom without accepting the resonsibilities it entails is dumb.
Charity, helping those who need help is good. Supporting people who simply do not want to do anything is dumb.
Wanting to “lead the free world” by example is good. Wanting to lead by brute force is bad.
Capitalism is good. The monopolistic “robber baron” mentality is bad.

The problem I see is not so much what we do, it’s the extremes to which we have to take everything.

[Bricker]

@BrainGlutton

I say we’ve made a bad bargain. Compared to the Europeans and other peoples of modern industrialized nations, we’ve chosen to pay the wrong prices for the wrong benefits. We would be better off if we were less religious. If we worked less. If we had more democracy. If we had more of a welfare state. If we spent more of our economic output on collective rather than individual goods. If our wealth and income were more evenly distributed and our social classes were a lot closer together than they are now. What do you say?

I say I disagree with you on every single point, except possibly “more democracy.”

I also say that if anyone wonders why “liberal” can successfully be used as a perojorative, they have only to read this OP.

[BrainGlutton]

@Bricker

I say I disagree with you on every single point, except possibly “more democracy.”

Could you elaborate, point-by-point, giving actual reasons for your disagreement?

[Abbie_Carmichael]

Funny. I thought our ancestors left Europe so they could settle a land that wasn’t like Europe.

And now the world suddenly needs two Europes? Why? Has the current Europe run out of room for newcomers?

[John_Mace]

The main problem with your thesis BG is that you ignore the necessity of innovation. I can’t quantify this, but I think it would be hard to dispute that the US is the major source of scientific and technical innovation in the world. Why is that, if not because of structural differences in the societies? One might argue that Japan equals or excedes the US in some aspects of technical innovation, but that society is probably structured even more differently than you propose.

You also need to look at how people vote with their feet. There are not, AFAIK, lines of Americans clamoring to get into European countries, but Europeans continue to emmigrate to the US is considerable numbers. Why is that?

[Eve]

But I can’t get any lazier or less religious!

[Abbie_Carmichael]

@Eve

But I can’t get any lazier or less religious!

You’re just going to have to try harder, then!

[XT]

My guess as to why we are so ‘two faced’ is because we attempt to play it both ways. We certainly are a capitalist nation, and obviously dynamic in that reguard. However, we also try and have a hefty social side. Take education, which you pointed out in the OP. Certainly its true we pay a hell of a lot for education (one of the highest amounts per student in the world), yet its equally obvious that we aren’t getting much of a bang for our buck. Health care is another example of this. Its, of course, debatable WHY this is. My own theory is that we attempt to take a muddled middle course on those issues, instead of either fully embracing socialization/liberalization of them or getting the government the hell out of the way and opening them up to the free market. I won’t even bother to say which I personally think is better. My point is that a middle course on the social side of our nation is whats gotten us into the trouble we are in.

I say we’ve made a bad bargain. Compared to the Europeans and other peoples of modern industrialized nations, we’ve chosen to pay the wrong prices for the wrong benefits. We would be better off if we were less religious. If we worked less. If we had more democracy. If we had more of a welfare state. If we spent more of our economic output on collective rather than individual goods. If our wealth and income were more evenly distributed and our social classes were a lot closer together than they are now. What do you say?

I also disagree, though I’m not going to go point by point…I’ll leave that to Bricker if he’s interested. Myself I think the Europeans are making a bad long term bargin thats going to eventually bite them in the ass as nations like China and India emerge with more of a work ethic like the US than like the EU. I also think that one of the thing that ALLOWS the Europeans to do what they have done is the US and our willingness to BE the economic powerhouse we are. We basically pick up the tab for defense of Europe, we are the major market for their goods and services, we are the innovators and the driving engine of economics in the world…and they are riding along in our wake (IMO)…all the while bad mouthing us.

Thats cool, and don’t get me wrong here…I LOVE Europe. SOme of my best friends live there and I try and go there (especially to England) as often as I can. But I really do think they are making a bad long range deal and eventually its going to bite them right on the ass.

-XT

[John_Corrado]

@Eve

But I can’t get any lazier or less religious!

Feh. You’re posting, aren’t you?

If you were truly European levels of lazy, you’d think about posting, then decide it would merely reaffirm the Manichean division within the Neitzchean post ergo prop hoc, and decide that registering your ennui by not posting would be the more intellectually honest exercise.
As for the actual point- Brain, which of the items on the “Bests” are you willing to give up to remove any of the items on the “Worsts”?

[Blalron]

@Bricker

I say I disagree with you on every single point, except possibly “more democracy.”

I also say that if anyone wonders why “liberal” can successfully be used as a perojorative, they have only to read this OP.

Can’t we just try being like Europe? Give it 5 years, you know you’d like it! Please?

[John_Mace]

@Blalron

Can’t we just try being like Europe? Give it 5 years, you know you’d like it! Please?

I draw the line at having to tote around a European carry-all!

[Bippy_the_Beardless]

You say that innovation would be lost, but if you consider how much smaller UK is than USA it is clear that innovation can be just as great in a more layed back society. The benifit of subsidised higher education is I think sufficient to keep inovation strong, and with the capitalist rules that allow an innovator to proffet hugely from their innovation is all that is needed. I think America would benifit from more paid holidays, it enables people to travel, and quite frankly all I see in my limited view of American high tech companies is that the extra hours are usually wasted.
In UK high tech, when a project is busy and deadlines are set people work the same hours as in American companies in the same situation, but when the pressure is off there would be far less time spent at work posting to internet message boards because the actual work hours expected on quiet days are less.

European holiday sick rules are a problem though. In europe if you are ill and can’t get to work you are paid for the days you miss. Unfortunatel many people just take this as a reason to have more paid holidays, and that is not right. I would much rather see some way to clamp down on those who defraud their employers by taking sick days when they are not actually too sick to come to work. There was a srvey recently I read about where a large proportion of workers interviewed thought that being tierd was a good enough reason to take a sick leave day.

