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

by Thomas Geoghegan

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 Germany’s 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 Germany’s 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 Germany’s 32nd.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Sociology, Cultural, Germany, Ebooks

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Thomas Geoghegan received national attention when he ran as a progressive candidate for Rahm Emanuels congressional seat in 2009 (and was endorsed by Barbara Ehrenreich, James Fallows, Thomas Frank, James K. Galbraith, Hendrik Hertzberg, Alex Kotlowitz, Sara Paretsky, Rick Perlstein, Katha Pollitt, David Sirota, Garry Wills, and Naomi Wolf, among others). He is a practicing attorney and the author of several books, including Which Side Are You On?, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received a special citation from the PEN/Martha Albrand Award judges, In Americas Court, and See You in Court. Geoghegan has written for The Nation, the New York Times, and Harpers. He lives in Chicago."

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Geoghegan is a Europhile labor lawyer from Illinois who would like to bring German social market economy to the United States. He focuses on Germany's very different form of corporate governance, which includes the principle of codetermination (where labor and executive management share responsibility for running companies), works councils that represent workers, and national union associations that set wages for industry. He is convinced that such a system would serve the interests of the middle class and even the professional (bourgeois) class in the United States far better than our existing system. One of the key flaws of our system, according to the author, is that it attempts to distribute public goods (education, healthcare, etc.) through the private market.

The title of the book is a reverse spin on the European settlement of the United States, where Europeans essentially decided that they were born on the wrong continent. Disillusioned with contemporary America, Geoghegan feels that he was born on the wrong continent. The book describes his frequent travels to Germany where he feels more at home. The author regrets that other than these trips he has missed out on the life he was meant to lead as a European.

I found the book interesting and provocative. It includes very trenchant insights into our monolingual, provincial culture that fails to appreciate Germany's accomplishments in reducing the number of unemployed from five million to three million since the late 1990s. Until recently, the New York Times was reporting that Germany was struggling economically. Huh??? Maybe we should trade our economists and journalists for theirs. (I really wonder why American economists think it is their place to dispense advice to Germany instead of educating themselves about the German model.)

Geoghegan loves the German system in particular, although he extols the virtues of the European core generally, which he describes as extending north from Milan through the German-speaking countries to Scandinavia. He is well aware that the European periphery (Ireland, Greece, and Portugal) is experiencing economic difficulties--the two-speed European economic growth phenomenon.

However, I am giving the book four stars because it was hastily written (leading to a breezy and somewhat repetitive style) and it contains some minor errors and misunderstandings arising from the author's own unfortunate linguistic handicap as a highly educated, but monolingual observer. Overall, I certainly think that his book is a major and much-needed contribution to our deplorably insular and tired economic debate.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went to Tom’s party for the release of this book. A book mostly about the German economic model and the role of organized labor, he cleverly chose the top floor of the Dank Haus, the German cultural center in Chicago, as the location. In order to persuade people to attend, he wrote in an email that the venue “offers a breath-taking view of the Walgreens across the street.”

Tom is a real romantic, a real public intellectual, and a real activist. I love him because he’s also a real Chicagoan. A long-time Chicago resident, he loves this imperfect city like fans love the losing Cubs, like Algren loves this city that is a woman with a broken nose. Tom loves this continent, but he can't help but look across the Atlantic to the next.

Tom knows that our economic system is fucked and that Europe has got it better. So he sets out to find out why and how. What makes this a Geoghegan book (and what makes it great) is that he writes as much about his travels as he does about the research he does while on them. The book is real because it’s about ordinary people’s lives under these different systems, how they perpetuate or contest them, how their lives or sustained or killed by them. It’s about how Tom experienced the environments that create and are created by these systems. Like the striking textile workers of 1912 (“We want bread, but we want roses, too!”), Tom appreciates that so many Europeans, besides having six weeks off, also get “a perfect cup of coffee to sip at some place other than the office” and “a city to inhale like a bank of violets.”

