The specific number of 42% sounds like you're talking about taxes, but it's the second-to-maximum marginal tax rate, not the effective tax rate (which is below 30% for the vast majority of people). If you include social contributions, you can go above 50% - but those are things which benefit yourself quite directly, most notably health insurance. Which gives you the benefit of not being one medical emergency away from bankruptcy as so many people are in the USA.