…from Europe?
Here is what I mean;
I see posited from studies here and there often enough that in the US, the culture is one that embraces hard work, more of it and for less compensation.
Based on some other “testimonials”, for instance travel shows, that also attest to this, that perhaps there is a factual basis to this. I say it this was not out of skepticism or disbeleif, but caution since I have never seen any way or reference to these studies beyond the all to common vague “studies show”
So going on the premise that there are actual factual studies showing this, why is the US so different from Europe when it comes to work ethic? Is the question perhaps backwards? Is Europe perhaps different from the rest of the world and this whole thing is just a result of a cultural Euro-centric worldview in the US?
There are certainly cultural differences between the US and various European countries. Work ethic doesn’t appear to me to be one of the strongest, and I am just as good a source as “studies show”.
In my opinion what makes the US most different is race slavery and everything that has followed because of it.
For what its worth I once had a colleague who had worked in the USA for several years, he stated that in his experience the ‘hard working’ American culture is a myth, they don’t actually work any harder, they just spend more time at work.
I’m sure it differs for different occupations but he said he worked for several different companies and people just dragged the day out, the same amount of work could have been done in much less time.
So not hard working so much as long hours culture.
Presented for information only, I can’t confirm or deny that he was correct.
You’re conflating certain outward forms of racism with racism itself. France never had race-based slavery, but they’ve had AT LEAST as many problems with racism over the years as America has had.
Regarding your first point–surely you cannot be ignorant of the myriads of studies showing that the average American takes less vacation time than the average European?
Well, start with this map of countries that have some version of universal heath care. Here’s a map of how many vacation days each country mandates their employees get. Here’s a graph of how many maternity/paternity employees are required to have, by country. Some (many?) of them paid directly by the government, similar to unemployment compensation.
Just in a few minutes of looking around, it would appear (‘appear’ as in I haven’t verified any of this beyond what I linked to), that the US is certainly in the minority when it comes to providing UHC/NHS, requiring vacation time* and (sometimes gov funded) parental leave.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other things like this as well. The studies are out there, but you may have to look each benefit one at a time. Also, they’re undoubtedly going to clouded by talks of income tax, level of care WRT universal/free healthcare etc, especially if they’re written by someone (particularly from the US) that’s against taxes and anything publicly funded.
Granted, to afford all these benefits, you’re going to pay more in taxes, but that’s a different conversation.
*I’m not sure if a country mandating PTO, is mandating that employers give their employees X days off or if they’re requiring employees to take X days off.
PS, this just addresses the ‘less compensation’ part, kinda. To add to the confusion, you’d have to cross reference maps like these with ones that show how much people make and/or how many hours/days they work, but I suppose that’s where a study would come in handy. Also, I have to assume anyone that tries to correlate this to how ‘hard’ people work, is going to inherently add a bias to the study as they attempt to find a way to turd ‘hard work’ in a metric.
I can give only anecdotal evidence, but here goes.
My father used to work about 60 hours a week (8AM to 6PM, six days a week), meaning with time and a half he got paid for 70. At some point he was made salaried at the same pay and he he immediately started working only 40. He accomplished exactly the same amount of output; the extra hours were BS.
When Pierre Trudeau decided to implement universal medicare in Canada, he drafted the legislation and got it through parliament on what I assume was a straight party line vote. At least no Liberal opposed him. Any Liberal who did would have thrown out of the party (the party leaders have that power and do not hesitate to use–cf Johnson in Britain) and presumably their political career finished. When Roosevelt (or was it Truman?) proposed such a law in the US, the medical profession mounted a huge lobbying campaign and beat it. This was before health insurance was a major industry. Individual Democrats could be lobbied and vote against with impunity. Remember how hard it was for Obama to get the 60 senate Democrats (and hangers on) to support ACA?
The big thing is our history of slavery we haven’t addressed, and how it shapes our culture and politics even in the modern age.
Another is religion. I once read an article claiming the US is about 50 years behind Europe regarding religion. Meaning the % of Americans who are religious vs secular is about what it was in Europe fifty years ago. So around the 2060s, I’m guessing that means around 60%+ of America will be secular.
Also this issue is much worse in east asia. Places like Japan & South Korea are notorious for this mentality of staying at work 15 hours a day to accomplish 5 hours of actual work.
I’m afraid this summary is incorrect, for four reasons.
First, it was Prime Minister Pearson who brought in Medicare, not PM Trudeau.
