From this week’s newsletter.
A German joke, the old saying goes, is no laughing matter. But like so many old sayings, it’s simply a load of baloney. German jokes are usually a hoot—not least because the rules of German grammar make it an ideal language in which to deliver punch lines.
The notion that Germans, by nature, are rigid and authoritarian is similarly untrue. Indeed, it is difficult to talk about “the Germans” in a collective sense, because Germany only came into being as a nation 140 years or so ago—in the wake of the Franco–Prussian War.
Actually, modern Germany is composed of some 40 formerly independent kingdoms, principalities, duchies, and free cities—each with its own unique characteristics, traditions, and dialect.
Folks from the tiny mountain–top village where we once lived found it hard to understand the dialect of people who lived only three miles further down. Our village was located in what had been the Duchy of Nassau. The town half way down the mountain lay in what had formerly been the Duchy of Hesse. As far as dialects went, never the twain would meet.
National characteristics are as different as the dialects. Schwabians are claimed to be congenitally tight–fisted. Their national motto, according to their fellow countrymen, is: “Work, save, and build a house. Sell your dog and bark yourself.”
Prussians are regarded as efficient, while Austrians (German–speaking, but not German nationals) are acclaimed as charming. Bavarians, by contrast, are said to combine Prussian charm with Austrian efficiency—a compliment to none of the parties.
The notion that the Germans are obsessively industrious also deserves debunking. Sure, most of them work hard—when they are at work. But they play hard, too, and the average German works far fewer days a year than the average American. For starters, they enjoy up to 20 public holidays a year, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. On top of this, the average German worker gets about five weeks vacation a year.
Then comes The Cure: After seven years of paying into the health insurance system, Germans are entitled to take “a cure”—all expenses paid—at one of the country’s 300 spas and health resorts. The basic stay is for about four weeks, but often it is extended to as much as six weeks.
In view of such complications, it is no small achievement that since its recovery from the devastation of the Second World War, Germany has been the economic powerhouse of Europe. It has not done so by the imposition of iron discipline in its factories and workplaces, but by virtue of a common economic vision: Workers in both the private and public sectors, as well as employers and politicians, believe, as an article of faith, that they have a legitimate and vitally important common interest in creating and maintaining prosperous businesses, and, thus, a healthy national economy.
At the same time they also recognize that, no less legitimately, interests divide over how the profits of their labor should be shared out.
The common vision does not mean that all is sweetness and light between political and industrial fronts in Germany. Disputes over the division of spoils can sometimes be tough, bitter, even. But thanks to their common vision, both sides at the negotiating table have a powerful incentive to reach an equitable settlement.
Curiously enough, this common vision was not entirely home grown. It developed under American tutelage after World War II. Not least, the West German trade union system was the brainchild of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Americans were once inspired by the same common vision the Germans now share. But in recent years, it has become painfully obvious that at the political level, at least, a common vision of a prosperous nation no longer exists.
The political dysfunction that afflicts Washington and virtually every state capital in the nation is the consequence of that lost vision. And the political sturm und drang seems destined to continue until our common vision is restored. Without it, there can be no meaningful meeting of minds about an equitable division of the national pie. GPH✠
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