I think Germany, while bleak, still has a lot more labor protection and unemployment benefits. While the labor protection makes it harder for new people to enter the job market - which is especially bad in the current economy - it makes people less worried about losing their jobs. The unemployment benefits make scamming less attractive, as the financial rock-bottom is quite high for now.

The only question is what will happen in the next few years if the middle class further erodes and there's no tax base to pay those unemployment benefits left.