Importantly, this is not just another whiny progressive piece about “Europe is SO much better.” Of course it is better! What’s interesting is that Tom identifies the role that the labor movement plays in that system, and in the case of Germany, identifies three critical components of labor relations. First, wages are bargained regionally, so that companies must compete on fields other than wages. Second, workers serve on worker councils, which are shop floor committees that have a hand in deciding day-to-day operations that fall outside of their union contracts (for example, when to open or close), alongside management. Third, businesses with more than 2,000 employees must have boards with 50% of their boards’ seats filled by democratically-elected workers!

Interestingly, the effect can be more labor peace, because workers are mixed-up in management. This is a bit counter-intuitive for American progressive labor types, who wish for labor militancy, rested on a very unambiguous distinction between worker and manager. But the advantages to the German model are immediately apparent: a German factory will not close without notifying its workers or without paying them the proper severance. During the last few decades, that’s precisely what happened to so any tens of thousands of factories happened in America’s de-industrialization (and it happened at Republic Windows two years ago, too).

Another correlation to these 3 facets of German labor relations is that the country is still a high-skilled manufacturing superpower, trailing only China in exports. It is the opposite path that the United States took, and the so is the consequence: the U.S. is deep in debt while Germany is not. If that weren’t enough, Germany manages to keep its financial sector in line, having strong national banks against which the the private ones must compete, while in the U.S.--well, we all know about that....

Besides labor relations and industry, Europe shows us how we’re approaching virtually all areas of policy wrong:

“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. That’s the crisis of our time: we’re paying for European-type socialism, without getting the equivalent payback” .... “Still, I’m 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 personal life, I have to say the case against our capitalism, our kind and not Europe’s is that it takes up too many evenings, working late at the office, and it takes up weekends too” (x).

Tom’s confident that increased worker control is possible in America, but he ends the book before he can tell us how.

Amidst the beer-drinking and mingling at Tom’s book release party, he interrupted just once to say that he took back everything he wrote. Looking around the room, seeing so many Chicagoans he loves, he declared, I’m on the right continent, right here, with all my friends.” We all bought books.

For a better book review, read my friend’s here:
http://www.alternet.org/vision/147560...

[Jeremy Hickerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating picture of a different way things could be! Geoghegan concludes that 90% of the U.S. population would be better off with the somewhat higher taxes and much greater benefits of a social democracy such as France or Germany. He starts off by recounting the great impression the city of Zurich made on him. Again and again he advises us to look at the travel section to evaluate Europe, rather than getting our ideas from the Wall Street Journal. Just walk around a city like Zurich (unfair example? then how about 50 or so other European cities he could name). Then walk a few blocks away from something nice in a great city like Chicago, for instance, where in his words it is "Gulag-like". No question, I can't deny it. Believe your eyes, not your economic theories.

Geoghegan spends several chapters describing people he encounters in Paris, such as a rock-band drummer (the arts are subsidized, so this guy has a job). He talks about the feeling of joy and enjoyment of life he can see in the people he talks with.

Then he moves on to Germany and describes how worker-controlled capitalism did not try to break the unions and compete with the emerging economies on wages (a losing battle as the U.S. and Great Britain have discovered) but instead kept wages high and used their highly trained workers to specialize in high-end manufacturing, where they have a very large market share.

The five areas the state addresses in these social democracies:
Education (as in College)
Health Care
Retirement
Child Care
Transportation

It does make sense that a collective approach can be much more efficient and cost-effective than having everyone purchase these individually. The trade-off is loss of some independence, or a certain kind of freedom. That independence does have some value, but I feel we have put way too much emphasis on it in the U.S.

In this book Geoghegan has a point-by-point discussion of the pros and cons. This is the conversation we should have been having over Health Care (only one of the five areas).

