See NYC trial lawyer-thinker (you don’t always see both in one human) Eric Turkewitz’s piece Punitive Damages: Why America is Different than Europe. Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole piece:
European governments…are significantly more interventionist in the private lives of the people than here. You see that in nations that restrict free speech or grant universal health care, as two examples. Our notions of freedom are not always the same as elsewhere… Intervention [in the non-U.S.] means not only larger government with larger powers. It also means higher taxes to pay for it. So wrongdoing is handled by the government, which the people pay for.