Regulation is worth only as much as its enforcement, and ... not all EU countries are up to that challenge. Just look at how lax the enforcement against Facebook is.
I wish I understood how Europe blunted the political power of large business lobbies to such a larger degree than the rest of the capitalist world. I wonder whether a key factor is the British use of crown corporations in expanding its empire and the legacy that left in the English speaking world.
In any case, I suppose GDPR is a hopeful sign, but here in NorAm it actually seems more plausible to become an oligarch first and then make one's political wishes known then than to have any kind of political impact as a middle-class citizen.
In Europe, the common man accepts more social control over his life than the American common man, likely due to the feudal history of the Old World. Looking at median purchasing power and social mobility in France / Germany / Italy, I would argue they are still serfs, modified only by a lack of knowledge of their own slavery.
If they're poor (by PPP), less mobile (it's harder to gain appreciable wealth in Europe due to insane taxes, i.e. their feudal contributions), less free, and governed by Nietzschean slave morals, how are they not serfs?
I'm gonna go with: I can choose not to work for my "owner". (you can argue if you want to be extreme that I'd have to leave Europe, but I could do that.)
Also, I get healthcare whether or not I'm employed, so that's nice.
I guess everybody is a serf to some state unless they live in anarchy - you pay your taxes for protection (military) and infrastructure in most places. In some of those places you don't even get either of those things for your tax money.
As for if the particular state I live in gives me freedom - yes, I think so. For context, I'm in Germany but not a German.
(Currently, due to being on a visa, I can't really, but:) I would be comfortable quitting my job without anything lined up if I were a permanent resident or citizen.
I feel comfortable being an atheist (which is not the case where I'm from), I'm happy speaking out, and I'm happy to have two way conversations with people who have different opinions. I do not need to toe any line to be kept safe in society or not be persecuted by the state (edit: extreme views aside)
I'd say I'm free, yes.
On to your point about being a serf to the state rather than a corporation: do you really prefer it being that way? Has the last year of unemployment, etc, not highlighted a weakness in having things so tightly coupled to having a job?
All said - I think there's probably a middle ground where things makes sense, and many "western" countries fall in there with the state providing the basics and private companies filling in the gaps in demand, the only problem is when that gap in demand is something that's basically a human right.
Gaining appreciable wealth (true social mobility) is very, very hard in Europe. The US is very successful in comparison with creating multi-millionaires out of otherwise normal or middle class folks.
I reckon part of it is that the US and other colonies were basically sandboxes where (pre-)capitalist ideas could be build from scratch and deeply enrgained in the collective mindset over time. In Europe it had to be established over a much larger population (or at least one were you have to hold back to a degree with supression) and capitalism faced much more competition and backslash from the people right from the start and resulted in more of a batchwork of different ideas.
At least anecdotally, when I talk to an average European vs US American, what e.g. their views about what restrictions for businesses are acceptable or even desirable, I get very different answers.
I'm sure that's part of it. Another hypothesis I like is that the US was populated to a significant extent by people who, when faced with problems at home, didn't stay and fight to fix them but instead preferred to leave.
In addition to migration patterns that selected implicitly for such folk, this happened internally to the US as part of the movement to colonize ever further west.
Now, there hasn't been anywhere else left to go for a while, but society hasn't really internalised this yet.