[Caren · Rating 3 out of 5]

As others have said, I became a bit weary of the author's continual references to travels over the last thirty years and to the people he met only being identified with an initial. In the end, all of the trips and intitals ran together and didn't add anything to the ideas he presented. That said, the ideas themselves were very interesting. The focus of the book is a comparison between the tax rates and standards of living bought by those taxes in the U.S. and in the social democracies of Europe, particularly in Germany. If you are an American, it will make you want to weep. Point by point, life for a middle-class German is more comfortable and secure than it is for an American. Yes, they pay more in taxes, but not that much more. Germany still has its industrial base and every worker has a say in how the business is run through its strong unions and works councils. The author says, provocatively, "without an industrial base, a democracy dies" (p.111). He comments, "And at least Germans have jobs to fill. Over there, it makes sense to educate, to skill people up, while over here, there's no point. We already have things for people to do, like cleaning urinals and parking cars" (p.111).The German education system is tracked, but if a student does not choose the university route, he gets extensive training and internship in a trade, coming out with a certificate and participating in trade organizations that maintain the value of his training. In the U.S., on the other hand, one in five college graduates is doing work for which a college degree is unnecessary. In other words, if that college grad can find a job, he is often underemployed. Germans still read, even daily newspapers. Mr. Geoghegan says, "Germany is Newspapers, and Germany is Books. It's here, in this country, where it may be decided whether reading will survive in the West" (p.133). In one of his many travel tales, he tells of meeting a young man, perhaps twenty years old, on a train. He noticed the boy was reading "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon---in English! He asks if it is school work. The boy says he is an engineering student, but felt he should know more about Roman history. The author has an interesting chapter toward the beginning of the book in which he compares the lives of a German and an American middle class woman. This, once again, is pretty upsetting to read if you are an American. The author is a labor lawyer in Chicago, so comes from a very sympathetic stance toward unions and labor, but he certainly uses his facts to present a very convincing case for the superior life a European-style social democracy offers a middle class person.

[Public Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Geoghegan is a very funny writer. I laughed out loud more at this book than I have reading any other comparative political studies book I've ever read. You'll laugh too.

My biggest criticism, and look I recognize that this book was completed during the early Obama era when the former president was being derided daily for being a socialist, is that Geoghegan can't allow himself own up to his own social democratic tendencies. It's played for laughs, I get it, but the reflexive genuflections to America and against social democracy grew a little tedious.

However, I learned a lot. Geoghegan convinced me that the Germans have a lot going on with their system. It works. We Americans, if we could ever stop patting ourselves on the back and chanting "American #1," might learn something if we saw what other countries have done for themselves. This book will make you think. In a good way.

[Rio Morales · Rating 3 out of 5]

a little all over the place, but i really enjoyed learning about the german model and post-war german history. did you know the US Army was instrumental in setting up german work councils in german businesses (i.e. 50% worker reps on corporate boards)? interesting theories on a country’s industrial base, skilled labor, politicization, education, and newspaper readership.

read as a travelogue, geoghegan is definitely the most boring traveler ever. he did seemingly nothing fun or interesting during his trips to europe, and is a painfully american tourist. would have been better to just write the history/theories without the travel essays!!

[Ella Robillard · Rating 2 out of 5]

so boring omg I technically didn't finish but I did write an essay about it no takesies backsies

[Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a terrific countervailing view to the dominant economic practices of the United States. Stylistically the book is too frequently off-putting due to the author's overly breezy and chatty approach, an approach which probably will discourage many readers from taking the substantive points seriously. That would be unfortunate as he makes a very interesting argument in between all the anecdotes.

The author focuses primarily on how economic and social life is organized in Germany in comparison to the United States. Although he doesn't explicitly state it in this way, the fundamental difference between economic practices in Germany and America is how power is distributed. In Germany half of the seats on the board of directors of every large corporation belong to union members. That's by law. Furthermore, most businesses have worker councils whose members are elected by the workers. The presence of workers in crucial decision making roles constrains some of the activities that American corporations take for granted, with mass layoffs, outsourcing, union busting, elimination of collective bargaining being some examples that are relatively rare or nonexistent in Germany. Since workers are exercise economic power in Germany, they also have real political power as well.

