Labor: Work Ethic -- In Spades Feeling rushed?

Kiichi Miyazawa was playing to the hometown crowd when he told the Japanese parliament last week that American workers are lazy, greedy and lack a work ethic. Insulting as the Prime Minister's comments were, they were not the worst thing that Japanese politicians have said about Americans in the past few weeks. No wonder Americans are wounded. It isn't just that the Japanese view of U.S. workers is degrading, it's that it is wrong -- and woefully out of date.

There are two kinds of U.S. workers: the ones the Japanese imagine and the ones Americans see around them, putting in...