Second, the Liberal Cabinet and party caucus were divided over the issue. The “balance-the-budget” wing was opposed, because they thought it would be too expensive. The “social justice” wing wanted to go all in on it. The result was a compromise Bill, that did not go as far as the Hall Commission had recommended. That’s why pharmacare is not included in our Medicare system - the drug payment part of the plan got axed.
Third, even once the Bill was introduced, the intra-Liberal disputes continued. Deputy PM Sharpe said at one point that he thought the Government would have to withdraw the Bill, because of its cost and provincial opposition. The Health Minister, Alan MacEachern, threatened to resign if the Bill didn’t go through. Far from just being able to impose the whip and push it through, PM Pearson had to use all of his considérable diplomatic skills to achieve a semblance of unity in his caucus and Cabinet.
Fourth, the Bill didn’t pass on a straight Government-Opposition vote. The Liberals were in a minority and Medicare only passed because the NDP voted for the Bill, while criticising it for not going far enough. The PCs and Socreds voted against, because they disagreed with the universality principle, and thought that the bill should be more of a welfare measure, only applying to those in financial need.
From a European perspective, the greatest differences are: the prevalence of religion, gun culture, two party system and a blind faith in the “free market” (however that is defined).
But that doesn’t explain why the US has that type of law but other countries don’t. The existence of such laws, plus the lack of vacation time, maternity leave, parental leave are clear indications of a cultural difference. I just don’t know why.
Define compensation: salaries in the US are generally higher than for equivalent jobs, in much of Europe. What is true is that you guys tend to define yourself by your jobs more than Europeans do, in the sense that often your circle of friends or even your church are a function of your job and in the sense of having serious problems with the concept of “leaving the job at the office”. For us, asking “what do you do” is a conversation starter which may lead to hearing more about hobbies or family than about work; for you, it’s about paid work and a key part of finding the correct little box into which to place this person.
Americans tend to be more monetary than Southern Europe: things which in S.E. are done as a neighborly thing such as babysitting, in the US are more likely to carry monetary compensation.
American population densities are smaller even in large urban areas. The population of Miami is about as large as that of the Saragossa metro area, but covers an area similar to that of Saragossa province with what’s mainly small housing; the majority of Saragossa province has desert-like densities, with that population concentrated in areas of mixed-use high-rises.
Mixed-use is common throughout Europe, the US is mostly zoned single-use and often with strong limitations. In Europe, even an area which is zoned almost-exclusively-homes will have some mixed-use, several-floors buildings. If SimCity had been designed by an European team it would look very different.
The two things above lead to long commutes and to lots of cars. In areas with lower densities (flyover country for lack of a better term), you still get the long commutes and the lots of cars, and you may have places where most people work at the same place simply because there aren’t that many places that offer multiple jobs; in those places, the “these are my friends and we work together” actually starts ourside of work.
In any culture you can find what we in Spain call “presentialists”: people (specially bosses) who believe that the longer someone is at work, the more they work; that people do not work unless their boss is watching; and that someone isn’t working unless they’re doing something their boss can recognize as work, whether it actually happens to BE work or not. Cree el ladrón que todos son de su condición, a thief believes everybody is out to steal: those people are telling you how much you can trust them to do any actual work when the boss isn’t looking It’s not work ethic: it’s a lack thereof.
And despite being a US distinctive, they insist in expecting the same social situation to exist everywhere else. Getting letters from HR Central telling you that you must hire more African-Americans makes zero sense in all countries but one.
Nava, I don’t know how compensation is defined by the nebulous studies I originally referenced, but I personally define it as monetary, paid time off, paid health and dental insurance (if any), and employer contributions to a retirement plan (if any) plus any other employer paid benefits that might be offered by any particular company such as paying for college for employees or employer subsidized housing or daycare
Another UK/US difference that strikes me (though I’m not sure how different the practical effects are, and I admit I don’t have the breadth of knowledge to know how much this varies across Europe) is the constitutional effect of the separation of powers. In practice this seems to mean your legislators spend a lot of time writing into law all sorts of piecemeal changes that in Britain would be dealt with as matters of administration and dealt with by guidelines/codes of practice* or at best secondary legislation. Drafting a law is the least of the procedural options open to an MP to get such a change: the key thing is to use the process of holding ministers to account in the House, and other firms of grabbing attention, to get it into the government’s agenda.
*For example, that’s where the bulk of our gun controls are - in advice to local police services, not in primary legislation.