From the American point of view, there is irony in the fact that the roots of much of Germany's welfare state arose due to the influence of the Christian Democratic Union, Germany's conservative political party. Can anyone imagine the Republican Party, or even the Democrats, endorsing such policies? This irony becomes less puzzling with the realization that the CDU began as a political party based on Roman Catholic social teaching. (It's worth pointing out that as I write the Republican congressman, Paul Ryan, a Catholic, has proposed a Federal budget he claims is based on Catholic principles. The current Speaker of the House, John Boehner, also a Catholic, strongly supports Ryan's budget. There is real irony here in that, unfortunately for Ryan, Boehner, and their Republican colleagues, the Catholic bishops have strongly and vigorously spoken out against this budget as violating Catholic principles of social justice. The budget calls for the decrease and sometimes removal of the government safety nets protecting the poor and invalid from even greater destitution.) On top of that, the Basic Law, Germany's constitution, was written by American New Dealers shortly after WW II.

The consequence is a nation in which workers are required to take 30 days off every year, at least three weeks in a row; child care is subsidized; there is paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers; purchase of health insurance from non-profits insurance companies is mandated; welfare for anyone is available when unemployment benefits run out; education is free all the way through to university; people can retire with enough support to continue living fairly well; during sluggish business periods workers remain working while their wages are paid by the government until business picks up again.

All these benefits are expensive. So wouldn't this cause the German system to buckle at some point?

Perhaps. But consider this. Somehow German workers are generally well paid, though German CEOs are generally more modestly paid, to put it mildly, than their American counterparts. In addition, Germany ranks up their with China, and ahead of America, in exports. Rather than outsourcing their manufacturing jobs, German corporations, under pressure from their workers, have largely retained their manufacturing jobs and continue to produce high-quality machines that the rest of the world, especially China, wants.

The upshot is that the American system compares poorly to the German system. Some might protest the German system is unsustainable. That remains to be seen. Read the book and find out. What we have seen in the last few years is that the American system nearly collapsed and has proven to be unsustainable. That system is the one that should be in question.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am definitely not like everyone, but after reading this book I could easily say YES, I was born on the wrong continent.

We in the U.S. pay up to four-fifths of the taxes that they pay in European Social Democracies, but we get back no where near four-fifths of the benefits they receive in state welfare.

Europe, aside from having a society where the quality of life is not just measured in GDP, but in the more intangible benefits. A society that continues to educate itself after it leaves whatever level of school it reaches. A society where people read.

Socialism that is not just about "a chicken in every pot" but about a society that is informed and empowered politically so that everyone has a hand in "stirring the pot" as well.

I would like that.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I gave it my best shot, applied the "100 pages minus your age" rule, and gave up exactly on page 52.

I fell asleep during Economics 101 in college, which is probably why I fell asleep reading this book. This author belabored the same point for 30 pages....a little long-winded.

The title, to me, suggests something altogether different than a study on the GNP, and an analysis of social government. I suppose I was looking for "Do you like to drink wine?" Do you like small cafes where you sit for hours?" "Do you like 6-week vacations from work?" type of topics that I could relate to!

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was truly fascinated by this book. Being in a union, I was very interested in hearing how other countries run theirs. Tom spent most of the time comparing the US to Germany. I have often thought that I was born on the wrong continent, and now I know I am right. I would like to hope that our country can change and see things differently, but I don't keep myself up at night waiting. I thank my lucky stars that I am in a teachers union, the closest to European living that I will ever be. I hope that the American people wake up and demand change.

[David Jedeikin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, eye-opening insight into the "European model" and how it offers what many of us are looking for from our society in the United States. In spite of crisis and uncertainty, Europe is doing amazing things in forging a vibrant post-industrial society for its citizenry. The author doesn't shy away from Europe's problems either, including their fiscal issues and shifts in labor policy. But overall, he leaves Americans (and others whose nations are in the thrall of the insanity of "free-market fundamentalism") a lot to think about. A must-read!

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

The long and the short of this book is to make a case for European socialism. Specifically, the German model and system are held as the example to follow. Honestly this is a well written book and an enjoyable read. The author has a way of taking a very dry, boring subject and injecting some life and spunk into it so that reader isn’t left wanting to smash the reader’s own skull just to make the hurting stop.

What can I say? He makes a case and I do have to give him that. However, is it a good case? Well—sort of. The book comes off as completely antidotal because not once is there an in-work reference or citation to the index. So, unless one is truly motivated (which I am not) one really can’t tell what is purely antidotal and what has actual merit. Also, a rather large portion of the book is spent arguing with Germans about how good their system is. There are a lot of problems with many of his arguments. I do not intend to get in too deep, but let me just say that some of my personal biggest problems were these: He argues for Keynesian economics but high lights that Germany “never spends more than they produce” which, goes against Keynes ideas. He thinks that unions here in America are not political enough, which is utter nonsense if you are paying even the slightest bit of attention. And, this is not a joke; there is a point where he is gushing over re-education camps. Oh sure, there are called by a different name in the book. But the description is that of almost exactly what you would imagine of a re-education camp. Well, I guess it depends on your imagination. It really wasn’t as bad as all that, but sill…

Please do not misunderstand though—I am in no way saying this book is utterly without merit. In theory most of the core of the system the author is peddling (which by the way only accounts for 40% of the Germen economy by his own accounting) is actually intriguing. I can see how it would be positive. I may even be so inclined to implement such a system within my own company were I ever to start one. Though, I would not be in favor of imposing such a system upon others. Nor would there be a way to legally do so, so long as we have a constitution.

In the end, I would recommend this book. If you are a liberal it will naturally appeal to you. If you are a conservative it is good to get out of your box and look at the ideas of those we do not agree with, at least now and again anyway...

[Margaret Groarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this book -- I've always meant to read "Which Side Are You On?", and this semester I'm teaching West European Politics, so I thought this might be a good book for us to read an excerpt of. But ultimately, I found it pretty disappointing and I'm not going to finish it.

Geoghegan, who is a labor lawyer in the US, starts with the interesting notion that he wants to show how the social model in Europe (he chooses Germany in particular to look at) works better for working people than the model in the US -- creating a larger more stable middle class, giving more people a good lifestyle, health insurance, a reasonable work schedule, etc. And there is a decent amount of interesting information proving this point in the book.

My complaint about the book is that it is very disorganized, and a lot of it is telling us about his effort to go and explore this idea, and how he got there, etc. Halfway through the book, I still felt like I was reading an introductory chapter in which he was laying out the issues he wanted to explore. I think this is a decent first draft of what could be a really great book, but he just never got there. There's a lot of asides in the book about trying to push himself to finish, etc, and I guess that's what happened.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a self-professed right wing, I can say that at first this book annoys me so much that it almost compelled me to give three stars after finishing this book. With ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ spirit, the author fawned upon how european workers are living better life than their american counterparts, even while paying higher taxes. However, I sigh a breath of relief after he stated which particular country that serves as his particular model: Germany (thank God it’s not France!). The second part, which is better to read, deals with his frequent trips to Germany. Fun, although outdated, the German model continues to amaze the author, and to some extension, me. What perplexed me the most was the fact that Germany managed to be a major player in manufacturing industry, yet its education system, as the author found out was in shambles, with its colleges churned out less graduates than US did. Nevertheless, although world economy continues to defy the author’s expectations about the future of German and US economies, this book offers a useful insight (at least for me), into how ideal social-democratic economy works.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takeaways
-Overview on how works councils and access to public goods can lead to a higher quality of life for employees and the long term success of corporations
-Germans are hyper-savers while Americans marketize what Europeans regard as family life (robust service industry)
-Germans continue their adult education through reading the paper since they may ultimately need to play a part in collective decision-making regardless of their economic status
-Overall, might be a bit simplistic and outdated for a reader well versed in German economic policy (I was not) however I loved the context it provided along with the cultural tidbits

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A breezy if dated comparison of the United States and mainly Germany with work councils and co-determinism, insurance, and the rest of the differences that create so many arguments and disagreements upon which society has the correct view. Thomas Geoghegan writes of five trips to Europe/Germany and what he learns. A slightly quixotic quest, but despite being written a decade ago gave me some information and thoughts to carry forward. Not to find a similar book that is current with the events of today.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book that’s been sitting on my shelf for who knows how long. Interesting but not the angle I thought it would be.

[Christopher Heckman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Snoozefest. A lawyer writes about economics. I kept waiting for the "witty" parts that never arrived.

