"lower individual buying power" means much higher taxes and less freedom with your money.
Right now, the unemployment rate in most European countries is almost the same as it is in the US:
Higher taxes don't necessarily mean less freedom with your money; a collective good that a group largely (or even unanimously) in favor of purchasing might go unpurchased due to the free rider problem.
See Mancur Olson's "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups"
When you are taxed, that money may or may not go toward something you want to purchase (and many times, the people in the middle and upper classes are paying for programs that they will never use). That money is gone and you have that much less to spend, save, or invest.
You also don't really have a say in where it's spent.
"sharing the value of common resources through taxation and public expenditure" is a related article: http://www.feasta.org/documents/feastareview/robertson.htm
Yes, I know. I prefer to lose some of that freedom, because I believe the society I live in is better for it. I'm not someone who believes in individual freedom above all - I just think a high level of individual freedom is important.
Good data on the unemployment figures, although I believe (I may be wrong) that in the past Europe's unemployment has been worse than the US.