THE COLLECTIVE US
its hard to compare the two countries on a national level
It's not that difficult either. The data is there, one simply needs to know how to look for it. Putting a phrase into a google-search is necessary but not sufficient. One must know how to put the question correctly. Google does not think for us, just reacts to our thinking.
In fact, what is hard to do is compare two countries of comparative size and culture. Which means only this: We an compare the US and the EU (due to comparative sizes), but we cannot compare either the US or the EU to China on purely a size-basis.
So, suffice it to say, that we should consider ourselves lucky to be able to compare the US and the EU, because they are not only economically but also sociologically similar. Which should surprise no one, since many of our forebears came from Europe.
Historically, however, something happened that has led to the stark differentiation between the two. The US, for all its insistence on being the Pinnacle of Freedom, is no more free or less free than Europe. So, it is not in the nature of "freedom" that the differences between the two are pronounced.
It is in the fact that the EU has adopted a sense of
Social Democracy, whilst the US has remained just a
Democracy. And I do not intend, by that remark, to diminish the latter and favor the former. I am simply underlining an historical development that many (including myself) consider important.
But, I do believe this following remark characterizes today's comparison between both: Something happened after WW2 such that Europe took one road of evolution and the US took quite another - and in doing so both have diverged from one another very seriously.
MY POINT?
Both economic entities, the US and EU, remain similar in their love of freedom of speech and action. But also both are fundamentally different in character, and the reason is in the nature of a Social Democracy. Whereas in Europe the accent of importance is placed upon the "collective us", in the US it is placed upon the "individual us" ...
This distinction is important in a socioeconomic context. In Europe, the success of the nation as a whole is far more important a goal, than the success of any given individual as in the US. That is, Individual Success financially in the US seems far more laudable than the Collective Success of all.
Tell me how that statement is wrong ...