09-17-2008, 11:26 AM
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
<b>
âAmerica Is In Declineâ
</b>
Translated By Ron Argentati
13 September 2008
Germany - Sueddeutsche Zeitung - Original Article (German)
Sociologist Richard Sennett explains to Sueddeutsche Zeitungâs Nikolaus Piper why Americans are losing faith in capitalism and the future of their country.
Germany will be able to manage the financial crisis better than the USA. Thatâs the view of sociologist Richard Sennett, 65-year old professor of economics at New York University and the London School of Economics. He specializes in labor conditions in the industrialized world. Lately, he cast a critical eye on the increased flexibility demanded by globalization. His first major book was entitled âThe Fall of Public Man (1977)â. Beyond his main field, heâs best known for his book âThe Flexible Man.â His latest book is entitled âThe Craftsmanâ which went on sale at the beginning of this year. In it, he examines the development of technical and industrial skills throughout history. Sennett grew up in a poor neighborhood of Chicago and holds British as well as U.S. citizenship.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ): Professor Sennett, the United States is in the midst of the worst financial and economic crisis in decades. How is that affecting American society?
Sennett: The effects are enormous. Up until now, this society was able to cover up inequalities because theyâve been living on credit. Through sub-prime loans and the innumerable credit cards held by most Americans, an illusion of growth was created that is now falling apart. People are not only losing their jobs, but their homes as well. Theyâre unable to continue the standard of living to which theyâve become accustomed. That has deep meaning: Americans believed they were the winners at capitalism. This self-confidence has disappeared and is being replaced by a feeling of decline.
SZ: Do you have evidence for these fundamental assertions?
Sennett: My research field is the world of employment. What we currently have is not only a financial crisis; it has to do with the American workerâs inability to compete effectively with the rest of the world. America hasnât been successful in developing those capabilities among its population as exist in Europe or China. The phony financial boom of the early 21st century created the illusion that a fundamental loss of skills didnât matter. Now people are finding out they just were deceiving themselves.
SZ: Jobs are disappearing in the rest of the developed world and migrating to former third-world countries as well. How does the United States differ from Europe in that regard?
Sennett: That depends on which European country you are referring to.
SZ: Letâs say Germany.
Sennett: It might surprise you to hear that Germany is in better shape to deal with the crisis than America is. The German labor force is better educated, Germany still exports high-tech machinery to the entire world, and they have an outstanding system for training apprentices. The United States has an effective illiteracy rate of 28 percent.
SZ: Are you serious?
Sennett: Weâre talking about the effective illiteracy rate which means people unable to read a simple contract or lengthier text passages. The education level is very low. The United States imports engineers and computer programmers because it canât provide the proper skills. I know it sounds odd: America is a wealthy country and still finds itself in decline. Thatâs where the connection with politics comes in. On November 4th, voters have to decide between nostalgia and a step into the unknown.
SZ: What exactly do you mean by that?
Sennett: Both Senator John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin represent the longing for a bygone, familiar and safer world. Many Democrats are aware of the fact that things arenât going well, that labor has been weakened, that some consumption patterns are self-destructive. It just isnât clear yet what theyâll do with that knowledge.
SZ: To what extent has American labor been weakened? Unemployment is lower in the United States than it is in Germany.
Sennett: One of the reasons the figures look like that is the fact that in the United States, nearly 1.5 million prison inmates arenât included in the unemployment figure. Neither are those who work part-time. The determining factor is the level of proficiency. A teacher can immediately tell you the difference between the graduate of a good American high school and a German high school. The rule of thumb is, American graduates need one to two additional years to be on a par with their German counterparts. Further along, the outlook is even worse. American firms have too few incentives to further their employeesâ education. They hire workers wherever theyâre able to find them; they donât invest in them. Those in the 40 to 50-year old range are often cast aside because nobody wants the bother of bringing them up to date. Thatâs the difference between the American and the Japanese automobile industries. I often get annoyed with Germans when they talk about the âstupidityâ of the American worker . . .
SZ: Do they really say that in Germany?
Sennett: Yes, quite often. But Americans arenât more stupid; they just donât have the same continuing education opportunities.
