If you're going to attribute history to why the workforce in Europe is the way it is, then the American expectation of the peons to work all the time is because the US never got over having slave labour.

BTW that line of thinking is ridiculous. Europeans and Americans learned about feudalism the same way, from history books. No one who was around when labour laws were going into effect has first, second or third hand knowledge of feudalism, slavery or working conditions during the Industrial Revolution.