| Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life |  | Author: Thomas Geoghegan
Publisher: New Press, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $16.23
as of 9/9/2010 21:07 CDT details
You Save: $9.72 (37%)
New (11) Used (4) from $16.23
Seller: BooKnackrh
Rating:  7 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 159558403X
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.126
EAN: 9781595584038
ASIN: 159558403X
Publication Date: August 10, 2010 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9781595584038 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The acclaimed labor lawyer and prizewinning author Thomas Geoghegan asks: where are we better off—America 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 "other"—an economic model with more bottom-up worker control than that of any other country in the world—and argues that, while we have to take Germanyâs 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 living—and 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 Germanyâs 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 monthsâ 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 Germanyâs 32nd.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Great Book July 30, 2010
John Foster (USA)
38 out of 42 found this review helpful
Explains our problems in the US and why Europe is doing better. We don't get that in our news here. The rich own the media here and tells us what they want to believe. Anyone in the lower or middle classes should read this book.
A must read, even for conservatives September 6, 2010
John Wasik (Grayslake, Illinois)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a Harvard-educated labor lawyer, Geoghegan is acutely aware of how frayed and tattered the social contract has become. Companies close down factories and wreck communities. The workers are left with little to nothing. Globalization forces the business to find cheaper labor in Mexico, China or Viet Nam. It's a constant race to the bottom if you are in a high-wage country. Well, maybe not, and that's the strange interplay of sacrifice and hope when we look at the future of American labor.
Geoghegan sees the European Model of Social Democracy as a beacon in the Western World. Germany offers a prime example. Once ridiculed for its rigid model of union-management partnerships, huge social safety net and six-week vacations, Germany seems to have evaded the ugliest aftershock of globalism.
In the European "worker-first" system, both mothers and fathers get paid leave after the birth of a child; work weeks are shorter, there's lots of vacation time (three times as much as the US), nursing home benefits, national health care and workers who are not only allowed to work with management -- but sit as active members in boardroom decisions.
Is this the horrible socialist peril that ravaged the Soviet Union? Hardly. Social democracy thrives. The Germans have an export surplus, high productivity, a vibrant manufacturing base and low debt. They didn't suffer from a housing meltdown and their banks didn't need bailing out. Of course, German unemployment is still a problem (although it's a few points lower than the US) and taxes are high, yet look what they get for their public-sector dollars.
In the US, even after health and financial reform, we are still hostage to the private insurance industry (with a lot more consumer safeguards) while the biggest banks have grown bigger still to corner even more investment capital.
What about those big, evil European Unions? In Germany, the unions have protected benefits instead of bargaining them away just to survive. Germans have high savings rates and pension plans not tied to the stock market. "Most Germans have big supplements from collective bargaining," writes Geoghegan. In the US, unionized workers are clinging to mostly government sector jobs. The white collar workforce has to deal with endless work without pay, shrinking benefits and uncertain pensions, which are underfunded to the tune of $260 billion.
If Americans can somehow get around the dogma that we must be the world's supercop, suppress unions at all cost and assume that corporate interests have primacy, we might be able to see the light that social capitalism -- profits generated in the public welfare -- could work. Obama has certainly tried, only to run into the relentless buzzsaw of corporate-funded propaganda and misplaced Tea Party rants. So I doubt if Geoghegan will change any minds, but his way of illuminating the disparities between corporate capitalism and social capitalism is nothing less than brilliant.
-- John F. Wasik, author "The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream (Bloomberg): Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream" (Bloomberg Press, 2009)
A wonderful style and service August 30, 2010
Zurich (Washington, D.C., USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Geoghegan is always pleasure to read. He has a wonderful style. In this particular work it's used to good effect -- it's a challenge to represent the salient differences between life in Germany/France and the US that aren't captured by GDP per capita (because, let's face it, GDP per capita does capture a great deal). For anyone who struggles to communicate the greater sense of well-being that arrives when social inequality is diminished, this book is a godsend.
Manic style, sound substance September 9, 2010
A. J. Sutter (Tokyo, Japan)
This is a very clever and worthwhile book. It's hard to imagine an easier, more entertaining or more vivid way to learn about the differences in social policies between Europe and the States. It has something in common with Michael Moore's "Sicko" except it's broader in scope, more first-person, more self-deprecating, a touch more wonkinsh and from a someone with a lot more gravitas. (Warning: it makes no pretense of being "fair and balanced": the author (TG) touts his liberal credentials proudly -- though he ridicules Larry Summers as much as any Republicans.)
The style put me off at first: TG is a double-Harvard graduate (college & law school) and a partner in a law firm, but tries to make us believe he's a clueless, farcical shlemil as he embarks on his first trip to Europe as an adult. But by the second half of the book he often peeks from behind this mask, and his humor is much more ironic and pointed. I read most of the book in a couple of cafés, and got stared at for chuckling out loud.
Stared at, because I live in Japan where people reading books in public don't usually laugh. But otherwise Japan has a lot in common with the Europe described in this book: most people are much better taken-care of here, with far lower unemployment than the US (or even Germany), health care that's almost as cheap as Germany's, and far less impact from the recent recession. And yet people in America imagine we're spiraling down the toilet, mainly because US media outlets spin their reportage (and op-eds, Prof. Krugman) to align with that theme. Just as they demonize Europe as socialist. I totally understand why TG uses such an unsubtle, though good-humored, tone: because Americans so often refuse to see what's really, really true.
Actually, even Japan could learn some things from Germany, such as the low cost of the educational system, and the strength of labor unions and work councils. TG's remarks about how Americans use their disposable income to turn their homes into gadget-filled cocoons while even blue-collar Europeans go out drinking, dancing and to the (live) theater also make one ponder the strength of our social fabric. If you have any interest in reading about social reality rather than vampire tales, "escapist" murder mysteries, or political rants by folks who are proud to be ignorant, you'll find this book a great mix of fun with seriousness.
Yes, I was September 6, 2010
R. Hanks (Texas)
As a Francophile, I have long been enamoured of the European lifestyle. It always seemed to me that they were just having a more enjoyable journey through life. Whether it be a café scene with people reading, conversing or just observing the world through a deeply-rich espresso, the wonderful hand-writing that I observed in their written work or the delight they took in everyday meals, that was what I longed for. This book helped me see how they achieve that. If the author hadn't seemed to get bogged down in the latter part of the book, I would have rated it 5 stars.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
|
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. | |