SZ: But doesnât America make up for that through innovation?
Sennett: A few leading companies do. Wall Street and Silicon Valley, however, donât give a realistic picture. The average U.S. company is not innovative and is quite inflexible in dealing with its employees and customers alike. This can be measured by Americaâs exports, which have steadily eroded over the last ten years. German and other European exporting companies, on the other hand, have become more and more innovative and flexible. Nokia is flexible. Microsoft just has a monopoly.
SZ: One consequence of that seems to be Americaâs tendency toward increased protectionism.
Sennett: Then the problem is elevated to the level of moralizing: If the Chinese are doing better, itâs because they donât play fairly. But such moralizing can collapse by itâs own weight. Even if the Chinese currency were allowed to float, it wouldnât help America very much because the Chinese buy most of their goods elsewhere.
SZ: Is the sense of crisis shared by all Americans?
Sennett: Iâve been interviewing workers for 15 years. In that time, Iâve seen increasing uncertainty about the future of jobs in the country. This uncertainty doesnât appear in any statistic. Yes, people are aware the crisis exists; they just donât have a name for it yet.
SZ: Are people changing their buying habits?
Sennett: No, and thatâs part of the problem. Thereâs a typically American way of thinking that says if youâre unhappy, go shopping.
SZ: From the economic standpoint, the solution is evident: The USA is going through a purification crisis and at the end people will be saving more.
Sennett: Thatâs not how it works. Our economy is stagnating right now and that, on a fundamental level, is because of our way of life. If we were to measure accurately, we would probably be shocked at how few people really work full time. Itâs an historical irony that immigrants in the American labor force have it better than those born in the United States. There are two reasons for that: first, immigrantsâ consumption patterns are very different, especially in the first generation. They try to save money and havenât yet succumbed to the consumer culture. And most new immigrants put more stock in education and skill development than do those who have been here longer. Classic examples of that are the Koreans, Kenyans, Brazilians and those from the Dominican Republic.
SZ: What will be the political consequences of the crises you describe?
Sennett: Barack Obama is getting a feel for the problems. His first reaction was to go protectionist. He still has no detailed program to deal with the problems, at least not as far as the purely financial aspects are concerned. But he has people working on it. Obama has an excellent economic team. The Republicans, on the other hand, have become a party of fantasies. George Bush fantasizes about global control, McCainâs fantasies all involve strength as a character attribute, and his running mate, Sarah Palin, dreams of a return to the comforting world of small-town America. In my opinion, sheâs a decadent figure. If the Republicans win the election, the crises will probably only worsen. Obama still doesnât know what he should do, but at least heâs a realist. And he has mobilized innumerable young people who know they have to change the country. I can only hope that he gets elected.
SZ: Did you consider it impossible that he would even be nominated back in January?
Sennett: I was afraid that racism in America, and it is still around, might prevent his succeeding and Iâm now very happy that I was mistaken.
SZ: Assuming Obama is elected and he chooses you as one of his advisors, what would you advise?
Sennett: The first thing I would advise would be to increase education funding. Itâs the only future we have. This past year, school districts across the United States spent 600 times more for sports than they did for science â can you imagine that?
SZ: What, exactly, is wrong in the education system? The whole world envies Americaâs great universities.
Sennett: The elite universities are, in fact, outstanding, but there are only about one hundred of them. Go one step lower and thereâs nothing left to envy. Itâs the same everywhere: at the top, America is great but most of society is threatened with destruction. Harvard is a dream that very few can reach and thereâs nothing comparable for those who canât. The greatest myth in America is that weâre a classless society.
SZ: The differences in America are perhaps greater than in Europe, but there are many people there who quickly make it from the bottom to the top.
Sennett: Those are the people you meet because they exist in the right circles. But social mobility in the United States has decreased since the 1970âs. Itâs not a matter of a person, born poor, making it to Harvard. What really counts is how many people make it out of poverty and into the middle class. The old idea that each generation can expect to rise higher than the previous one doesnât work any longer.
SZ: And whatâs the cause of that?
