Comment by roenxi
1 day ago
The article seems to roughly match the headline - I don't know why we're sourcing the WSJ to comment on Europe's policy with ideas like "emergency" or "wake up call"s. The Europeans are the ones with the opinions that matter on this one, presumably they think this is all acceptable given that they've been heading in this direction for a decade (if not decades), cheerfully willing to bear the consequences of being less business-friendly than the States (to say nothing of China). I'm not even sure we can call this unintended consequences - there seems to be some acceptance that Europe is going to be #3 when it comes to raw economic power.
I can make a forecast - anyone outside the US who lets their policy positions be swayed by the US press is heading for a disaster. Even if the Americans turn out to be accurate in their opinions. Countries need to maintain their own internal dialogue.
It'd be more interesting to be looking at what the British, or even the Germans and French think about the situation. They're the ones with the levers.
European here.
I feel that our priorities have been on social/climate issues. For a very long time the feeling was that we had enough prosperity and that more was nice but that it was not as important.
There was some serious talk about "de-growth" and the trend (for some groups) was mostly towards working less but maintaining the same standard. Among left political circles it seemed that the focus was on doing the most good, for the most people and this focus often lay outside of Europe. To put this in a historical context, many Europeans (especially Germans) feel that we have historical sins to atone for.
We trusted the US and were happy to see them succeed. To a lesser degree we trusted China and Russia and we figured that they would make (economical) rational choices to codependency was seen as a strength and not a weakness.
It's very clear that we were in some degrees naïve and lazy and wasted opportunities and choices. Europe occasionally needs a good crisis to get going again, I'm glad we're finally getting one.
Stephen Kotkin, the historian, made a podcast comment that the US share of global GDP has remained about the same over time, regardless of politics/policy/crisis.
We Americans love our economic growth, for better and worse.
I used to manage software teams in Europe, Russia, North America and China/Taiwan. Quality of life seemed best in Europe, Asia seemed best for the young, and the US was the most business aggressive. I liked the Canadians. California climate (and innovation) can't be beat.
In my next life, I will figure out what's best...
You did the same dumb canada did, assuming usa would be happy forever taking care of the world while you focused on luxury beliefs. We are all paying now that usa finally figured out the arrangment was too costly given the impending doom of the ussr existing was gone. It makes me aad thinking about where we migjt be now if we had focused on actual progress rather than luxury beliefs. Chance is strongly non zero we would have developed the tech to solve our climate issues for example.
As a European, I kind of agree.
In the Netherlands we try to compete globally but as long as we’re rich enough people focus more on free time.
As our income grew the past decades the Dutch have cut back on working hours in stead of just hoarding more money.
The average Dutch person now works 400 hours per year less than the average American.
More than 50% of us now work a 4 day workweek and this will probably be made official before 2035 if I had to guess.
People just dont care enough to become even richer.
And though I am considered a workaholic by family and friends I too enjoy my 16 weeks paid time off this year with my newborn. :)
This seems entirely sensible to me. If I was offered the choice between doubling my salary or keeping the same one but halving my days worked in a year I wouldn't consider the former for more than about half a second.
I am not sure about Netherlands, but in Germany there seems to be no such choice. Getting a higher salary is hard even if you are willing to work more. Freelancing is probably the only way, but freelancing contracts get cut first in the current downturn.
1 reply →
I don't think everyone is OK with declining economic power,but rather is too comfortable and helpless at the same time to actually change something.
I think outside perspective is actually useful, because internal dialogue often goes rounds like should do something -> can't do anything -> football -> should do something
Why Germany? Isn’t Germany already in a demographic crisis that’s nearly impossible to recover from?