Thursday, April 17, 2012
Zurich
America Redux

I return to Zurich to pick up those items dropped at my friend Max's here, and to another cross-cultural discussion: it is prompted by my observation that in Austria when I withdrew funds from an automatic teller machine, no receipt was given.

"Well, Marta" my friend tells me, this is one of those things that Americans insist on that demonstrate the American unwillingness to consider equally valid another way of doing things, to think that 'If it is not done the American way, it is the wrong way.' The bank cannot calculate the exchange rate", he continues, "and debit your account on the day of the transaction instantaneously--"

"Wait a minute--", I reply hotly. "If I have an account in Austria denominated in Euros, how am I to verify that the bank has correctly debited my account? What proof do I have in the event of a discrepancy between my balance and the balance the bank says I have? In Switzerland, if you have an account denominated in Swiss Francs, don't you get a receipt indicating the amount after withdrawal?"

"It's true, in Switzerland, the bank gives you a receipt under those circumstances. However, in much of Europe, that is not the case."

"So the Swiss want that clarify, too--"

"Marta--" he says, rolling out the syllables of my name reproachfully, "This is why many transactions between the French and the Germans --or the Americans-- founder, because of this lack of willingness to see the situation from another point of view."

"I am offended" I say, much to his shock. "Americans want to know how a plan works out practically, it is not enough to know how it works out theoretically. "

This reminds me of the joke about the Frenchman presented with a plan to put implement something planned in theory --'OK, it works in practice' says the Frenchman, 'but how will it work in theory?' I start to tell the joke, but Max breaks in--

"I know the joke--" Max says, in an effort to bring this line of conversation to an end.

Imperturbable, I continue my Phillipic--

"Transparency as well as the practical consequences of a theory are values Americans believe create more opportunities for more people to be able to take up a possibility in the best way for their own purposes. It seems to me that the structural reforms necessary in Europe are in part so difficult because there are organized interests that prefer to avoid transparency, because it works against their interests, which have been long entrenched and not easily brought to light."

"It is true, structural reform seems unlikely to happen anytime soon", Max concedes, --but I am not yet done.

"--If Europe believes that the United States is too focused on the practical consequences of things and the details because they must insist on their way, wait until the Chinese are those asking the questions. The Chinese are even more given to working out the practical details of a proposal, and negotiating endlessly to their own advantage. They believe that Western culture has always been inferior to Western and that view has not changed.

I am in full sail now--

"Europeans write articles --as do Americans-- saying China has to take more of a role in solving the world's problems because it now is the #2 economy, but who says the Chinese must do so? When I ask Europeans whether they need to make any changes in their labor system or other aspects of their way of life in response to the challenge of China, everyone tells me that the China will implode. That is the sentiment I have heard all over Europe these weeks. It is what everyone I talk to wants to believe, but I cannot say whether that will be the case--"

"--I cannot judge, because I think that China is not transparent, so it is almost impossible for someone who does not speak fluent Chinese and living there to tell" Max observes modestly. --He spent years travelling to China and the rest of Asia as a banker and knows the country better than most of us.

"I agree with you, Max, but I find it ridiculous that Europe refuses to look to the threat to its institutions and the values on which they rest, that the deleveraging of the West's economy that has been underway since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 has brought about. The perception of many in the United States is that Europeans think us arrogant and unreasonable, but I do not think that you will find that you will be better treated by the Chinese. Anyway, our foreign policy now looks more towards Asia than Europe, so if Europe wants to continue to behave as if nothing has changed, and that it can continue to make of the United States the bogeyman and act independently, as before --you are welcome to your point of view--"

"I suppose it is a love-hate relationship", Max concludes wearily.