Thomas Geoghegan - Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

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Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
Author:
Thomas Geoghegan
Publisher:
The New Press
Genre:
Books / Detective and thriller
Year:
2010
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The acclaimed labor lawyer and prizewinning author Thomas Geoghegan asks: where are we better offAmerica or Europe? In an idiosyncratic, entertaining travelogue that plays on public policy, Geoghegan asks what our lives would be like if we lived them as Europeans. Sneaking out of his workaholic American life, he takes five trips where he tries to understand so-called European socialism firsthand. Though he first tries France (which has become a rhetorical stand-in for the continent as a whole in many Americans minds), he eventually ventures into Germany to see what some call the boring Europe. There he finds the true otheran economic model with more bottom-up worker control than that of any other country in the worldand argues that, while we have to take Germanys problems seriously, we also have to look seriously at how much it has achieved. Social democracy may let us live nicer lives; it also may be the only way to be globally competitive. This wry, timely book helps us understand why the European model, contrary to popular neoliberal wisdom, may thrive well into the twenty-first century without compromising its citizens ease of livingand be the best example for the United States to follow.
Germany is more generous than the U.S.:
The average number of paid vacation days in the U.S. is 13, versus Germanys 35
New mothers in the U.S. get three months of unpaid job-protected leave and only if they work for a company of 50 or more employees, while Germany mandates four months paid leave and will pay parents 67% of their salary to stay home for up to 14 months to care for a newborn.
U.S. life expectancy is 50th in the world, compared to Germanys 32nd.

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Additional Praise for Thomas Geoghegans

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?

Think youve seen Paris, Berlin, or, for that matter, Chicago? Well, you havent seen anything until youve seen it through the eyes of Tom Geoghegan. Hes not just a witty and congenial traveling companion; hes a brilliant social commentator whos taught me how much I still have to learn from countries I thought I knew all about. Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? is delightful reading, but it left me seething about what America could be, if we were willing to put human values first.Barbara Ehrenreich

Read Tom Geoghegan to learn how Europe is getting capitalism right. Read Tom Geoghegan to learn why a thousand or so years of European history are coming to a head in our lifetimes. Read Tom Geoghegan to learn why Germany is outcompeting the U.S. and making its populations healthier and happier in the process. And, since Americas greatest social critic is also a great Irish storyteller, read Tom Geoghegan to laugh, and maybe even to jerk a tear or two. But most of all, read Tom Geoghegan so we can get to work making America better for our grandchildren.

Rick Perlstein, author of Before the Storm and Nixonland

In this timely, cogently argued, laugh-out-loud-funny book, Thomas Geoghegan reveals the sexy secrets of the European model of life and work. With cleverness and wit, this book explains what Americans are missing out on (more leisure, a secure social safety net) and why we need social democracy American-style. Katrina vanden Heuvel

Truly eye-opening... Geoghegans book pulls back a curtain.

Robyn Blumner, St. Petersburg Times

This is wonderfully provocative, entertaining, and thought-provoking....The point of the book is to show how much more humane America could be it if adopted the German model. In this the author does a superb job.... The humor... should not distract the reader from the authors thesis, which is that there could be a kinder, better, more humane America. In fact, such a place exists. It is called Europe.

William A. Pelz, Labor Studies Journal

Geoghegans passing comments are entertaining and his acerbic wit fun as he buttresses his case with hard facts.... Political economics with a human face, far from dry and filled with unexpected conversational asides.Art Winslow, Chicago Tribune

The books central missionto detail a more humane form of capitalismcouldnt be more relevant to overworked Americans quietly thinking to themselves, there has to be a better way.... Geoghegans particular genius is for making public policy, economics and labor relations entertaining while also transforming them into moral imperatives of the utmost importance. With this book, he once again entertains and instructs us.

Jeremy Gantz, Alternet

Thoughtful and engagingly written.

David Maine, PopMatters

Entertaining.

Rupert Cornwell, The Independent (London)

The narrative unspools in a chatty, anecdotal style; its jumpy, appealingly digressive, and winning, all the more so for being such an unabashed polemic that refuses to be resigned to the rising rate of inequality in the U.S.

Publishers Weekly

ALSO BY THOMAS GEOGHEGAN

In Americas Court: How a Civil Lawyer
Who Likes to Settle Stumbled into a Criminal Trial

The Law in Shambles

The Secret Lives of Citizens: Pursuing the Promise of an American Life

See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation

Which Side Are You On? Trying to Be for Labor When Its
Flat on Its Back

To Samuel Hutchison Beer

Preface:

Im No European Socialist

I had better say: Im no European socialist.

A few months ago the uproar djour was: is Barack Obama a socialist? Yes, he was to the extent that, like George Bush, he wanted a bailout of the banks. The cover of the February 16, 2009, Newsweek announced: WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW. The argument is that U.S. government spending is nearly as high as Europes. A decade ago, the U.S. government was spending 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro-zone, which is Europe without the UK. Now, while the Continent is at 47 percent, we have gone up to 40.

And, in fact, I think the U.S. will close the gap. But in a sense, the more we spend, the less socialist we become. For whether it is health care or education, we use the private market to pay for the distribution of public goods. In other words, we pay socialist-type taxes so that the private insurance companies, drug companies, and, yes, doctors can profiteer.

Thats the crisis of our time: were paying for European-type socialism, without getting the equivalent payback.

Still, isnt it worth it to keep capitalism?

Yes, of course, but if we took Europe as a guide, we would do a lot better at capitalism. The Germans make money off the same global economy that leaves us in hock. And the longer the hours we work to be competitive, the deeper in debt we seem to go. How is it that they are the ones who arent in debt when they get six weeks holiday every year?

I have to say again: Im no European socialist. But as a patriot I would like to ask: which model, ours or theirs, is more likely to keep us out of the clutches of foreign creditors?

Its bad enough that, with the Wall Street crack-up and the war in Iraq, we are no longer a superpower. What worries me even more is that we have compromised our sovereignty. One day our creditorsChina, Saudi Arabia, even Honduras, God help uscould assemble into a creditors committee that tells us what to do.

What bothers me is that Europe does better than us both at capitalism and socialism. Its unfair that they seem to be beating us at both.

Still, Im no European socialist. On the other hand, I think back to one of the original arguments against socialism. The case against socialism, Oscar Wilde wrote, is that it takes up too many evenings. We end up going to political meetings instead of going out to dine. But in my own personal life, I have to say the case against our capitalism, our kind and not Europes, is that it takes up too many evenings, working late at the office, and it takes up weekends, too. What fascinates me about Europe is the possibility of having an interesting job and still leaving the evenings free.

On what continent is it easier to go out and dine?

Still, even if I could start over, Id hate to make the choice between soaring to the top in a free-fall U.S. or putt-putting in neutral in a cozy little EU democracy. Is it possible to have a world where we get a bit of both?

In most of what follows I will be talking about the Germans. Like all of you, I deeply regret I didnt write about the French. Yet for all the lack of sex appeal, its still Germany that presents the starkest alternative to the way we live today. Its the only country with a system that, after the collapse of Communism, continued to push for a certain very limited form of worker control.

Thats only one reason why I picked the Germans. After all, Im a union-side labor lawyer. But at the moment I also worry about the future of my country. The Germans seem to have the secret for getting out of debt.

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