# How are Germany and Japan so rich? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 18, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919 "2010-03-18T18:04:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/41 "2010-03-24T20:05:45Z")
> [@BDoors](#): > > But I imagine you are paying the $60 because while the person is mowing your lawn, you are doing something that makes more than $60, and you are not willing to do both. So if you mowed the lawn yourself, the economy would lose the benefit of your other presumably more specialised and valuable skills, and the GDP would accordingly be lower. Of course. But it doesn’t alter the fact that GDP is a crappy measurement of standard of living, especially when trying to compare countries where one has many more state provided services. To take it to an extreme example, if two stay at home mothers decided to watch each other’s children for $50,000,000 per year each, is the true measure of the country’s worth really $100,000,000 higher as a result? Cultural differences are also a major factor. If individuals in one culture traditionally have parents living with them, that country’s GDP will be artificially depressed compared to a country where parents are placed into retirement homes. ---
**Author:** ![BDoors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BDoors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BDoors)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/42 "2010-03-24T20:13:45Z")
I take your point about the questionable utility of GDP as an indicator. (Actually, having just re-read my first point above I am not sure what I was trying to say… For the record, I think it was something more like this: You say “were I to do that work myself, the overall level of work in the economy would be unchanged.” But in order for you to mow the lawn, you would have to spend less time at your real job. Therefore, the overall level of work in the economy would fall. ) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/43 "2010-03-25T00:13:32Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Unlike the USA (which is following a policy of educational mediocrity) Germany and Japan have high-quality seconday school educational systems. The USA spends a fortune on education (chiefly brick and mortar, and administrative salaries), but has one of the worst records in the world. > This is revealed in world-wide testing-the USA consistently ranks below nations like Germany, Japan, Switzerland. I’ve mentioned my stepdaughter before, who’s been teaching at an international private school in Germany for several years. She might have been a special case singled out for promotion and administration, and is now running the primary division. But over the past couple of years, she’s been sent by her employer to one seminar or training program after another, in Latin America, Spain, London, and so on–representing a level of expenditure on travel and offsite training which, in this country, is probably only seen at the highest level investment banking and law firms. More than the actual travel, it represents a level of professional respect accorded the employee, of which a teacher in the States could never dream. In this country it would be, “What, you, yourself, go to an educational conference in Vancouver? Oh you funny funny person. And empty my trash on your way out…”. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/44 "2010-03-25T00:22:52Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The GDP per capita in the US is $48k vs $35k for Germany. If you go to your boss and ask for an additional 2 weeks of vacation in exchange for a 30% paycut, you too could work like a German. > Since most of wealth is now human capital it is very easy for lesser developed countries with good institutions to copy better developed countries and catch up very quickly. It’s good that less developed countries can catch up easily, but I certainly wouldn’t call Germany a less developed country. As evil as the National Socialists were, I think an argument can be made that Germany benefited, in the postwar period, from a cultural familiarity with democracy which served the Federal Republic well from the very beginning. Twelve years of dictatorship could not completely eliminate the knowledge of and respect for classical civilization, including the democratic city-states of Greece, which was imparted to upper class youth throughout Europe. I think it’s why in that country postwar rebuilding and expansion of industry was so successful. In addition, the presence of a strong workers’ movement didn’t do any harm either. The lack of any such nod to democratic institutions is, I think, why Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be failing miserably, both politically and industrially, before our eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/45 "2010-03-25T01:21:52Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > the Japanese who are a relatively insular _Relatively_ insular? So far as I can tell, they are entirely insular. And the British too. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![nisosbar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@nisosbar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nisosbar)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/46 "2010-03-25T02:07:35Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > So less than a single lifetime ago, Germany and Japan and just lost the largest war in human history, and had been bombed into tiny little bits, had a huge percentage of their population killed, and were generally in very bad shape. > > Now, [they are the 2nd and 4th richest countries in the world.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)) > > How is this possible? Comparing 1945 Germany and Japan to 1945 to other countries at the same time like Canada or Brazil or Spain or New Zealand or India that were not absolutely demolished in a vicious war to the death, what would you point at and say “due to X and Y and Z, Germany and Japan will be richer and more powerful than all those countries in a fairly short period of time”? Because they’ve effectively been colonies of the United States since the end of WWII. And they were both rich and powerful before the war because they were smart and industrious. So that didn’t change. ---
