Have you guys ever worked for a big company in the United States? Because I have some news for you...
Seriously though, it's interesting to hear these opinions about the sources of work inefficiency inside the EU. I'm American but lived in Italy for several years in the late 90s, and "Why is our economy so inefficient?" was a common topic of discussion at the time. Almost no one thought it was because of long meetings or too many managers; there seemed to be a consensus among the people I spoke with that the number one problem was the type of regulation mentioned above (e.g. not being able to sell books after 18h in a bookstore).
It's important to realize that lots of those regulations do actually have a purpose, which is to keep certain sectors of the economy dominated by small sole proprietorships instead of by big corporations. Again with the bookstore example, a Borders or Barnes and Noble or any other big box store chain would just give up on such a market. On the other hand, an owner/operator of a small bookstore would either find loopholes (like this owner's swap with the cafe owner across the street) or else they just grease the right palms and work around the rules. In either case, success depends on the kind of social capital big corporations will never have.
TL;DR The purpose of these "senseless" regulations is to keep shops in Europe small and charming. Inefficiency is the tradeoff.
Seriously though, it's interesting to hear these opinions about the sources of work inefficiency inside the EU. I'm American but lived in Italy for several years in the late 90s, and "Why is our economy so inefficient?" was a common topic of discussion at the time. Almost no one thought it was because of long meetings or too many managers; there seemed to be a consensus among the people I spoke with that the number one problem was the type of regulation mentioned above (e.g. not being able to sell books after 18h in a bookstore).
It's important to realize that lots of those regulations do actually have a purpose, which is to keep certain sectors of the economy dominated by small sole proprietorships instead of by big corporations. Again with the bookstore example, a Borders or Barnes and Noble or any other big box store chain would just give up on such a market. On the other hand, an owner/operator of a small bookstore would either find loopholes (like this owner's swap with the cafe owner across the street) or else they just grease the right palms and work around the rules. In either case, success depends on the kind of social capital big corporations will never have.
TL;DR The purpose of these "senseless" regulations is to keep shops in Europe small and charming. Inefficiency is the tradeoff.