I heard this "Protestant work ethic" idea applied to European countries too (for instance to the Dutch, or more generally Northern vs Southern European countries).
Yet the standard working week in the Netherlands is just 38 hours (per Wikipedia), and in Germany it could be argued that the economically most successful states have a catholic majority (although this shifted after WW2, for instance from Saxony (protestant) to Bavaria (catholic)). I think the idea of "Protestant work ethic" is mostly bullshit these days, and it's more about worker's rights.
FWIW the 38 hours needs a lot of perspective. That average is mostly pulled down by individuals who feel pushed to work part time and individuals who are already making so much, taking an extra day off every week pays off more than getting most of the money taxed away and still being out of reach.
The above creates a dynamic where people will still work 40h to hit breakpoints, or will drop down as much as possible to stay at their current breakpoint (because working more isn't getting them there anyway). Doubly so because income tends to be a far bigger decider for things like housing and rent (highest expenses) than budgeting.
Because pretty much every Asian country was a rural wasteland in the 50s and 60s, and hard work and education is what got a lot of people out of that poverty. If you're white/only speak English, Chinese 40-60 year olds probably won't talk about this in front of you, but it's a widespread belief in China that Americans don't know what true poverty is like and are thus lazy.
That kind of makes sense, but not for Japan, which industrialised in the 19th century, so wasn't poor "a rural wasteland". It was war devastated post-WW2, but my understanding was that the working culture was there since industrialisation - which to be fair, was also the case in Europe until labour movements brought regulations at the cost of their blood. Maybe Japan just missed that train due to a combination of factors?
I want to say poverty as a one word one liner, but I'm really interested in a genuine explanataion.
However poverty and appearing to work hard to be at the top of an extremely competitive scramble out of poverty is my rough idea that isn't too hand-wavey in the direction of religion or culture.
Singapore has been high income since the 1980's and still has a very intense Asian work culture. The latest generation or two grew up in a very comfortable lifestyle, so any sense of "desperate poverty" is something their grandparents talk about. It even rare for Singaporeans to do much manual labor now, it's mostly done by foreign workers.
And other SE Asian countries (poorer than Singapore) have more of a reputation of "work shy" cultures. If you can work enough so you're not starving and have a house and beer to drink, why work harder?
So clearly the link between poverty and a "work hard" culture is pretty weak.
In one of Malcolm Gladwell's books this was explained as a by product of rice farming culture. Apparently in those climates rice grows all year round and every day you take off ends up hurting your bottom line, giving rise to hard work culture.
Not sure. Since we're asking hypothetical questions about work tied to productivity, why are there almost no EU companies on the top 30 annual revenue list in the technology sector?
EU funding is typically small government grants or seed money. Investors are culturally a _lot_ more risk averse if comparing with the US.
None of the tech sector in the US would exist without NSF, darpa, and NY,SV investors.
Most of the success stories in the EU have been with companies that secured capital from US funds. The only exception I can think of from the top of my head is Nokia and ASML.
Nokia doesn't really exist anymore except being a marketing machine and name brand for Chinese made OEM Android phones, and a networking device manufacturer with sweat-shop style dev offices in Eastern Europe because they're not competitive on Western wages due to chinese competitors like Huawei stealing/eating their lunch.
Yeah, but it used to be a huge company and it shaped the future of mobile phones forever, so I think it's fair to point out the major success it did have. It should be a lasting legacy, even if it turned out poorly.
A glorious past is pretty irelevant in the current market when you consider all the EU hardware jobs that have been lost or offshored in the process of Nokia's decline.
It's one of the reasons why embedded gigs pay so little in the EU.
Is that the most valuable measure of success you can think of?
Can you prove that there’s a meaningful relationship between people having to spend less time in a physical office and tech company annual revenue? ( spoiler alert: you can’t)
Also, why didn’t you just clearly outline your argument? It seems you’re implying that America is more financially successful than Europe because the US has a toxic addiction to perceived ‘work ethic’.
If EU companies and people are so sure their method of running a business is more successful than US companies, I just figured sales/revenue would at least somewhat reflect these opinions.
