Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

the fact that they were highly regulated and inflexible by American standards did not mean that Europe’s economies were necessarily inefficient or unproductive. In 2003, when measured in terms of productivity per hour worked, the economies of Switzerland, Denmark, Austria and Italy were all comparable to the US. By the same criterion Ireland, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and France (sic) all out-produced the US. If America was nevertheless more productive overall—if Americans made more goods, services and money—it was because a higher percentage of them were in paid jobs; they worked longer hours than Europeans (three hundred more hours per year on average in 2000); and they had far fewer and shorter holidays. Whereas the British were legally entitled to 23 paid vacation days annually, the French to 25 and the Swedes to 30 or more, many Americans had to settle for less than half as much paid vacation, depending where they lived. Europeans had made a deliberate choice to work less, earn less—and live better lives. In return for their uniquely high taxes (another impediment to growth and innovation, in the eyes of Anglo-American critics) Europeans received free or nearly free medical services, early retirement and a prodigious range of social and public services. Through secondary school they were better educated than Americans. They lived safer and—partly for that reason—longer lives, enjoyed better health (despite spending far less10) and had many fewer people in poverty.