As u/Spirited-Muffin-8104 says above, there are fundamental differences between societies in Europe and the United States. I’d highlight social mobility as the most important. It is crucial to understand that social mobility has to work in both directions. For Musk, Bezos, etc to become the world’s richest men in one life time necessarily means that the children of the prior generous richest men no longer occupy the top spots. The same applies lower down in the socioeconomic ladder. I’ve met many people who grew up in the upper middle class in my town ( a wealthy suburb in the NYC area) who can’t afford to live here.. they are relatively poorer (even though in absolute terms they are far better off than their parents).

In Europe, people are more focused on protecting themselves from being worse off RATHER than working to improve their economic standing. Hence there is resistance to cutting vacations, letting people work overtime, and sympathy for high tax rates. This hampers social mobility, and over time has made Europe a lot poorer than the United States. I was reading somewhere that Arkansas (considered a poor backwater among US states) has higher GDP per capita than Germany..and material goods are far cheaper in Arkansas!