What we are left with is the European social-democratic welfare state, which seems to work well enough if you have a base of natural resources to work from. I notice the Economiat generally isn't too critical of most European tax rates (a typical cry of rich businessmen) but rather is critical of countries that have widespread and systematic structural barriers to economic freedom - the UK, pre-Thatcher, and modern France, for example.
France represents a fun eternal potshot game: they keep claiming doom yet France keeps chugging along with its massive civil service, huge employment regs, and longest vacations on Earth...
Re: inequality http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/the-inco...
So you have a point that the status quo isn't actually all that great except in the one country that The Economist always yells at.... France and Belgium. Though the Scandinavian countries also seem to do well (lots of natural resources help).