**Author:** ![\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/eada6e/32.png) [@\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Undecided_Adrian)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/47 "2010-03-25T10:48:19Z")
What? You could say that Germany resembled a colony until the mid-1950s or so, but since then we were quite independent except in defense matters. And in that area, do you want to claim that the other NATO members were “colonies” as well? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/48 "2010-03-25T10:59:35Z")
Germany’s even more of a miracle given that it had to virtually reabsorb a third world nation in the 1990s. [QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] It’s good that less developed countries can catch up easily, but I certainly wouldn’t call Germany a less developed country. As evil as the National Socialists were, I think an argument can be made that Germany benefited, in the postwar period, from a cultural familiarity with democracy which served the Federal Republic well from the very beginning. Twelve years of dictatorship could not completely eliminate the knowledge of and respect for classical civilization, including the democratic city-states of Greece, which was imparted to upper class youth throughout Europe. I think it’s why in that country postwar rebuilding and expansion of industry was so successful. In addition, the presence of a strong workers’ movement didn’t do any harm either. The lack of any such nod to democratic institutions is, I think, why Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be failing miserably, both politically and industrially, before our eyes. [/quote] It’s also worth factoring in how far ahead the Germans were compared to everybody else before the war. Look at any sort of advanced mathematics from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the names are all German. Germany was _the_ place to do science, and any educated scientist in the rest of the world was expected to know how to read German. Even Hitler’s policies with respect to Jewish science, and Jewish scientists, probably didn’t fully eradicate that effect. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/49 "2010-03-25T14:56:56Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Having gone to university in both the US and Japan, I can safely say that, for the most part, Japanese universities are a complete joke. I went to one of the top five universities in Japan, and while my major courses were relatively robust, overall the level was well below what would be covered in a US or UK university. I had a professor in college that had taught in Japan for many years. He said the hard work for Japanese is getting into a particular college because the job they were able to get was generally determine by the college they were able to get into. Once in college it was much more relaxed. This professor was told by the Japanese profs that “You are giving them too much work and being too hard on them.” ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/50 "2010-03-25T19:05:01Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Germany’s even more of a miracle given that it had to virtually reabsorb a third world nation in the 1990s. > > It’s also worth factoring in how far ahead the Germans were compared to everybody else before the war. Look at any sort of advanced mathematics from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the names are all German. Germany was _the_ place to do science, and any educated scientist in the rest of the world was expected to know how to read German. Even Hitler’s policies with respect to Jewish science, and Jewish scientists, probably didn’t fully eradicate that effect. Also medicine, if we count the _Sprachraum_ inclusive of Vienna. And there the Jewish researchers and practitioners were relatively safe for a few more years, before the _Anschluss_. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919/51 "2010-03-25T19:20:10Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Germany’s even more of a miracle given that it had to virtually reabsorb a third world nation in the 1990s. I wouldn’t call the DDR a third world country. Certainly there was little if any freedom of conscience, but there was universal public education and literacy. The condition of the physical infrastructure left much to be desired, but still the roads and/or trains went everywhere, the big cities had good transit and cultural amenities, and everyone had lights as far as I know. Whatever the merits or defects of Marxism in maximizing production or distributing the results, it is still a materialistic philosophy. By the very process of arguing for public ownership of property and utilities, it places a value on these things, and thus on the education needed to produce people who can provide them. I’m going out on a limb here, but even with regard to the Nazis one could make the same argument. They were perfectly fine blowing up other people’s countries or shooting their political enemies, but they didn’t believe in blowing up their own marketplaces to make a point. The work that had gone into building a road or bridge, even if it had been done by their enemies before 1933, was worth preserving. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-germany-and-japan-so-rich/532919.md?page=2)