They're not suggesting Germans adopt an American-style work culture, but an American-style tolerance for risk and failure. I'm increasingly convinced that havi

They're not suggesting Germans adopt an American-style work culture, but an American-style tolerance for risk and failure. I'm increasingly convinced that having the one automatically brings in the other. The hallmark of the American attitude is that you, and only you are responsible for your own success. This means that if you're not succeeding, it's because you're not working hard enough. It leads to a "rat race" culture, where everyone works harder to be labeled as a "go-getter", but all it ends up actually doing is raising the baseline expectation for how much work you're supposed to do.