The essential problem

This video bloggingheads discussion (between, I should note, a clear leftist and a center rightist) essentially sums up the distinction between Europe and the United States economically.

In short, in the position I am in now, I'd rather live in Europe and enjoy my leisure. But only in America would I have been given the opportunity to get where I am now.

I know that some parts of the left try to take issue with the second part of that equation by arguing that social mobility is better in Europe. I'm sure you can engineer some metric that shows what you want on social mobility. But whatever that metric shows is of little practical relevance to me. The question is simple - would a middle eastern immigrant of my skills rather compete to get into Harvard Law School or ENA, in France? Where would you rather open a jewelry store? Where would you rather be the first in your family to go to college? The answer is America, without doubt.

Yes, there is a group of people for whom France or Europe is always the answer. People in what I guess we can call the lower middle class, who have no ambition or ability or desire to do more. I'd rather be a middle manager in a French bureaucracy than a middle manager in an American corporation. But that doesn't a good society make.