Great defense of social democratic reforms in US in Nation mag.

Geoghegan argues that, contrary to US popular opinion, life is better for almost everyone in a social democratic system like those in Western Europe, especially Germany. Thanks to strong unions, people work less—Germans get six weeks of vacation and twenty-seven (!) paid holidays, while Americans are lucky to get two weeks off. Germans have job security, retirement pensions, free or nearly free education including college, and healthcare including nursing care. (In fact, their system, in which individuals are legally required to buy insurance, with subsidies for low earners, resembles the much-reviled Obamacare. My German friends found opposition to Obama's plan utterly bewildering.) You might think, as Geoghegan points out, that this cornucopia of rights and benefits is unsustainable—the American media delight in predicting the end of Old Europe—but in fact, the German economy is doing better than our own. Cutbacks in European government spending get a lot of attention over here but, as Geoghegan shrewdly notes, are often compensated for by increased spending on something else. In 2004 Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats pushed through the widely despised
Hartz IV reform limiting generous long-term unemployment benefits. The end of the welfare state? Not exactly. During the downturn, the government prevented mass unemployment by providing partial compensation for lost wages and encouraging companies to shorten hours rather than lay off workers. Compare that with the American way, which is to fire lots of people and make the remaining staff work even harder.