Nice Dream If You Can Live It

Kick back, stressed-out Americans, and imagine a world where people "work to live, rather than live to work." A land where paid vacations, maternity leave, and access to health care, housing assistance, and continuing education aren't just perks offered by some employers but rights guaranteed by the Constitution. How nice to live in a "beacon of light in a troubled world" that "beckons us to a new age of inclusivity, diversity, quality of life, deep play, sustainability, universal human rights, the rights of nature, and peace on Earth." Imagine all the people, living for today....

O.K., the last line is John Lennon. But every-thing else is straight out of The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. The utopia in question is today's European Union, or at least the world the EU is working to build. Rifkin -- globalization guru, Wharton School lecturer, and author of best-seller The End of Work-makes a compelling case for the desirability of this vision, which he says is usurping the American Dream as a global ideal. But he is less persuasive in arguing that the European ideal is attainable.