Sennett: There are lots of reasons: the educational system, but also the inflexibility of many American institutions. Normal companies arenât like Google. And then the state: for many blacks in New York, social advancement began when they were hired for government jobs. Now those jobs are disappearing and a young woman who formerly began as a secretary in a government office now can only find menial work.
SZ: Donât those so-called âMcJobsâ eventually lead to something better?
Senett: Thatâs very difficult. Apropos âMcJobs,â youâve got to give McDonaldâs credit. Their food may be ghastly, but at least they do something for their employees. But theyâre an exception. Another factor impeding social mobility is the failure of many small companies. The rate is far higher in the United States than in Germany or Scandinavia. One of the worst failures of the second Bush administration was the politicization of the Small Business Administration. Offices were given to âdeservingâ Republicans as rewards for their support â incompetent and useless. That sort of thing doesnât make headlines, but itâs important nonetheless.
SZ: What role do labor unions play?
Sennett: If we had unions in the United States like the German IG Metall we would be better off. American unions only support workers with seniority.
SZ: But isnât the UAW, the only union comparable to IG Metall, partly responsible for the decline of the American automobile industry?
Sennett: What gives you that idea?
SZ: The UAW forced American companies to fund employee health care, a cost European and Asian car manufacturers donât have.
Sennet: Thatâs a question of the chicken and the egg. The UAW had to do that or else their members would have had no health insurance at all. Iâll tell you something else: you may consider your system of participative management to be lacking, and you may be right. But in America, workers have practically no voice in the workplace. You have no place to turn to when you want to complain. Workers no longer feel independent, especially in those firms that are constantly restructuring. If they could participate in management, that would be different. Many union members in America would find conditions in Germany heavenly.
SZ: Despite unemployment?
Sennett: Do you know what strikes me about Germany and Scandinavia? You take sincere pleasure in complaining. Youâre incapable of saying, âHey! We did a great job!â
SZ: Or as we would say in German, quit bitching.
Sennett: Yes, and thatâs very important. Since the end of World War Two, Europeans tend to think of America as an example they need to follow. It isnât.
SZ: Do you think Germany might be an example for America to follow?
Sennett: In some parts of their social welfare system, yes.
<b>
âAmerica Is In Declineâ
</b>
Translated By Ron Argentati
13 September 2008
Germany - Sueddeutsche Zeitung - Original Article (German)
Sociologist Richard Sennett explains to Sueddeutsche Zeitungâs Nikolaus Piper why Americans are losing faith in capitalism and the future of their country.
Germany will be able to manage the financial crisis better than the USA. Thatâs the view of sociologist Richard Sennett, 65-year old professor of economics at New York University and the London School of Economics. He specializes in labor conditions in the industrialized world. Lately, he cast a critical eye on the increased flexibility demanded by globalization. His first major book was entitled âThe Fall of Public Man (1977)â. Beyond his main field, heâs best known for his book âThe Flexible Man.â His latest book is entitled âThe Craftsmanâ which went on sale at the beginning of this year. In it, he examines the development of technical and industrial skills throughout history. Sennett grew up in a poor neighborhood of Chicago and holds British as well as U.S. citizenship.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ): Professor Sennett, the United States is in the midst of the worst financial and economic crisis in decades. How is that affecting American society?
Sennett: The effects are enormous. Up until now, this society was able to cover up inequalities because theyâve been living on credit. Through sub-prime loans and the innumerable credit cards held by most Americans, an illusion of growth was created that is now falling apart. People are not only losing their jobs, but their homes as well. Theyâre unable to continue the standard of living to which theyâve become accustomed. That has deep meaning: Americans believed they were the winners at capitalism. This self-confidence has disappeared and is being replaced by a feeling of decline.
SZ: Do you have evidence for these fundamental assertions?
Sennett: My research field is the world of employment. What we currently have is not only a financial crisis; it has to do with the American workerâs inability to compete effectively with the rest of the world. America hasnât been successful in developing those capabilities among its population as exist in Europe or China. The phony financial boom of the early 21st century created the illusion that a fundamental loss of skills didnât matter. Now people are finding out they just were deceiving themselves.
SZ: Jobs are disappearing in the rest of the developed world and migrating to former third-world countries as well. How does the United States differ from Europe in that regard?
