In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
I don’t think it is capitalism that is causing that. It is the idea of maximising shareholder value that the American economist Milton Freedman injected into the minds of political and corporate America.
I live in a capitalist country with, in law codified, employee protections including a minimum of paid time off. In addition to that, a strong union that keeps companies in check.
Capitalism works if the rules balance the power of the workers and the capitalist accordingly. But Freedman had other ideas and those are bad for everyone except a few rich guys.
Have a look into how those laws came to be :-)
Again, not capitalism, the economic system, but political ideologies that cause it.
The problematic thing is that the capital has the high ground in capitalism… Therefore it always tries to get those pesky rules removed by just threatening politicians through taking away jobs and industry to other countries with lesser worker rights for example.
I don’t agree ‘it has the high ground’. It is given it the high ground. Capitalism is all about high risk that can lead to high reward. If the rules are changed to low risk will always result in high reward for a few individuals, you end up in a system like this.
However, the system only works when the democratic systems are sound, and let’s be frank here, the democratic systems of the USA are nowhere near sound. The fact that, what you rightly addressed in your post, capital has more influence in politics than votes have, is a red flag.
So, don’t blame capitalism if it is your political system that is at fault. Because if you don’t fix that, no other economic system will function accordingly.