"Without those reforms Germany would be part of the European crisis. It was called "the sick man of Europe" not long ago, not without a reason." It would have

"Without those reforms Germany would be part of the European crisis. It was called "the sick man of Europe" not long ago, not without a reason." It would have been fine. Germany was labeled the sick man of Europe in the late 90s. It wasn't Hartz that gave it an economic boost, it was joining the Eurozone. Plenty of other countries have had similar reforms and not experienced any beneficial stimulus (although that doesn't stop European elites trying to ram a pseudo-Hartz down everybody's throats). "They did mostly mass production by hand while german factories are mostly automated and people there do a lot of higher-value work that requires much more knowledge than the chinese kind of manufacturing." This is simply an artefact of the Chinese being poorer while they first enacted this policy. They moved up the value chain and are now close to the top - they're building commercial airliners and designing and building phones every bit as good as an iPhone. In spite of that this education system is still pretty poor and China has not engaged in any reforms similar to Hartz.