A commentary by Hamburg economics professor Thomas Straubhaar claiming Obama's fiscal strategy is too European for America has provoked heated reactions from SPIEGEL ONLINE readers in the US.

"Either the US follows the American Way -- an approach characterized by a shared history, economic success and constant progress -- or the US will have to adjust itself to the 'European' way, sparking economic and social tensions in the process," wrote Straubhaar in the opinion piece. "If the US manages to revert to its former ways, there is potential for hope. If not, the American age will have really come to an end."

Readers from all sides of the political spectrum respond with passion to the piece. "This reads more like a fairytale version of American history than anything approaching reality," wrote one reader. Others were more positive. "Nice observation, Herr Professor!" said one correspondent. "I doubt if many in this country would be capable of such insight concerning Germany's economic situation, or any European country's for that matter."

Below is a selection of observations and comments sent to SPIEGEL ONLINE in response to the article.

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Dear Spiegel Online,

The understanding and characterization of what has constituted the American way to success is much too limited and primitive here -- the progressive era, any reading of John Dewey's liberalism, the real steps taken in the late 19th and 20th century to ameliorate the ravages of industrial capitalism on workers and communities is completely absent. This reads more like a fairytale version of American history than anything approaching reality.

What led to the financial and economic crisis was not government largesse in terms of public investments as with the Obama administration's stimulus -- you see the condition of its public services, these took decades to deteriorate! What led to the crisis was largely private but also public institutions throwing caution to the wind and allowing extremely high levels of debt-leveraging built on the faulty assumption that prices could only go up -- a kind of deadly serious music chairs. Not so much cheap money but money with no questions asked -- that had to come due eventually.

What catapulted America to the top in the past century was hardly economic individualism! Personal responsibility and self-determination are virtues that many cultures revere and no doubt assist in building wealth, but America's prosperity was built by great corporations with legions of productive workers, often unionized, and heavy capital investment, with an interventionist state that invested heavily in education and infrastructure -- before others.

This narrative, with its mythologizing of the uniquely anti-collectivist "American Way," accepts much too easily the partly inherited but assiduously manufactured anti-tax, anti-regulation and radical individualist culture that is in large part responsible for the fact that the US now resembles parts of the Third World. Thank you for giving succor to those so-called conservatives who would continue to "starve the beast" of state and condemn the country to an inferior status.

--Fabian Biancardi, Temecula, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Wanted to congratulate you on your article. You more clearly articulated what it means (or did mean) to be an American than any of the American journalists of late. I think your diagnosis of our problems is spot on. We have forgotten what personal responsibility and freedoms means. Too many, out of sheer laziness, want to sit back and let the government take care of them. It goes completely against what this country was founded on. I look at the USA as the "grand experiment" bringing together all nationalities and ethnicities in the celebration of freedom and personal opportunity. Obama's administration and the left in this country believe in a much more socialist, big government philosophy. In Obama's case, it is completely in keeping with his upbringing and ideology which the voters unfortunately paid little attention to. I agree completely with you that the answer to our dilemma, if there is a solution, is to return to the wisdom of our founding fathers focusing on individualism and excellence.

--Michael Wilmot, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Well-written commentary, artfully crafted and meant to inspire nostalgic patriotism. Unfortunately, it's as full of crap as America's corporate capitalist-owned media and politics. The author conveniently omitted the history of the last Great Depression, when a federal American government had to save capitalism from itself by spending government (taxpayer) money to put people to work, regulating banks, and otherwise acting "socialist." America today has outsourced its manufacturing and monopolized its commerce. It has created a society of great disparity between high and low incomes. It has intoxicated itself on Reagan's hallucinogenic market-knows-best cocktail. Obama's strategies are nothing more than a correction of the last eight years of Republican laissez-faire excess. Every time the Republicans take control of the government, the US needs the Dems to come back and clean up the mess.

--Kerry Gubits

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Nice observation, Herr Professor! I doubt if many in this country would be capable of such insight concerning Germany's economic situation, or any European country's for that matter.

I invite you to research the possibility that the problematic high unemployment rate in the US may actually be incentivized by the extension of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 99 weeks -- almost two full years. This move seems to be an example of the kind of European answer the current US administration is apt to seek, and in keeping with the observation you have made in your article: America has indeed become too European.