[Sharon Maerten-Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed the concept but not the execution.

[Todd Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? is a chatty comparison of life in the U.S. with that found in a social democracy like that in Germany. Written in an informal, conversational and meanderingly annoying style, Geoghegan argues that most of us would be better off under a European government with a social contract than under the every-man-for-himself system in the U.S.

Geoghegan presents a reasonably compelling case. Europeans live longer, are healthier, work less, retire earlier and have far more vacation time than Americans. They have access to better systems of public transportation, health care, free college education, child care and have fewer people living in poverty. But isn’t the European model unsustainable? Aren’t these countries cutting social services left and right and becoming more and more like the US in order to remain competitive? No, according to Geoghegan. While some tweaking around the edges may be in order as global economic conditions change, the core social contract remains intact. While U.S. exports continue to decline, economies of countries such as Germany remain sound.

My main complaint with Geoghegan’s presentation is that the bulk of his evidence is anecdotal. He relies less on economic data than what he can glean by walking around on the street. While there is some value in this approach, anecdotes can also be misleading. A bit more time spent in researching details of economic indicators would have gone a long way towards bolstering the author’s point.

[Ben Richmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of finished this a while back... Let's see...

It's kind of a bizarre way to make an argument, especially for a lawyer; but Geoghegan, a Chicago-based labor lawyer, makes mostly an emotional appeal for adjusting the American workers' lives to more strongly resemble those of their European (socialist) counterparts.
Though the statistics do appear later in his book to support of his claims, this non-fiction book strikes an odd tone as the narrator talks about looking at the Continent through the lense of the travel page, and appeals to having more hours of rest as not only pleasant but a way to keep America competitive in the 21st century.
It is a strong leftward push based on totally economic terms (rather than say, social), which is rare to see in the American media landscape (and one expects will become even more rare as the House Republicans set out to repeal Health Care reform). Rarely are books that are this smart also this fun to read.

Editorial Aside: Several times Mr. Geoghegan mentioned that German train riders typically read more that El riders, who Mr. G claims several times he has never ever seen read anything at all. I just want to note that many people on the CTA do read, and I read most of this book while on various CTA buses and trains. I'll thank you to retract the allegation.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, if only as a matter of confirmation bias. I agree with the basic principles Geogeghan outlines: Europe's social democracies have more stable socio-economic systems then the US thanks to their more even-handed treatment of their workers. But Geogeghan's style of writing is off-putting. He was conversational when he should have been analytical and vice-versa. He has a tendency to repeat himself and there are times when his arguments don't add up, but his solutions are still, somehow, logically sound.
He manages to make some excellent points, despite himself. He discusses the hypocrisy of Milton Friedman pitching libertarian bullshit in his writing (Free To Choose) while living off of his salary as a tenured university professor. He lays out, in just enough detail, the ways in which German workers are empowered to a degree that their American counterparts would find stunning. And he argues--not as forcefully as I'd have liked--that the US style of free market fundamentalism is not generating the kind of real value that we think it is.
Alas, this was all buried among a maelstrom of anecdotes,many of which indistinguishable from one another, and nebbishy introspection that I just didn't care about.

[Sherry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the premise of this book, particularly as an American living in Europe, marveling at the magnificence of social democracies. Unfortunately, I had some problems with it (although not the overall point of the book).

I think it was poorly edited. Some sentences made no sense at all, the only cause I could find being a missing or incorrect word in the sentence structure. I also found the narrative to be a bit clunky at times.

I had a bit of a problem with the economic talk in the book as well. It was absolutely necessary to include the economics in order to make the points the author wanted to make, of course, but I think it was not presented very well. If this book is intended to meet a wider audience, people who aren't already familiar with the "European model," the economics need to more accessible. Economic concepts were poorly explained or not explained at all.

Other than that, I think the book had some interesting information to share, but considering its weaknesses, it's not a book I would recommend to other people. This book would be better if it were condensed into magazine feature article-length.

