Attitudes toward labour

The main difference between Europe and America is the attitude towards labour. In Europe, citizens feel entitled to work - it is even written in the German Constitution. There are long memories about what happens to a democracy when unemployment becomes too high. The rise of Hitler would probably not have happened if the ranks of the jobless and hopeless had not swelled to desperate heights.

In the United States, the right to work has to be earned by each individual. Despite the excesses of Wall Street, the outsourcing of jobs, the tyranny of the corporate bottom line, losing a job is more a matter of personal shame here than of collective failure. People tend to blame themselves more than their employer. This may seem strange, but it accounts for the absence of strike action in a work force that, Europeans would think, had every right to march and mount the barricades.