Whether the US is well structured can be debated, but my point is only that even a well structured society can have poverty that cannot be eradicated in a gener

Whether the US is well structured can be debated, but my point is only that even a well structured society can have poverty that cannot be eradicated in a generation. Consider the US in 1870: per capita GDP was $3,000, so even with a totally noncorrupt and absolutely competent government, and perfect wealth inequality, the entire population would be in poverty by today's standards. Income growth takes time. As to your point: wages in Europe are lower than in the US, and there is much less funding available for startups. Europe is also not appreciably more socialist than the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_welfare_spending https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_... Almost all of the advanced economies became dramatically more socialist over the last 60 years, the US included: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long...