Sennett: That depends on which European country you are referring to.
SZ: Letâs say Germany.
Sennett: It might surprise you to hear that Germany is in better shape to deal with the crisis than America is. The German labor force is better educated, Germany still exports high-tech machinery to the entire world, and they have an outstanding system for training apprentices. The United States has an effective illiteracy rate of 28 percent.
SZ: Are you serious?
Sennett: Weâre talking about the effective illiteracy rate which means people unable to read a simple contract or lengthier text passages. The education level is very low. The United States imports engineers and computer programmers because it canât provide the proper skills. I know it sounds odd: America is a wealthy country and still finds itself in decline. Thatâs where the connection with politics comes in. On November 4th, voters have to decide between nostalgia and a step into the unknown.
SZ: What exactly do you mean by that?
Sennett: Both Senator John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin represent the longing for a bygone, familiar and safer world. Many Democrats are aware of the fact that things arenât going well, that labor has been weakened, that some consumption patterns are self-destructive. It just isnât clear yet what theyâll do with that knowledge.
SZ: To what extent has American labor been weakened? Unemployment is lower in the United States than it is in Germany.
Sennett: One of the reasons the figures look like that is the fact that in the United States, nearly 1.5 million prison inmates arenât included in the unemployment figure. Neither are those who work part-time. The determining factor is the level of proficiency. A teacher can immediately tell you the difference between the graduate of a good American high school and a German high school. The rule of thumb is, American graduates need one to two additional years to be on a par with their German counterparts. Further along, the outlook is even worse. American firms have too few incentives to further their employeesâ education. They hire workers wherever theyâre able to find them; they donât invest in them. Those in the 40 to 50-year old range are often cast aside because nobody wants the bother of bringing them up to date. Thatâs the difference between the American and the Japanese automobile industries. I often get annoyed with Germans when they talk about the âstupidityâ of the American worker . . .
SZ: Do they really say that in Germany?
Sennett: Yes, quite often. But Americans arenât more stupid; they just donât have the same continuing education opportunities.
SZ: But doesnât America make up for that through innovation?
Sennett: A few leading companies do. Wall Street and Silicon Valley, however, donât give a realistic picture. The average U.S. company is not innovative and is quite inflexible in dealing with its employees and customers alike. This can be measured by Americaâs exports, which have steadily eroded over the last ten years. German and other European exporting companies, on the other hand, have become more and more innovative and flexible. Nokia is flexible. Microsoft just has a monopoly.
SZ: One consequence of that seems to be Americaâs tendency toward increased protectionism.
Sennett: Then the problem is elevated to the level of moralizing: If the Chinese are doing better, itâs because they donât play fairly. But such moralizing can collapse by itâs own weight. Even if the Chinese currency were allowed to float, it wouldnât help America very much because the Chinese buy most of their goods elsewhere.
SZ: Is the sense of crisis shared by all Americans?
Sennett: Iâve been interviewing workers for 15 years. In that time, Iâve seen increasing uncertainty about the future of jobs in the country. This uncertainty doesnât appear in any statistic. Yes, people are aware the crisis exists; they just donât have a name for it yet.
SZ: Are people changing their buying habits?
Sennett: No, and thatâs part of the problem. Thereâs a typically American way of thinking that says if youâre unhappy, go shopping.
SZ: From the economic standpoint, the solution is evident: The USA is going through a purification crisis and at the end people will be saving more.
Sennett: Thatâs not how it works. Our economy is stagnating right now and that, on a fundamental level, is because of our way of life. If we were to measure accurately, we would probably be shocked at how few people really work full time. Itâs an historical irony that immigrants in the American labor force have it better than those born in the United States. There are two reasons for that: first, immigrantsâ consumption patterns are very different, especially in the first generation. They try to save money and havenât yet succumbed to the consumer culture. And most new immigrants put more stock in education and skill development than do those who have been here longer. Classic examples of that are the Koreans, Kenyans, Brazilians and those from the Dominican Republic.
SZ: What will be the political consequences of the crises you describe?
Sennett: Barack Obama is getting a feel for the problems. His first reaction was to go protectionist. He still has no detailed program to deal with the problems, at least not as far as the purely financial aspects are concerned. But he has people working on it. Obama has an excellent economic team. The Republicans, on the other hand, have become a party of fantasies. George Bush fantasizes about global control, McCainâs fantasies all involve strength as a character attribute, and his running mate, Sarah Palin, dreams of a return to the comforting world of small-town America. In my opinion, sheâs a decadent figure. If the Republicans win the election, the crises will probably only worsen. Obama still doesnât know what he should do, but at least heâs a realist. And he has mobilized innumerable young people who know they have to change the country. I can only hope that he gets elected.
SZ: Did you consider it impossible that he would even be nominated back in January?
Sennett: I was afraid that racism in America, and it is still around, might prevent his succeeding and Iâm now very happy that I was mistaken.
SZ: Assuming Obama is elected and he chooses you as one of his advisors, what would you advise?
Sennett: The first thing I would advise would be to increase education funding. Itâs the only future we have. This past year, school districts across the United States spent 600 times more for sports than they did for science â can you imagine that?
SZ: What, exactly, is wrong in the education system? The whole world envies Americaâs great universities.
Sennett: The elite universities are, in fact, outstanding, but there are only about one hundred of them. Go one step lower and thereâs nothing left to envy. Itâs the same everywhere: at the top, America is great but most of society is threatened with destruction. Harvard is a dream that very few can reach and thereâs nothing comparable for those who canât. The greatest myth in America is that weâre a classless society.
SZ: The differences in America are perhaps greater than in Europe, but there are many people there who quickly make it from the bottom to the top.
Sennett: Those are the people you meet because they exist in the right circles. But social mobility in the United States has decreased since the 1970âs. Itâs not a matter of a person, born poor, making it to Harvard. What really counts is how many people make it out of poverty and into the middle class. The old idea that each generation can expect to rise higher than the previous one doesnât work any longer.
SZ: And whatâs the cause of that?
Sennett: There are lots of reasons: the educational system, but also the inflexibility of many American institutions. Normal companies arenât like Google. And then the state: for many blacks in New York, social advancement began when they were hired for government jobs. Now those jobs are disappearing and a young woman who formerly began as a secretary in a government office now can only find menial work.
SZ: Donât those so-called âMcJobsâ eventually lead to something better?
Senett: Thatâs very difficult. Apropos âMcJobs,â youâve got to give McDonaldâs credit. Their food may be ghastly, but at least they do something for their employees. But theyâre an exception. Another factor impeding social mobility is the failure of many small companies. The rate is far higher in the United States than in Germany or Scandinavia. One of the worst failures of the second Bush administration was the politicization of the Small Business Administration. Offices were given to âdeservingâ Republicans as rewards for their support â incompetent and useless. That sort of thing doesnât make headlines, but itâs important nonetheless.
SZ: What role do labor unions play?
Sennett: If we had unions in the United States like the German IG Metall we would be better off. American unions only support workers with seniority.
SZ: But isnât the UAW, the only union comparable to IG Metall, partly responsible for the decline of the American automobile industry?
Sennett: What gives you that idea?
SZ: The UAW forced American companies to fund employee health care, a cost European and Asian car manufacturers donât have.
Sennet: Thatâs a question of the chicken and the egg. The UAW had to do that or else their members would have had no health insurance at all. Iâll tell you something else: you may consider your system of participative management to be lacking, and you may be right. But in America, workers have practically no voice in the workplace. You have no place to turn to when you want to complain. Workers no longer feel independent, especially in those firms that are constantly restructuring. If they could participate in management, that would be different. Many union members in America would find conditions in Germany heavenly.
SZ: Despite unemployment?
Sennett: Do you know what strikes me about Germany and Scandinavia? You take sincere pleasure in complaining. Youâre incapable of saying, âHey! We did a great job!â
SZ: Or as we would say in German, quit bitching.
Sennett: Yes, and thatâs very important. Since the end of World War Two, Europeans tend to think of America as an example they need to follow. It isnât.
SZ: Do you think Germany might be an example for America to follow?
Sennett: In some parts of their social welfare system, yes.