(How Social Democracy Liberated Europeans From) How Capitalism Exploits Americans

If Americans Work So Hard, Why Do They Only Get Poorer?

Last time I saw David Brooks, he was trundling down Fifth Avenue in front of Bergdorf Goodman before me. My partner giggled. I rolled my eyes. Yes, really. When you view the world from the pretty, bustling, gilded corner of Fifth and Fifty Ninth…my friends, you tend to end up seeing the world a little upside-down. Hence, recently, David Brooks penned a truly odious column. Tell me what else is new, you say, gentle reader. This one, though contains a particularly pernicious myth. Americans are poor, he effectively argued, because they don’t work hard enough. It’s the kind of myth America’s weird elites who live in bubbles of elite privilege love.

There’s just one problem with the idea that Americans aren’t all rich because they don’t work hard enough. It’s not true. In fact, it’s so untrue that it’s an absurd idea to even begin to have.

Americans work the longest hours — by a very, very long way — of any rich country. They work so hard, it’s almost ludicrous. And yet their lives have only gotten worse, and their society has collapsed.

In every single Western European country — France, Holland, Germany, etcetera — people work far less than Americans. How much less? Well, Americans work — so the data says — something between 40 and 45 hours a week, whereas Europeans tend to work between 30 and 35. So imagine working ten less hours a week. Would it make a difference to your life? A pretty big one? I’d imagine so. That’s ten more hours to spend with your kids, just relaxing, on that next degree…or just sleeping and recovering.

But the story hardly even begins there. Americans don’t just work 40 to 45 hours a week. Sure, that’s what the “data” says. But the data in this case is a poor representation of reality. More and more, Americans hold “multiple jobs.” The numbers say that only 5% of Americans work second jobs — but again, that’s a poor representation of reality. Most second jobs aren’t really “jobs”, so they don’t show up in the data. If you’re moonlighting as an Uber driver or at Taskrabbit or so forth, that doesn’t count as a “second job”, precisely because these platforms have been effective…