--Jefferson Arnold, USA

'The John Wayne Image of the Lone Frontiersman Is Just an Image'

Dear Spiegel Online,

Thank you for Mr. Straubhaar's observation that traditional US economic and social principles are threatened by the Obama administration's increasing centralization of our economy. The enormous deficit spending of the past year is not what the great majority of Americans expected or wanted, and the Democrats will be forced out of office. If we had a parliamentary system, we would have a new prime minister in January. As it is, under the US Constitution, we must wait two more years to find new leadership for the White House. Unless the Earth moves into a new orbit, we will correct our recent mistake. Do not believe that the United States will not recover and continue to provide our strength to the world's economy.

--Alan Reed, Albuquerque, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Perhaps the author should consider the tremendous growth of the American economy in the nearly half-century marked by the progressive social policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and subsequent presidents. Dr. Straubhaar seems to be basing his observations on a theoretical America found in the halls of university free market economic departments. A belief in self-determination and self-reliance as a distinctly American quality is a myth that has been promulgated by conservative elements in the business community since the days of the robber barons of the late 1800s. This is known in modern terms as "American Exceptionalism" and is nothing more than license for deregulation on the homefront and a primary component of robust nationalism when practiced beyond our borders.

I live in a country that needs far fewer lectures about self-reliance and government de-regulation, and better public policy about constraining the expanding costs of health services, education, and military contractors that fill the coffers of private businesses. It is those businesses that are refusing to put their bloated reserves to work. Private money may have to go to work before the American myth punches in to the time clock.

--Todd Eastman, Bellingham , USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Prof. Straubhaar's essay might be on target if his assumptions were true. Unfortunately -- for him at least -- they are not. The John Wayne image of the lone frontiersman is just an image. Much of America was built with the cooperative labor of groups of people, not individuals. Barn-raising would be the classic example. No town was built by one person; no city; no state. The Constitution was constructed by a committee who had to cooperate to get anything done. Cutting taxes and letting people beg on the streets is not a solution. Whether it is federal, state, or local government, or just people getting together, it will be cooperative action and mutual support that restores America's well-being.

--Roland Wilhelmy, Rancho Santa Fe, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Obama tried to portray himself as a moderate when he ran for the presidency, but as soon as he was elected, he showed his true political inclinations which are radically liberal. He has attempted to drag an unwilling American public toward his dream of a socialist utopia, at the same time that many European countries are shifting away from the ruinous social liberal policies of the past, which have been proven time and again that they do not work. It has become obvious that there is no such thing in economics as a "free lunch," but sadly, Obama has not awakened to that reality.

--Claude Lumpkin, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

America could benefit from following the European model. What is good for the country, as opposed to the corporation? Government spending in anticipation of World War II pulled the US out of the Great Depression. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe. Interstate highways built for national defense stimulated the flow of goods, the Moon Race stimulated research and development. The Internet is a product of government spending. Keynesian thought (from a European) has prevented another Great Depression.

--Leonard Ross, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Thomas Straubhaar argues that the US economic crisis and now sluggish recovery and high unemployment was "caused by a policy of cheap money". Furthermore, he argues that if only we returned to the old-fashioned values of self-reliance we could more rapidly emerge from this slump. He is misguided on two accounts. First, our crisis was not caused by cheap money, it was caused by outright greed and a failure of regulatory oversight that led to the victimization of millions of people through what amounts to a Ponzi scheme of gargantuan proportions. An enormous bubble of fake value was created and it has now imploded. Second, Americans have never given up on the values of self reliance. The only way we can emerge from this crisis is to grow our way out of it through hard work and common sacrifice. Lessons we imparted to Strauhaar's countrymen a generation ago.

--Bruce Wentworth, Northborough, USA

'Attempting to Remake Ourselves into Europe Would Be a Disaster'

Dear Spiegel Online,

"Too European"?! Unfortunately not. A wildly inefficient medical system, declining schools, child-care bills that will bankrupt you and 30 years of stagnating wages -- these are our own unique burden. "Small government" in this piece does not refer to townhall democracy but rather an austerity program, and Mr. Straubhaar seems to be proposing not a return to American values but rather those of the Confederacy -- as Franklin Roosevelt once commented, "wage slavery is still slavery."

For a German scholar, basking in the comfort of progressive taxation and the crime-less comfort of a socially just economic policy, to make these kind of propositions would be insulting if it were not so absurd.

--Jeremiah Day

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Excellent article. I couldn't agree more.

As an American who has lived several years in Germany, I am at first amused by Americans that think that we should "do as the Europeans do." America is not Europe, and attempting to remake ourselves into Europe would be a disaster.

I fear that Obama is incapable of resetting his world view to become the champion of what works in the US. So the largest question that I have is: Who is our next Ronald Reagan? He cannot come soon enough!

