germany had an anemic gdp growth in the last two decades, significantly worse than most countries of comparitive size (population and gdp-wise). Look at gdp growth of other big european countries, or worse USA, it is quite striking
Those ideas are extremely popular in general, and even more so in Europe, I think partly because it can reinforce anti-americanism (the US became a symbol of companies owned by shareholders instead of families, supposedly more geared toward long term).