Writing in the Financial Times, Philip Stephens has some interesting thoughts on the mood in Europe: "Support for the market economy has proved resilient. Disillusioned as they are with the excesses – and enraged as they should be by the larceny of some bankers – Europeans have not been clamouring for command-and-control capitalism....Much as the global crisis has severely damaged confidence in the invisible hand of the market, voters do not want to see it replaced by the clunking fist of an over-mighty state. I detect precious little appetite across Europe for higher taxes....Beating up on capitalism may satisfy old ideological prejudices but it does not answer the demands of voters for prosperity and fairness."
The word "fairness" can mean different things to different people at different times. Opponents of capitalism sometimes use it to mean equality of outcome, while defenders of free markets tend to think of fairness more in terms of equality of opportunity. If Europeans are more openly skeptical of an "over-mighty state" than Americans seem to be at the moment, it may be because the Europeans have had more recent experience with the failures of socialism and communism, or because, at the start of the crisis, Europe was already farther along the path to an "over-mighty state" than America was.