Definitely true. Here (Germany) you hear sentences like “Yes, they may have money but… they made it all in business!” Because, you know, entrepreneur is not a profession. Anybody could open a business - in many cases even without state approved training and a guild membership. Disgusting.
This is of course closely connected to the different opinions on career. Here it is very important that you achieve official qualifications and titles. Oh, and obviously German titles are more desirable. When my university decided to switch from the good old German “Diplom” to “M.Sc.” my parents were for a short time concerned if I will ever find a job with my future fad-of-the-month foreign title. Pretty strict laws and regulations support those attitudes. Do not think you could open a carpenter’s shop here just because you are good at it. They the guild will kill you.
A surprising number of people are under the impression that Jimmy Carter went straight from the peanut farm to the White House. There were other elements in his background that made a presidential term believable, like a Naval Academy education (You don’t get into Annapolis or West Point without some kind of connections to powerful people) and his time as Governor of Georgia. I don’t know much about the man’s background, but these two details alone paint a different picture that “Straight off the peanut farm.”
We’ve had presidents who weren’t bluebloods, but all of them had some kind of extraordinary element or ability in their background, whether as a charismatic public speaker or an effective fundraiser or whatever.
When last I looked, Geraldine Ferraro, the vice-presidential candidate for a major party, was a woman. That she never became vice-president was the fault of the presidential candidate’s having the charisma of a tree and having the misfortune to be running against a very popular incumbent. It had absolutely nothing to do with her sex.
When last I looked, Powell and Rice were both black. (There are those who claim that a black Republican isn’t really black, but we’ll ignore such racist sentiments.) I won’t say Powell would have been a shoe-in for the nomination, but had he run he would have mounted a very credible campaign, with a decent chance at winning.
I believe that we will have both black and female presidents in my lifetime.
(By the way, Ferraro was also Italian-American. I’m old enough to remember hearing an older person complain about an Italian-American marrying “a decent white girl”. You don’t hear that sort of thing any more, thank God.)
I don’t think there’s a European dream. Just as I don’t think there will ever be a European union. The continent is named Europe, sure, but the difference in our countries are too varied to ever become a whole.
Titles aren’t important here. Nor lots of money. We don’t mind losing. [in fact; during WC speedskating, I heard the whole audience screaming for a Norwegian to win] We’re laid-back. We like our house, family and other erm…stuff.
But we’re Dutch.
I can’t speak for other European countries.
That doesn’t mean we don’t admire the American dream. We’re just a bit different.
Thanks for all the responses, I havent had time to read them yet but let me just make a quick comment because the computer lab closes here in 5 minutes (again!).
I never meant to say that Europeans are united in a common dream. Hell even Americans aren’t and we are in the same country! I mean to try to figure out the differences between America and Europe in the subtle differences between people’s aspirations. People are people, for sure, and its impossible to peg even a small group of people to a common denominator much less an entire continent. BUT, and this is a big BUT, There are differences in the way people look at their lives and their aspirations. And I believe that there is a bigger difference between Europe and America than there is inside Europe or inside America. That’s all I mean. I think that America, is actually, something different. I notice subtle differences in the way people act, but I can’t quite pin it down. It is frustrating
QUOTE=dangermom]when I lived in Denmark I was constantly let to know how inadequate my clothing was, right down to the underwear no one ever saw. My brothers, in Germany, also experienced similar attitudes.
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I agree with both you and the OP, you don’t contradict each other: to sum it up: In Europe you will be judged based on what you wear, in the US you will be judged based on what you earn.
It seems to my that class barriers are higher in the US than in Europe. In principle everybody has the right to get rich. The reality is different. I never saw whole square kilometers of shabby mobile homes before I visited Florida. And when you talk to people in these mobile homes then you lean that they are quite sarcastic about the reality of the “American Dream”.
That must be the reason, we are not democratic, please invade us … How about the French revolution? I mean, that happened really long ago…
The Gaspode, I think that many many Americans would love to be able to retire at 55 (well, those who can, frequently do!), to have weeks on end of vacation, or to hold out for better pay, hours, or job security. But those things do not exist here, especially not these days, and most people just can’t afford to ‘value what they do outside work’ more. They tend to value a home, meals, and clothing; trips and such are luxuries. Now, the flip side to that is that we have a much lower unemployment rate than Europeans have–but very few of us can afford to relax and demand five weeks of vacation. (And probably a lot of Americans would find that much time off kind of decadent anyway. Not that we wouldn’t take it, mind you, but we might feel guilty while we did.)