--Matthew Wanner, Katy, Texas, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

The good professor was correct in advising that America would be better off in returning to "American values" of self-reliance and personal responsibility. However he painted a very misleading picture. America has long ago strayed from those values and has had an elaborate safety net for some time now. We have so many social programs for "the needy," it is breaking state and federal budgets. Our entitlement programs have grown faster than anything else and our population is "greying," just like in Europe. Our politicians keep promising a free ride to everyone and win because of their generosity with money we don't have! Obama should have listened to Merkel -- she has more sense than he does!

--Millie Pahl, Olney MD, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Herr Straubhaar misses the point entirely: The cause for the financial crisis is deregulation as well as the unbridled siphoning of capital from society. If everybody is broke except a few, the economy tanks. Big money runs the media and thus people are misinformed, and therefore people get screwed. Maybe this is the "American way," but FDR's New Deal fixed a lot of this theft by corporate interests. Under Reagan, the process began of breaking down government control of business and industry. Deregulation is not the solution, but the problem -- in the US as well as everywhere else.

--Peter Ketels, Boulder , USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

I have to congratulate Professor Thomas Straubhaar for his excellent article. It has become too routine to have ignorance on this subject prevail in the European media, doing a disservice to the overall inter-continental relationship. Americans perform better in a less restrictive government environment. The present drive by the Obama administration to have the government take more control of American life had a very negative effect and stymied individual and business activities. Fairness doctrine is not the answer if it prevents new job creation by taking away the incentive to excel, having the government set the rules and negating this important characteristic for success. Things must change, it will be demanded by necessity.

--Werner Wollf, USA

'Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor'

Dear Spiegel Online

What is the philosophical basis of the argument proposed by this writer? Is it that we Americans should continue to resort to an economic system based on the survival of the fittest as happens in the animal kingdom? His recommendation will accelerate the disorder of the human psyche and lead to a continued decline in civilized society. Why did the writer choose to ignore statistics that reflect on other aspects of the quality of life in America? For example, divorce, drug addiction, violent crime, and mental illness? All economics should have a sound and rational philosophical basis. This writer's economics does not.

--Jorge Villamil, Coral Gables, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

Excellent article. This was a very quick explanation of the American mindset, history, and values. It weaved a nice balance between being succinct and not oversimplifying complicated issues. I am recommending it to my friends in Europe.

--Andrew Hodny, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

The reasoning in the article is flawed because the author has begun with inaccurate premises. He has mistaken the myths and fairy tales with which Americans console themselves, with the truth. The notion that Americans are individualistic or that they especially value freedom is a comforting delusion. They, like most people, place comfort above freedom and prefer not standing out from the group, to individualism. The conditions of industrial society impose the same constraints on all of us, regardless of race or nationality.

Ronald Reagan gave voice to what may be regarded as compensatory rhetoric. He was after all, an actor. He flattered us. That was his assignment, and he was good at it. Meanwhile, the truly wealthy pull all the strings. Remember this fact; America has a larger disparity in wealth and income than virtually any other First World country. Fables of freedom provide solace to the less fortunate. They hope that they too may become rich and famous, and blame their failure to live up to their own aspirations on those less fortunate than themselves.

--Don Larsen, USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

It was Bush who failed to uphold traditional American values and self-reliance when he bailed out the banks, including Goldman Sachs, which is not really a bank at all, but got the bailout money by calling itself a bank holding company. If the Republicans believed in free market forces, they would have let all of them sink. But since they didn't and they are all now raking in tons of money, it would be preposterous to tell the rest of the country to sink or swim. That would be socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

Obama is saving capitalism from itself. Without the deficits, America would now be in a deep depression, according to numerous free-market economists. That would have produced serious social unrest at a time when the world could least afford to have America sink. If it sank, both China and Europe would have sunk.

Bailing out the big auto companies was also socialism for the rich. But without it, thousands of jobs would have been lost. No, all of this was sadly necessary. To blame Obama for being "too European" would be farcical were it not so pathetic.

--Richard Cummings , NY , USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

"Small government" is by no means a "traditional American virtue". It was the government which organized and directed the settling of the West and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. State Department intercession on behalf of American companies in overseas dealings is commonplace today and no one questions it. In the 19th century, the Army was employed to break strikes. Abraham Lincoln's administration established the first land-grant universities, with the specific goal of promoting technical and agricultural research and education and diffusing this among the population.

The government has always been closely involved in our economy; it is just a question of whether it intervenes for the benefit of labor or capital.

--Michael N. Escobar, San Francisco , USA

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Dear Spiegel Online,

I always thought that America becoming more like Europe was what the Europeans wanted. Another case of be careful what you wish for.

--Adrienne Kendrick