I recently attended Kilkenomics in Kilkenny, where comedians and economists share the stage. It’s entertaining and sharp, and because I’m American I sat on a couple of panels about the United States. Early on the jokes about US health care, poverty, guns, and politics felt like friendly ribbing. By the end they felt less like humor and more like a political stance: Europe pointing at America to avoid wrestling with its own hard problems.
There are good reasons for European frustration with recent US policy moves — aid cuts, tariff threats, a softer posture toward Russia from some quarters, and tougher migration rhetoric. Those are serious and deserve scrutiny. But too often the reflex is to score moral points with a litany of American failings: “Americans don’t have health care,” “there’s no social safety net,” “American politics is captured by plutocrats,” “people are uneducated,” “there are too many guns.” Many of these claims are exaggerated or outdated, and even if they were all true, invoking them does nothing to solve Europe’s strategic and structural problems.
At a basic level, Europe and the United States are more alike than many debates allow. Both are capitalist economies with significant taxes, social spending, and extensive public services. The idea that the US is an outlier of laissez-faire neglect misses important changes: over recent decades the United States expanded Medicaid, enacted the Affordable Care Act, strengthened tax credits and safety-net programs, and increased tax progressivity in various ways. On many measures of redistribution and business environment the US sits closer to parts of Europe than caricatures suggest. Much of the difference between continental models comes from history and policy path-dependence rather than irreconcilable philosophies.
That makes the “Eurocope” — consoling national failings by declaring America worse off — counterproductive. First, Europe and the United States are strategic partners. American weakness is not a comfort; it is a security risk. Second, comparisons don’t reform your permitting laws or cut industrial electricity prices. Third, they distract political energy away from urgent, difficult reforms.
Europe faces several interacting challenges that mockery won’t fix. Growth and productivity have slowed in many countries; demographic change is putting pressure on public finances; and geopolitical threats, especially from a revanchist Russia, demand coordinated defense efforts. Energy costs across much of Europe remain far higher than in the United States or China, eroding industrial competitiveness. The energy transition is making only incremental progress because of fragmented permitting, high taxes on energy, slow grid interconnection, and inconsistent national priorities. Meanwhile, China’s rapid industrial rise has shifted global supply chains and market share in autos, batteries, solar and chemicals, exposing weaknesses in Europe’s industrial base. Instead of building domestic capacity, Europe imports many green technologies from abroad.
Bashing America won’t build an electric-vehicle supply chain, create battery gigafactories, speed grid upgrades, or modernize defense. These are political and technical tasks that require changes in regulation, public investment, and industrial strategy. If Europe is serious about competitiveness and security it needs to stop scoring rhetorical points and start making hard choices.
That said, Europe should not simply mimic everything about the US. The right approach is pragmatic: borrow what works and adapt it to European social and political norms. Practical policy shifts that could make a material difference include streamlining permitting for factories and infrastructure; accelerating grid connection for renewable projects; reforming energy taxation to lower industrial power costs and incentivize investment; easing bottlenecks around mining and mineral processing where environmentally and socially responsible; and updating labor and corporate rules to allow firms to scale and innovate.
These moves have trade-offs. Faster build-out and looser constraints can raise inequality and temporarily increase emissions if not carefully managed. They require tough political choices and compensating policies to protect communities and the environment. But absent these trade-offs, Europe is unlikely to establish the scale industries and resilient supply chains needed for strategic autonomy and mass decarbonization.
It’s also worth noting how outdated some Eurocope claims are. Most Americans today have health insurance thanks to public programs and the ACA; out-of-pocket shares are in many cases lower than in some European countries. US social policy has expanded: tax credits, housing supports, food assistance, and health programs redistribute a sizable share of national income to lower-income households. Much of the visible inequality in the US reflects pre-tax wage disparities — a “predistribution” challenge more than a simple failure of redistribution. Education outcomes in the US show wide variation, but the country also produces world-class research, innovation, and higher education capacity. To be sure, America remains more violent, more unequal by some measures, and has weaker public transit in many cities. Those are real problems that need attention. They just aren’t the whole story.
So what should Europe do instead of reflexive comparison? A focused agenda would include:
– Speeding permitting and grid interconnection to get renewables and factories online faster.
– Reforming energy taxation and incentives to lower industrial power costs and spur private investment.
– Reducing regulatory barriers that block responsibly sited mining, refining, and factory construction.
– Coordinating defense spending and procurement to deter threats and protect supply chains.
– Investing in scaling green industries and industrial policy so Europe manufactures more critical technologies instead of importing them.
None of this is easy. It requires political leadership, social dialogue, and a willingness to make trade-offs while protecting vulnerable people and places. But it beats the cheap psychological relief of pointing at a foreign example and saying “at least we’re not that bad.”
In short: mocking America for perceived barbarisms is an easy way to avoid self-scrutiny. Many criticisms of the US are dated or overstated, and even accurate critiques do not absolve Europe from fixing its own structural weaknesses. Europe’s task is to localize successful policy lessons, marshal the political will for reform, and build the industrial and energy systems needed for prosperity and security in the 21st century. That is harder work than scoring transatlantic debating points, but it is the only way to secure a competitive, resilient future.
