the best summation of the Economist's editorial viewpoint is that it's aimed at rich businessmen, & consequently combines tacit support for economic inequality w/ choice morsels of liberalism - viz. healthcare & gun control - in order to differentiate itself from "unsophisticated" paleoconservatives
I think it's a bit cynical to read it that way: there's good reason to be anti-inequality but also skeptical of naive wealth redistribution as the solution to it.
What we are left with is the European social-democratic welfare state, which seems to work well enough if you have a base of natural resources to work from. I notice the Economiat generally isn't too critical of most European tax rates (a typical cry of rich businessmen) but rather is critical of countries that have widespread and systematic structural barriers to economic freedom - the UK, pre-Thatcher, and modern France, for example.
France represents a fun eternal potshot game: they keep claiming doom yet France keeps chugging along with its massive civil service, huge employment regs, and longest vacations on Earth...
"naive wealth redistribution" seems to be a bit of a strawman to me. re: European tax rates, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the Economist as supporting the current economic status quo. besides, while Europe does have a much stronger safety net, it's almost as unequal as the US - it's not like the well-off are any less hegemonic there.
So you have a point that the status quo isn't actually all that great except in the one country that The Economist always yells at.... France and Belgium. Though the Scandinavian countries also seem to do well (lots of natural resources help).
