&gt; They are all capitalist economies<p>They&#x27;re all (as is the United States, for that matter) modern mixed economies; capitalism as a dominant economic system proper has been largely abandoned in the developed world in favor of systems which, compared to the then-dominant system named &quot;capitalism&quot; by its critics, systems with comparatively strong redistributive and central regulatory systems, and often a wide array of directly-provided State services, all reforms directed at mitigating the problems for which the critics that named &quot;capitalism&quot; were criticizing it.<p>Capitalism remains a significant ideology (particularly, surprisingly enough, among the capital-holding class and those who aspirationally associate with that class), and adherents to that ideology often misattribute the success of modern mixed economies compared to <i>other</i> alternatives to capitalism as a success of &quot;capitalism&quot;.<p>Really, the difference between the US and European Social Democracies is between fairly small variations in the details of the structure of a mixed economy -- variations which can have a big practical effect, and are worth discussing, to be sure.