Why do Americans work so much?

A couple of different perspectives on the work/leisure tradeoff. Edward C. Prescott (2004 Nobel in Economics, Arizona State) argues in the Wall Street Journal that the answer to why americans work so much more than europeans, "is not related to cultural differences or institutional factors like unemployment benefits, but that marginal tax rates explain virtually all of [the] difference." (Why do Americans work more than Europeans?)

Alain de Botton (author of Status Anxiety) suggested a different answer in the New York Times (Workers of the World, Relax). According to De Botton: "All societies throughout history have had work right at their center; but ours - particularly America's - is the first to suggest that it could be something other than a punishment or penance. Ours is the first to imply that a sane human being would want to work even if he wasn't under financial pressure to do so. We are unique, too, in allowing our choice of work to define who we are, so that the central question we ask of new acquaintances is not where they come from or who their parents are but, rather, what it is they do - as though only this could effectively reveal what gives a human life its distinctive timbre."

(Thanks to my fellow blogger, Paul Caron, for the tip)