Most of Europe has been playing this game for
centuries.
Almost everything people consider typically European, from food, culture to social-economic policies, has mostly been imported and adopted from countries and cultures outside of Europe.
It's this openness to change, this constant iteration instead of desperately holding on to the "one true way" (something typical not only for cultures that rise and fall, but also something that seems to be hindering the US when it comes to implementing necessary change) is the essence of the enduring wealth of Western-Europe.
There is no one European way, just constant evolution until a new successful road is found.
The riots in the streets and social unrest, which are nothing new or unusual in Europe, are a part of that process, not a sign of deterioration.
(And unemployment figures are hard to compare when what is considered employment in the US is considered exploitation of people below the poverty line in Europe...)
The economic policies of "a decade or two" are nothing. A blip. European countries can completely tilt social-economic policy within a generation because none of it is tied to their fundamental identities. You visit some European countries now you would find it hard to believe they were strictly communist less than a generation ago.
Whatever traditions European nations have, they go much deeper than the favorite social-economic policy du jour. It's something Americans seem to find very difficult to separate.
The US has tied it's identity to fundamental social-economic values and ideologies. For European nations, social-economic policy is a changeable as the weather.