[Blalron]

@BrainGlutton

Could you elaborate, point-by-point, giving actual reasons for your disagreement?

This is what gives conservatives a bad name. You give them a huge laundry list of many ways in which Europe is superior to the U.S, better healthcare, less poverty, more leisure time, more tolerant society. And they can’t muster any response other than “no wonder you’re a stupid liberal”. It’s like they are pathologically incapable of learning from any other countries, and to even suggest such a thing is terrible.

I don’t see how our innovation would go to shit if we had a little more vacation tyime.

[Huerta88]

@John Corrado

Feh. You’re posting, aren’t you?

If you were truly European levels of lazy, you’d think about posting, then decide it would merely reaffirm the Manichean division within the Neitzchean post ergo prop hoc, and decide that registering your ennui by not posting would be the more intellectually honest exercise.

You might also go on television sporting a turtleneck and smoking like a chimney to discuss, with other whiskery intellectualoids, the grounds for your ennui, but then not come to any conclusion. Then you’d go out for a crepe.

[wonky]

I don’t have much to add to the discussion, but I would like to address one point: infant mortality.

I do not have a cite, mainly because I can’t even remember the circumstances under which I “learned” this, but I have read more than once that one cause of America’s high infant mortality rate is the opposition to abortion. More non-viable infants are born here that in many other countries would have been, or at least are more likely to have been, aborted when diagnosed. If that’s true, then the infant mortality rate is being skewed in one direction or another, depending on the country. (I can’t say if this is a large effect or a small one. I will continue to look for cites.)

[Cluricaun]

I think we should also endorse the concept of siestas and the multiple pint lunch. There is so much we can learn from our European friends on the best ways to even make it through the day.

[pervert]

The infant mortality information I heard (sorry, no cite it was a long time ago) was that the definition of when a delivered fetus becomes an infant changed. If a fetus is delivered and only survives a few minutes, that can be called a still birth, and not counted as an infant mortality. If, however, through medical intervention, that same fetus is kept alive for a day or so, it would be counted as an infant mortality. I remember hearing this in the early nineties in regard to the sudden increase in infant mortality numbers in America.

I would like to propose another “solution” to the “American Parodox” which you like to quote so much. America is very different socio-economically than many parts of Europe. I don’t know how widely the statistics Ted Halstead used were gathered, but I venture to guess that some of them might change if he factored eastern Europe in more heavily. My point is that with America’s continuing immigration numbers, comparing us to England may not be entirely valid. We might be more correctly compared to Europe as a whole.

Also I would point out that the statistics you are so fond of quoting only label worst and best amongst the very successful. For instance America is listed as the worst in longevity. However according to WHO America’s life expectancy is 69.3 while the United Kingdom’s is 70.6. (Iceland, Europe’s highest, is only 72.8). So, while America might not be “first”, it is certainly not far behind.

I don’t know, but I suspect that many of the other statistics suffer from the same problem. Only because if they did not, they would be listed differently.

Finally, I would not that the first couple of items listed in your “Best / Worst” sequence could be ligitimately be called paradoxes. But many of them are not. I can understand how being the best at Productivity while being the worst at Economic Equality might seem like a pardox. But what does being the best at University Graduates have to do with being the worst at Murders?

Are these specific enough?

[Rashak_Mani]

Newsweek or TIME had something about the Slow Movement years ago… and they had some interesting info.

Basically French might not work as much as americans… but productivity is higher and life quality too. Basically French managed the same workload with less hours. A lot of “extra hours” are wasted or mismanaged by most workers in every country.

Americans having only 2 weeks vacation is quite bad… you guys need to travel more and relax more. Get to know things outside the USA. Europes smaller crime rate and health problems more than compensate.

As for Infant mortality someone mentioned… I’d blame it on the bad diet too not only work hours. The US is champion of the 1st world of fetuses without brains due to lack of eating green leaves for example.

European lesser economic viability lies not on their cozy work hours and more humane lifestyle… but in their unemployement benefits, social services and employee job protection.

[Bricker]

@BrainGlutton

Could you elaborate, point-by-point, giving actual reasons for your disagreement?

Sure.

We are the weathiest country in the world precisely because we work harder. When you suggest we should not work as hard, I contend that this will cause us to become less wealthy. (I assume you understand that wealth is created, not plucked off trees or derived from exploiting others).

Now, you may argue that this goal is unworthy. Fair enough - we are, after all, each entitled to our own perceptions of what is valuable as a goal.

However, given the relative paucity of Americans attempting to emmigrate to Europe, and the relatively large numbers of Europeans attempting to immigrate to the US, I would suggest that this perception of mine is not unique.

Now, let us consider the suggestion of having more of a welfare state and spending more of our output on collective, rather than individual, goals.

Men are not ants. As the failures of collectivist societies have proved, the socialist model simply does not scale very well. People do not wish to work hard and give up the rewards of their labor to others that do not work as hard. When forced to do so, output tends to decline, since labor is not incentivized by reward.

In short: as a matter of both practicality and morality, your lazy and indigent palms are not entitled to the fruits of my labor.

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye tells of an encounter between Nahum, the village beggar, and a passer-by:

Nahum: Alms for the poor! Alms for the poor!

Passer-by: Here you are, Nahum - one kopec.

Nahum: One kopec? Last week, you gave me two kopecs!

Passer-by: Well, I had a bad week this week.

Nahum: So? Because you had a bad week, I should suffer?

This little vignette illustrate fairly well, I would argue, the false sense of entitlement your “welfare state” has to the fruits of its more productive citizens.