Irwin M. Stelzer, contributing writer

ENVY IS A TERRIBLE THING. Not so much because it makes those whom it afflicts unhappy, or as myth has it, turn green, but because it dulls their analytical skills. At meeting after meeting, in university seminars and in think tanks around the world, envy of America distorts discussions of what accounts for the wealth of nations.

Europeans know that America's standard of living exceeds their own by a very substantial margin. They know this not because they have pored over arcane statistics about output-per-man-hour, or investment in research and development, or other indicia on which economists rely. They know it because they have seen with their own eyes what a modest Holiday Inn at DisneyWorld offers by way of accommodation, service, and food; they know it because they see on television how Americans live, or hear it from relatives living in Florida--or even Detroit; they know it because their policymakers, many of them viscerally and violently anti-American, are always trying to devise programs that will enable their economies to match the performance of America's. When E.U. policymakers are shielded from public view in the safety of a seminar room, they concede that the American economy is the gold standard when it comes to producing the material good things of life.

This knowledge is pervasive. Young Italian men are too poor to set up their own living quarters long after American men have graduated from their starter accommodations. Germans are more frequently out of work, and for longer periods, than even the least lucky Americans. Brits snack on tiny sandwiches taken out of refrigerators that barely house a small bottle of milk and a few daily necessities, while America's housewives shop less frequently because their refrigerators are close to walk-in size. All because American working folks produce more of just about everything in any year than their European counterparts.

Ah, say Europeans, but the availability of material goods is one thing, "happiness" and "the quality of life" are something else, and very different. Start with vacations. Italians get 42 days of paid vacation every year, the French 37, the Germans 35, and the British 28. We Americans, meanwhile, take off only 14 of the 16 days to which we are entitled. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Americans also work a 49-hour-week, which adds up to 350 more hours of labor a year than the typical European worker. Woe unto the frazzled Americans.

IF ANYTHING, these figures understate the difference between Americans and Europeans. Take the British. Anyone who has ever tried to do business in Britain in August knows that the month should be counted as vacation time. Even those trying to work find so many of their colleagues on holiday that they might as well stay home or leave town themselves. Add to that the period between, say, December 15 and January 10, when many Brits down tools, pens, and copious quantities of beer and champagne, and several bank holidays. Throw in the time off now cascading on the work force from the fevered brains of New Labour policy wonks--maternity and paternity leave, sick days, and, soon Europe Day (May 9, as mandated in Part IV, Article IV-1 of the new constitution), and the official figure of 28 days becomes, at best, a lower limit.