Rejoice, rejoice at Germany’s emphatic World Cup victory over England!
Stefan Szymanski, an economist, NS contributor and co-author of a book called Why England Lose, pointed out in the Times that the English Premier League, from which most England players are drawn, is “the child of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism”: highly priced, barely regulated, controlled by plutocrats, marketed worldwide, full of extravagantly remunerated foreigners.
The Bundesliga, on the other hand, comprises highly regulated clubs (subject to strict national rules on what they spend) owned by local fans. The players include a large proportion of home-grown products.
The World Cup match, concluded Szymanski, was a contest between “the liberal British model” and “the German model of social democracy”. Thank God our side won. The left doesn’t have much to celebrate these days.
This news commentary appears in Peter Wilby’s First Thoughts column in the current edition of the New Statesman.
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