Joanna writes: " While we might be wrong to think of the EU as a worker's paradise, it's really hard to imagine that the core EU is worse off than the U.S."
I think if one _must_ indulge in comparisons of core capitalist nations with each other , perhaps the best criterion is how they t reat the children of aliens. I believe there are third-generation Turks in Germany who are still not citizens. That would seem to place the U.S. way above Germany in its culture and politics. Migrants are treated horribly in the U.S., as in all capitalist-core nations, but not nearly as horribly as they are treated in Europe.
Carrol