And is life in Europe actually worse than the US as a result? Capitalism has convinced people to think that the end goal of life is creating value. Maybe that isn't the thing society should be optimizing for.
> Average Western European living standards appear much closer to those in the United States (around 85 percent for welfare versus 67 percent for income) when we take into account Europe’s longer life expectancy, addi- tional leisure time, and lower inequality.
Jones, Charles I.; Klenow, Peter J. (September 2016). "Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time". American Economic Review. *106* (9): 2426–2457. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20110236. ISSN 0002-8282. S2CID 1352951.
The EU is extremely close to entering its own Japan-like "lost decades" if nothing changes very soon.