I myself don’t have a job; I’m a SAHM and my husband supports our family by himself. This means that I get to devote myself to family and my own interests full-time, and also that he doesn’t have to do too much in the way of running his life; he gets to relax when he’s not at work. Theoretically, anyway. Actually how it works is that the entire company desperately needs to come out with the product ASAP, and so he stays up nights working–not because he enjoys it, but because unemployment isn’t very attractive. We did that about 18 months ago, not much fun. So when our daughter was born last year, he took 2 days off work; not because he didn’t want to be with us, but because that’s just how it is. He has to go to work, or we’ll be in trouble. Government laws allowing him time off don’t help–the company is constantly on the edge. He’d like some time off as much as anyone, but that won’t happen until the product is out. And we’re doing well compared to many, and I’m not complaining–but the stuff you’re talking about isn’t even on our wish list.
Now, while Americans don’t get to vacation as much, we do do things besides work. Most of us have a hobby or two, such as sports, crafts, reading, or something. But it does tend to be stuff you can do at home in the evening. You might be surprised, though, at how many people live for their other interests…
Interesting topic. First off, there really is no shared European dream, the culture in each country is very different. I can only really speak about my experiences of living in the UK, although I’ve met quite a lot of people from mainland Europe.
Certainly, I’m not very ambitious, and neither are most brits. I like to do things well, but I don’t think it important to advance my career as much as possible. Extra responsibility is just a drag, and maximising my earnings isn’t that important as I do OK for cash. What worries me is the possibility of losing my job, and that will only happen if the company I work for goes bust (a real possibility). I’m very lucky, I’d be difficult to replace. What I’d really like is more free time to persue my other interests.
This attitude is typical of a lot of people I work with. A possible difference is that there tends to be less fear (for lack of a better word) in UK companies than US ones. Not always of course, and my view of American corporate culture might be slightly stereotypical. We are less worried about losing our jobs. Employment laws over here make it more difficult to fire people. And unemployment benefit makes it less devestating if we do lose them. So most of us aren’t bothered too much about trying to impress anyone. I’ll work to my own standards, unless anyone can provide a good argument why I shouldn’t, and that’s whats important to me. I’m less concerned about the company’s standards. Its very difficult to get us to accept managerial decisions, we’ll moan about anything that annoys us, quite openly to our bosses. Brits really are world-class whingers.
All this isn’t entirely good and isn’t entirely bad. It is quite different to the US.
The social competition thing also happens a lot over here, but it also generates a big backlash. People who seem too concerned about these things will be ridiculed. Brits have a deep hatred of show-offs and braggarts. To live in the UK, you really have to appear modest, even if you aren’t really. Again, this isn’t entirely a good thing.
As for education, I was paid about £10,000 to go to university for 4 years. Its only recentely that these grants were replaced by student loans - but if you aren’t earning a fair wage (80% of national average) you don’t have to start paying it back. So if you went to university, but never got a well paid job, these debts would eventually be written off.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but what you said is an excellent example of the differences between Americans and Europeans. The average European will see no reason to feel guilty for that. Less work (no matter if it is achieved by cutting hours per week or adding holidays) is a privilege the unions secured not only for the benefit of the individual worker but also as a method of spreading work more equally throughout society.
President? No not yet. But there have been a relatively small number of presidents. For now, women and blacks will have to settle for senator, congressman, mayor, secretary of state, and so on. Anyone “can” be president. Odds are you wont though since there’s only one and he keeps his job for 4-8 years. Doesn’t mean you couldn’t be president of something else. Probably make more money too.
It’s more real than you think. I’m a big believer in the cream generally rises and shit generally sinks. If you are smart and talented, you generally find a way to reach your goals (or at least come close).
Sure there’s coruption but what’s the alternative? A beurocratic system where the state uses standardized tests to assign you your station in life?
Since it’s a made up statistic its hard to argue with. I would agree that if you fall below a certain socioeconomic threshhold, it’s very dificult to succeed. On the other hand, a lot formerly poor ethnic groups (Irish, Italian, Korean, etc) have gone on to succeed because poor parents working in mills and factories saved their money so their kids could go to college and do better than them. They didn’t blow what little cash they had on $300 sneakers and gold chains.
The problem is that many people don’t strive for mediocrity. A ‘safe and middleclass’ lifestyle can feel boring and pointless. I don’t mind working hard or long hours if my job exposes me to interesting people, challenges me mentally, or even offers the ability to travel to places I would not normally go.
Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be spending a couple months in Europe soon for work. I’m curious to see how my hard-driving edgie in-your-face NYC style plays out with my laid back socialist European counterparts.
America seems to have more of a history than most European countries of welcoming ambitious immigrants (I’m a first-generation American on my father’s side, and my brothers and I joke that our hard-working family members came here, while the lazy ones stayed in the old country). I would think this contributes to the American cultural tenet that hard work and maxing out one’s potential is admired and valued.
Consumerist marketing probably does too, but it may also be a chicken or egg thing: people who value material success are better prospects to sell lots of stuff to.
If I were rich, I’d rather be in America: even if your money’s inherited, people here look up to you and let you pretty much do whatever you want with it.
But if I were poor, I could see preferring Europe: the social safety net seems better, and you’re less likely to feel like a failure for not improving your station in life.
(Please understand, I’m simply comparing two hypothetical people here: a rich person born in America, and a poor person born in Europe).
Disclaimers: As others have said, we’re dealing in vast generalities here – there’s a great deal of variation in both populations. Also, I’m no expert: I’ve never lived in Europe, although I have spent an aggregate of several months there.
This statement is complete crap. Each member of Congress, the President and the Dept. of the Army get several appointments each. It’s really not all that tough to be one of a few qualified students out of a congressional district, if you’re a good student.
This is anecdotal, but I know TWO Annapolis grads who are from very modest means. Peter, whose parents are both teachers, got the first appointment made nationwide in 1990, and Brian grew up on a farm in Kansas.
Neither one has “connections to powerful people”. They are both extremely intelligent, hard working, and were both academically successful in high school.
West Point’s no different- another friend of mine got in the same way- academic excellence. That’s the primary way people get in, not through some Third-World style method of graft and corruption.
flonks:It seems to [me] that class barriers are higher in the US than in Europe. In principle everybody has the right to get rich. The reality is different.
Startlingly, that seems to be true. We in the US cherish the idea that we allow more people to climb the ladder of success, while the “Old World” is still somewhat locked into its traditional class distinctions; but in terms of socioeconomic status, the very reverse may be true. A recent book called The State of Working America
Not just low wage levels but greater inequalities between different socioeconomic levels in schooling, housing, services, medical care, etc., plus the high costs of income-boosting higher education, help keep many people from climbing out of poverty.
dmom: *I think that many many Americans would love to be able to retire at 55 (well, those who can, frequently do!), to have weeks on end of vacation, or to hold out for better pay, hours, or job security. But those things do not exist here, especially not these days, and most people just can’t afford to ‘value what they do outside work’ more. *
We could have those things, of course, if we advocated and legislated for them, just as the Europeans do. The main reasons we don’t do that, I would speculate, are threefold:
a) We’re terrified of higher taxes. Never mind if most of us would actually get more of the things we want if our tax rates were higher and social benefits more abundant; taxes are bad in the American mindset, that’s all there is to it.
b) We’re worried about catching “Europe cooties”. The American business lobby, which greatly benefits from weak labor protections, short vacations, low wage rates, long workdays, etc., sheds a lot of ink to depict Europe as an economic disaster and overrun with commies to boot. Anything but that!
c) We think prosperity is just around the corner. An unrealistically high percentage of non-rich Americans believe that they’re going to get rich at some point, so the problems of the “little people” aren’t really their problems. When they wind up at the mandatory retirement age with a skimpy Social Security benefit and no pension and not much else, it’s too late to go back and join a union.
Now, the flip side to that is that we have a much lower unemployment rate than Europeans have
Even that’s not really true, if you consider factors like our much higher incarceration rate; and even without counting the incarcerated as unemployed, our unemployment rate is still higher than that of many European countries. This 2002 chart indicates that the US is only 18th in low unemployment, beaten out by the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, and Denmark, among others. The UK, Hungary, Belgium, and Germany rates are within three percentage points of ours. But “high unemployment” is a major talking point of the dread “Europe cooties” warnings.
(Caveat: it’s not that I don’t think there are major flaws in European economic and social systems, of course. It’s just that I think they are nowhere near as severe and intractable as they’re painted by many of the folks who make a lot of money out of American workers staying docile, overworked, and terrified of losing their jobs.)
but very few of us can afford to relax and demand five weeks of vacation. (And probably a lot of Americans would find that much time off kind of decadent anyway. Not that we wouldn’t take it, mind you, but we might feel guilty while we did.)
