The late Jude Wanniski once observed about Spain that its headline rate of unemployment had little to do with actual unemployment. Wanniski’s point was that the 20% official rate was merely a sign of Spaniards aggressively hiding their work from tax collectors.
Wanniski’s analysis from decades ago was hard to forget while reading Michael Reid’s (former editor and writer at The Economist) new book Spain: The Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country. Early on Reid quotes French writer Theophile Gautier as observing that “The only serious thing for Spaniards is pleasure” in the same paragraph that he references “English romantic” Richard Ford as describing Spaniards as “a noble people who were held to be routinely betrayed by bad government.” What a combination! Realistically there can be no pleasure without work (relaxation is a consequence of production), and work in Spain has historically been hidden from errant governments presumably as a way of freeing up more funds for pleasure. Good for the Spaniards.
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