A CBS-TV morning news program reported that Americans, on average, take 10 days vacation per year, whereas Germans, French, Italians and other Europeans are up there with 25 days or near it. OK, so what?

The report suggests one interpretation: Americans cannot relax, while Europeans can. Americans are workaholics, while Europeans have a more sensible approach to work.

As usual with stories like this, CBS latched on to one guy who works close to home and spends nearly all his time at his work station, although he seems to involve his small child in what he does. This resonated with me because I, too, happen to be fond of my work, to the point that if I go on some kind of holiday or vacation, very quickly I get bored with sunbathing or sauntering about some old European city and its museums and want to get back to writing and teaching. And maybe, just maybe, the average American, whoever that might be, is more like that -- he or she actually likes doing work and doesn't crave idleness too much. Does this have to do with some malady like workaholism? I seriously doubt it.

From when a child is born in America, most parents try to learn what it is the child likes to do, what talents the child has, so the child's education falls in line with these and he or she will find the kind of work that is fulfilling, satisfying. Let's assume there is a substantial culture following this pattern of child-raising. If so, then would it be reasonable to expect grown-ups to crave going on vacation all the time? Why? If they did indeed manage to find a line of work or career that is self-satisfying, that fulfills their hopes for matching their preferences and talents, why would they look for work that gives them so much time off ?

Some would say, well, the only reason American workers do not, on average, have a good deal of vacation time is that labor unions in America are relatively weak and aren't able to bargain forcefully enough to give their members the benefits they would really like. But this begs the question -- why are labor unions so weak? Maybe it is because they cannot come to American workers with a good deal, a better one than they receive from their employers. Perhaps most American workers do not see the employer-employee relationship along adversarial dimensions.

There is in the wild a relationship between animals that's called commensalism -- benefits are reaped all around with no harm coming to either side; no one is ripping anyone else off. There is, in short, no parasitism. It might be best to start understanding the relationship between various parties in the business world along such lines, not the contorted idea propagated by Marxists who see employers as exploiters and employees as victims. That world view emerged when some business worked along those lines, yes, but even then it was exaggerated. The normal circumstances of business, meaning those not contaminated by a bunch of Marxian ideology, may well be cooperation and friendly competition, not acrimony and hostility. Indeed, if the socialist notion that people who hire us must want to exploit us, take unfair advantage of us, hadn't gained prominence over the past 200 years, it might well have turned out that employees would have formed companies, kind of like partnerships in the professional world (law, engineering, medicine), and instead of being employed by firms they would be hired as a team to perform services the way a construction company is today. The whole model of employer vs. employee would then have been bypassed and the idea of work being a chore from which one needs extended relief might have been avoided. After all, many who work, say, in the sciences, the arts, entertainment, even farming see themselves as doing what they want to do, and although taking a break now and then could be beneficial, the notion that they must get away from it all for as long as possible would seem odd. It is difficult to think of Chopin or Rembrandt or Einstein and their less famous colleagues looking at their work that way.

It seems more reasonable to see the working habits of most Americans as characterized by a kind of love of their work, thus their vacation habits shaped by this rather than some kind of conspiracy theory.