I think you're missing the strength of the social welfare systems created in Europe and Scandinavia. That constitutes a substantial portion of distribution to the masses beyond salaries. In the USA salaries are huge but there's little social safety net, so even though the USA is doing most of the looting, it has way more poverty. European hegemonies are used to prop up the social democracies that were created to appease workers and prevent a communist revolution. As Europeans lose their social welfare, the only thing that's going to prevent a communist revolution is convincing the workers to fight another world war against other workers.