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In a world where shifting economic forces are redrawing the global balance of power, the trajectories of the United States and the European Union over the coming decade (2025-2035) seem destined to diverge ever more sharply.

By 2023, US GDP per capita had climbed to $82,770, exactly double the EU's $41,420.

America's lead rested on average annual real GDP growth of 2.2% between 2010 and 2023; productivity gains of roughly 14%, and research-and-development spending equal to 3.4% of GDP. Add to that a remarkably flexible labor market, modest demographic growth (0.5% per year) and, since 2019, energy self-sufficiency.

The EU tells a different story: average annual real GDP growth of barely 1.3%, a mere 7% rise in hourly productivity, a working-age population that shrinks by about one million a year, and an energy-dependence rate still hovering around 58%.

"Ah, but...." retort the socialists of every political hue — and in Europe they exist in every political party — "you cite average income, not median income." Median income, the point at which 50% earn less and 50% earn more, is indeed lower than the mean in the United States. Inequality is more pronounced in the US than in Europe. Yet their reply, presented as though it settled the debate, is itself part of Europe's predicament.

In Europe, inequality is generally treated as an evil, a moral abomination; therefore material equality, even if it means, as in the former Soviet Union, that no one (except senior party members) has anything, is elevated to the status of an ideal good.

At 17, as first-year law student, I had the opportunity to interview André Molitor, former chief of staff to King Baudouin of Belgium. Molitor, a gracious left-wing Catholic, confided that the single thing he truly despised was inequality; his dream was for "fewer rich and fewer poor."

True material equality is a myth. The "real equality" championed by communists and socialists of every stripe has simply never existed. Hand every European €100,000 today, and by tomorrow there would already be a handful of tycoons — perhaps even an Elon Musk or two — alongside those who squandered everything, with the vast majority scattered somewhere in between.

Equality, as a moral value, has served largely as a pretext for socialism -- take from Peter and give to Paul -- all while funding a sprawling, parasitic apparatus of "redistribution" that provides little opportunity or incentive to succeed or to keep what one has earned.

Europe's elevation of material equality may well be its most disastrous bequest to itself. With ironclad consistency, the continent advances toward greater equality — in increasing misery and squalor.

The baseline projection for 2035 at current growth rates shows that if current trajectories persist — 2% annual growth in the United States versus 1% in Europe — the average American income will exceed $100,000 by 2035, while Europe's will remain around $50,000. Carriage drivers in New York's Central Park or dog-walkers in Beverly Hills will soon earn more than French physicians and German engineers — not metaphorically, but in cold cash. Even taking into account the differences in inflation and purchasing power between Europe and the US — the cost of living is lower in Europe — the transatlantic gap is immense and growing.

Under alternative scenarios — a European technological renaissance, or conversely a severe geopolitical shock for the United States, the ratio rarely falls below 2:1. America's productivity growth, energy production and R&D investment remain decisive.

Plainly stated: absent a political sea-change, Europe is on a path of swift decline, notwithstanding genuine strengths such as longer life expectancy. Per-capita GDP — imperfect yet inescapable — crystallizes a transatlantic chasm. Europe is becoming to the USA what Greece was to Rome: a charming open-air museum.

Is it inevitable?

Hauling Europe out of the mire of socialism, in all its guises, would demand two transformations so radical they verge on the unimaginable.

1. Re-creating dynamic capital

There can be no "capitalism" without capital — without venture capital funds and mega investment rounds. When NVIDIA, TSMC and others invest hundreds of billions of dollars, those funds must first have been accumulated without being confiscated by the state at every turn, and their investors must believe that their pooled investment will at some point yield a worthwhile profit.

Building such pools of investment private capital in Europe would entail abandoning the doctrine of material equality. Modern technological breakthroughs require vast sums no longer available among most Europeans. European savings exist, but they flow into property, life-insurance policies or — tellingly — U.S. investment markets. A shift toward private pension schemes instead of the current system of public pensions (paid from the general government budget) would at least nudge the continent in the right direction. For situations where private pensions are not an option, there still could be a government-provided safety net.

2. Dismantling the European Green Deal

European energy already costs five times more than American energy. That single variable suffices to justify the exodus of European industry to markets with kinder energy markets, notably the United States. Measured against the self-inflicted energy crisis of Europe's "Green Deal," President Donald Trump's tariffs are just a small footnote.

Let us nevertheless remain hopeful. History is now written at breakneck speed, and almost anything remains possible. Yet to believe that Europe will become anything more than an open-air museum while it continues to entrust its future to figures such as the weary mediocrity of its current leaders — and, above all, to the ruinous, outworn ideas that animate them — is folly.

Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).