There I must say I agree with you. I think that three to four weeks of annual vacation would be ideal, and I wouldn’t mind at all pushing for legislation to mandate it. But five to seven weeks of vacation a year? Somehow I don’t think I’d even want that much; it’s embarrassing. It’s like you’re calling me lazy. (Not that I’m calling Europeans lazy for taking it! whatever works for you; but it just feels, well, un-American.)
Interesting stuff. You’re right to say there are problems with the European economic & social systems. To take a couple examples from the UK, the native car industry died because of gross inefficiency. These days we mostly build Japanese cars - some of them even get shipped back to Japan for sale. Free university education supported by grants resulted in a fairly large proportion of students that just went through the motions and didn’t learn much. However, Europe does show that you can run things very differentely to the US and still prosper.
Whether you think the US or European systems are better is depends largely on your point of view. Most Americans are appalled at how much tax I pay, but I do get quite a lot in return, even if the government is good at squandering it.
Some figures that might interest you:
Over 25% of my last paycheck went on tax and national insurance. I’m not in the highest tax band.
Petrol costs about £3.42 ($6.36) a gallon. Most of that is tax.
There is a Value Added Tax (VAT) of 17.5% on most things I purchase.
This is what it costs to pay for national health and social security programs. A lot of us in the UK think its worth it, even if we don’t think we’re getting good value for money. Despite the huge cost, it hasn’t destroyed our economies.
As for holiday (vacation), how much do you usually get in the US? I get 25 days a year, plus about 6 public holidays. I don’t consider it to be enough. I don’t work overtime more than a couple times a year either, and then I ask for time off in lieu.
Uncivil:As for holiday (vacation), how much do you usually get in the US? I get 25 days a year, plus about 6 public holidays. I don’t consider it to be enough. I don’t work overtime more than a couple times a year either, and then I ask for time off in lieu.
I’ve never been in a position where I formally dealt with overtime (for the average salaried professional position, there’s a sort of target workload of however many hours per week, and you put in that plus whatever else it takes to get the job done. If the extra’s too much, there’s not much recourse except to change jobs or fields. Frankly, I’m not willing to work more than about 40–50 hours/week (actual time spent working, that is, not just chilling at the office), but lawyers and the like often are expected to do 60–80), so I’ll let someone else answer that.
Vacation time is usually allotted at 2 weeks (10 working days) per year, usually with no vacation the first year, perhaps 1 week (5 days) the second year. In rare cases, I think, this increases to 15 days vacation with longer employment, or sometimes you can negotiate 1 or 2 extra weeks unpaid vacation. I think we generally have 10 or 11 paid public holidays, though.
Glad to hear you get more public holidays to make up some of the difference. I’m lucky, I work 37.5 hours a week. Thats hours in the office, not productive work, I wouldn’t like to put a figure on that. Working weeks of 40-50 hours are pretty common in the UK, less so in countries like France, Germany & Spain.
And of course those things are fundamentally linked. Wages are tied to productivity, as they rise the employer will discharge the employees whose wage exceeds their productivity. Thus, unemployment. If the employer is compelled by law to pay higher wages and give better benefits and vacation time and so forth, then he’ll reach the point much sooner at which the marginal benefit of hiring another employee is exceeded by the costs.
But then, on the other hand, here in the States there are certain employees in the professional fields and in management who work 60 hour weeks, who could probably get by fine on half the salary at 30 hours per week. The system is set up to demand the single employee do all that work, even if the fixed cost per employee is sufficiently low that two 30 hour employees would be just as productive. When I graduate law school, I plan to take a job with the state of Missouri (I’m interviewing with the public defenders next week) and will work closer to “normal” hours, but many of my colleagues will be heading off to firms to work 60 hours or more per week. And the more money you make the more responsibility you have, and the more the employer can expect out of you. Management-types have to bring their work home with them every night, blue collar workers and trade-skill workers don’t. There is definitely some point at which increased wealth no longer increases “quality of life”. No point having all that money if you don’t have time to enjoy spending it.
I think the American dream is that we have a shot at attaining our goals, even if some of us set them lower than others do, it’s about choice. We don’t feel entitled to our goals, we realize we must earn them with our ability. To the extent that we are confident in our abilities, we will gladly abstain from collective action that might limit our individual achievement and allow our weaker neighbors to become burdens on our own upward potential. To the extent we judge our abilities as limited in some respects, we might pull back from further advancement not wanting to take the risk.