First: Do you really rate success by looking at revenue only?
Second: The Europe parts of e.g. Apple play a big role in developing the future of the US company, but revenue seems to be accounting to US only ...
> The Europe parts of e.g. Apple play a big role in developing the future of the US company
Not a great example, considering the recent Axx SoCs and M1 SoCs that have transformed Macs as a product and differentiated iPhones from Android were entirely developed in Silicon Valley. Most of the software and hardware engineering happens in the Valley as well.
being on the top 30 annual revenue list does not necessarily tell you anything about productivity or presence culture of the companies in question. it could also entail those companies having more customers and better marketing budget, which can result in good network effect(along with good enough product of course)
Language and bureaucracy? The UK and US both speak English and are closely aligned in terms of business practices, and even the smaller East coast Uk time zone difference has a bearing.
It is not the working hours (since this does not scale) but about putting work before anything else (little to no vacation, working in the middle of the night, flying to Asia with a day notice, making brutal decisions, ...)
Same in Germany, Austria and Belgium. Everyone I know there in a medium to large company has been called back into the office. Parent is taking his personal anecdote and extrapolating it to the whole continent for a cheap shot at the US when in my experience the US has so far much better remote and WFH acceptance for skilled professions than Europe due to their stronger tech jobs market where their tech employees have more leverage.
I found the Austrian/German management culture to be far more conservative and attached to measuring productivity by butts-in-seats time or your clocked-in time, than the US management which just looked at your outputs and doesn't care you've only been doing 3 hours of actual work and playing videogames the rest of your day, as long as you delivered what was agreed upon, VS my German manager who gave me a dressing down for seeing me spend "too much time scrolling on HN", despite me shipping everything on time.
Also most EU tech and white collar workers still work 40h/week. Those who work less are a fringe but very loud minority but they're not the norm. Even my friend at BMW Munich has overtime hours in his contract and never does less than 40h/week.
That is the opposite of what I've been hearing in Germany, tbh, although I think my "network" tends towards the small-to-medium rather than medium-to-large.
Even looking briefly at job listings in my area, most places are either fully or partially remote, and even those that are partially remote sometimes have a note saying that they'd accept fully remote candidates if they were good enough.
As to the 40h/week thing, I don't hugely keep track of my colleagues' hours, but my impression is that averaging 40 is the norm, but most places I've worked don't track that explicitly, so working about that or less seems to be the norm. In places where you record explicit overtime hours, I know a couple of people who do more than 40h/week, but they tend to also take extensive holidays off or travel a lot on long weekends. I wouldn't say that's the norm though.
Sure, but US tech TCs reach 800k+ vs 80k+. 10x the difference means the difference between early retirement with your own property and working till you drop without any property of your own potentially.
US tech workers are free to unionize and demand EU levels of PTO but it seems like the absurd levels of TC is a better deal for them.
Not the France I'm living in. For tech jobs remote multiple days a week is the bare minimum, and for non-tech jobs, even old school institutions have optional remote work.
Baring some exceptionally shitty companies where the top management can't figure out computers and think everyone just slacks off the whole day from home, or companies in sensitive sectors ( defense) partial remote work is the norm now.
Probably. But is it worth it, for people? I mean, a country would maybe have more valuable companies of they all have slaves slaving away for peanuts. I mean, it would create value, right? Actually we wouldn't have some of the most valuable building in the world if it weren't for slaves (or the next best thing). But again: is it worth it? Do overworked individuals really benefit from living in a country that has the most valuable companies?
I don't think so. How is US tech company's salary peanuts? You can work for sometime and happily retire, something you cannot do in the UK. It is a choice people can make.
The whole concept of Economy is slavery in a way, economy will grow if people work (or increase productivity), something we have to participate unfortunately. There is inflation making sure you will not have enough tomorrow. The only people are making out of the loop is people working in tech industry.
The argument I guess is that more GDP is more prosperity for the country, but with income inequality rising to the level that it is in the US, I don't think it matters much to the average worker that GDP is increasing if they're not getting any benefit from it.
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic