Robyn Blumner
Tribune Media

President Barack Obama has been maligned as a European socialist so often by his Tea Party critics that one would think he put French-style cafe tables on the White House lawn and took to wearing a beret.

Obama’s mildly progressive agenda isn’t close to that of a European social democracy. But one has to wonder whether all the people who so reflexively oppose European-style socialism have any idea what it is and how their lives would be different if they lived in a place that has it.

Americans see comparisons all the time in the media. Lists are almost a mania: top 10 safest car models, best places to retire, most streak-free self-tanners – you get the idea. But rarely is there an honest assessment of something really consequential: comparing our lives to those of average people in a European social democracy such as Germany, Denmark or France.

Which system gives people who are not in the top 1 percent of wealth a fairer deal? Which provides average folks better opportunities to make a living wage, achieve a comfortable work-life balance, have income mobility and enjoy a secure retirement? Where is there less stress in day-to-day life?

“Were You Born On The Wrong Continent?” – a new book (available in stores next month) by Chicago labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan – makes those comparisons, and they are truly eye-opening.

Geoghegan focuses much of the book on Germany, a country that explodes the myth that European socialism invariably leads to anemic economies and high unemployment.

Since 2003, Germany and its 82 million people have either beaten China in export sales or about tied China for first place. Germany is arguably the world’s leading industrial power, even as its workers enjoy high wages, six-week vacations and other benefits that an American worker only dreams about.

Why is it that Germany’s industrial base hasn’t moved overseas to find the most exploitable labor sources, as has happened in the United States? Geoghegan’s book pulls back a curtain. We starkly see what happens when workers are given a modicum of power over their working lives compared with when they are not. Americans worry and struggle, battered by globalization and yawning income disparity, while Europeans enjoy their security and time. Tea baggers should be so lucky.

You can respond to Robyn’s column at blumner@sptimes.com.