[Tim Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

With all the fear fostered by some of our politicians about the US becoming a European Socialist country I thought I 19d like to know what it is we fear. 1CWere You Born on the Wrong Continent? 1D defines European Socialism using the economic systems of Germany and France. The author uses the term European Capitalism because the German economic model was designed and implemented by the US military after WWII. It 19s just a question of semantics. There are a lot of interesting facts in the book, like Germany has no debt, or France and Germany combined export more goods than any other country in the world. Surprisingly it seems to be much easier to not only open a small business in Europe, but the odds of staying open are much greater than the US. The theme of the book is which economics system gives it 19s people a better life? Of course you need to ask yourself what is the life I want and what trade-offs must I make to have it. You don 19t have to be an economics major to enjoy this book because the author has written it in laymen 19s terms. In addition the book is enjoyable and easy to read

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book reads simply and is certainly geared to a centre-left American Democrat perspective. This being the case, it simplifies most arguments that it makes into very simple statements, making heavier use on countless anecdotes and personal experiences than on citable facts and statistics. One might be able to tell this by the repeated references to the general "European model." One shouldn't look to this book for a more in-depth analysis of economic systems (as I did for some reason), or for a defence of the principles of social thought, but for an analysis of a system where labour hasn't collapsed -- as it has in America -- and can still deliver on its philosophy and promise.

To people picking up this book for the first time: don't let the initial slowness, dizzying use of anecdotes or lack of "hook" get you down. Even if you hold different opinions from the author or his ideas, you will likely learn quite a bit about how modern capitalism functions, and how it is moving into the future in different markets.

[miteypen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book very much because it made me think about whether or not the American way of doing things is always the best way. While the author doesn't go so far as to say that the German (or European) ways are the best ways, he does make valid arguments for at least considering them. I was particularly impressed with his arguments about labor unions and work councils (in other words, worker self-determination).

Although the author's style was conversational and entertaining, I did at time find it hard to follow what he was trying to say because he jumped around a lot. However, that didn't keep me from finishing the book and I'm glad I did.

I think every American (and perhaps German, too) would benefit from reading this book. The subtitle is a bit misleading since the author didn't really formally outline ways that Americans can change their lives in order to get the benefits that Germans/Europeans have. But it's important to be aware of things that help or hinder the process of "getting a life."

[Margie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title pulled me in. Yes, I think I was born on the wrong continent.
This book was a terrible disappointment. An American labor lawyer visiting Germany (mostly Berlin) and talking to people. His decision was made before he ever went. He admittedly talks only to people who can explain and/or support his opinions. He over and over uses "dark" as a description, and suddenly, late in the book, I find this was not negative. His explanation of Germany's means of preserving a high school educated, technically capable, manufacturing class is initially informative. But the book devolves into acronyms and referrals back to conversations with Germans only identified by an initial....
Despite the absence of any US ties except his work, Geoghegan does not entertain any ideas of moving. His conclusion about that: Europe is just too far.
I agreed with much that he said about the US.
I, however, find no hope here.
Is it time for me to decide that it's time to find another country?
NOTHING here that helps me get a life--in the US.

[Alison Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another that makes me wish for half-star options, because really I'd give it 3.5 But I went with three as an average. 4 for the subject matter, which I could read a pile of books on because I'm certainly interested in it as a general concept. But 2 or maybe a bit more for the writing style - while I am not totally averse to the chatty, stream-of-consciousness stuff (Sarah Vowell is aces at it and I adore her and her books), Geoghegan's is just a bit too...random and rambly and sort of zig-zaggey. It was a bit *too* conversationalist, and at times I felt like if this WERE a conversation I was having with him, I'd have had to ask him to repeat or explain what he meant fairly often. So eh...I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but if it's a topic you're into, I wouldn't say "don't read it", just "read it but be prepared to get a little annoyed".

[H Wesselius]

As he writes one can create a portrait of an ignorant and weak American wandering through Europe, whether he intentionally creates this image is questionable. As for his idea that the German model has some lessons and ideas that may help the now failing American model -- that's an easy argument to make at least to me. The more precise point that social democracy within the workplace is Germany's best asset is quite persuassive especially as it relates to creating a working class that knows its owninterests and works for them. Unfortunately, I don't think the Democratic party will take his advice.