IT'S NOT THE DECLINE, BUT THE NOT CARING THAT MATTERS:

Love of Leisure, and Europe's Reasons (KATRIN BENNHOLD, 7/29/04, International Herald Tribune)

This image of a casual Western European work ethic tends to be viewed with just short of scorn by the world's other wealthy economies. As Europeans like the Ditlevs happily continue to trade income for a slice of leisure time that would be unthinkable in the United States or Asia, the gloomy headlines about Europe's economic future multiply.

Europe, the standard criticism goes, has not matched the American expansion for most of the last decade and has even fallen behind Japan in recent quarters. Its citizens are on average almost 30 percent poorer than their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 countries committed to democracy and the market economy. Potential growth in the next decade risks being stuck at 2 percent - one percentage point below that of the United States.

Is Europe, with the shortest workweeks and longest holidays in the world, doomed to lag behind, a victim of its penchant for more leisure and a too generous welfare state?

One response: If the answer is yes, then so what?