I wonder if that has anything to do with Europe's lower violent crime rate.
Honestly, I think it is because of greater income equality - which is the result of wealth redistribution. Those things, in my opinion, are also a result of the high-density of the population. Cities are more socialist than the country-side. This plays true in the political persuasion of Europeans as well. For me the problem is not the socialism per se, but rather that socialism destroy freedom. The saying that a government large enough to give you everything is large enough to take it all away is true. Europeans have repeatedly fallen victim to dictatorships. Socialism breeds dependency and dependency eventually becomes slavery of one sort or another.