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Oct200919

Americans need to be more French

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It’s meant to be a damning indictment of the US healthcare system but the most shocking revelation for American viewers of Michael Moore’s Sicko is that the French get 30 days paid holiday a year.

America is the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee its workers any paid vacation at all. Not one day. And even among the minority of US workers who are lucky enough to get paid vacation benefits, the average number of days enjoyed is just 12. Studies show that most Americans would gladly sacrifice income in return for more time off, yet they keep working harder. Why? It’s what economists call a smart for one, dumb for all problem. Although Americans as a whole would like more holiday, the incentives for individuals, if they want to keep up with the Joneses and retain a reputation as a good employee, is to abide by the norms.

The solution is to emulate us Europe, which uses the government’s role as an enforcer of collective sentiment to legislate the preferences that individuals could not, on their own, enact.

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Originally posted 2008-11-19 00:02:16.

May200909

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Let Hitler speak

photo credit: fortinbras

Are some words so dangerous they must be locked away?

The world needs heroes and it’s better they be harmless men like me than villains like Hitler.

- Albert Einstein

The question is currently an issue of fierce debate in Germany where a leading historian has called for Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic screed Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) to be published openly for the first time since 1945. It is available for sale in Britain and the US, as well as through the internet, yet many people still object to the idea of it appearing in bookshops in Germany, the birthplace of Nazism.

It’s an understandable concern, but misplaced. Banning Mein Kampf only lends it a glamour it does not diserve. Making it freely available would remove its mystique and enable more Germans to discover for themselves quite how appalling this book is.

It’s not only evil, but badly written, repetitious, anti-factual, rambling and turgid, the testimony of a furious, self-pitying failure with a slender grasp on reality. Publishing Mein Kampf would demonstrate that Germany has reached the point where it can look on the evil of Nazism with a confident disdain instead of a lingering fear.

What you can do

Read Mein Kampf. Make-up your own mind, however realise that:

Democracy and censorship have never been happy bedfellows. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are democratic principles intrinsically linked to a functioning egalitarian society.

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