You can have a credit card and carry no debt on it. One way is to simply not use it. For example I have a card that I rarely use but in an emergency I could spend up to $X without tapping my bank account. This can be very handy since you can use a credit card to pay for a hospital bill, a tank of gas, or a hotel room, but you cannot use it to pay rent (typically done with a check).

The second way to do this is to take advantage of the grace period. Every purchase you make gives you a roughly 30 day period where no interest is charged. Pay off the full amount during that period and you simply use the credit card service for free. If you do this you end up ahead: typically credit cards offer benefits for using them. For example American Express gives you an extra year of warranty on most items. Lots of them give you cash back (1% or more) or "miles" or "points" you can redeem for various goods. Most cards do not have a yearly membership fee either so you end up getting everything you buy for a small discount.

It is true that some portion of Americans do "carry a balance": do not pay off their balance at the end of the grace period and must pay a finance charge proportional to the amount they did not pay off. However, this is usually not done by choice but out of necessity. I would do this too if for example I had to pay for an emergency trip to see family but did not have enough savings, etc. As long as you pay things off quickly, you are not really getting trouble in terms of losing substantial amounts of money.

But can't you just have one emergency thing on your bank account like we have in Europe? it's an overdraft authorization, it's linked to the bank account, you have only one, your card is linked to it, and it doesn't enter into the picture as long as you don't need it. But for emergencies, it's mostly the whole point of saving accounts, an umbrella for rainy days (and a downpayment for when debt will be right tool).

Moreover, I think the grace period it still a debt even if it carries no interest, it's the bank tempting people. You can still accrue it more than your account size, it's still borrowing without thinking about what the revenu the spent money will bring.

Debt is a financial tool like others (like selling capital for example), but I really think its use should be restricted to productive investments, and its overuse is a big problem. It's a useful dangerous tool, like a chainsaw, if you're not a lumberjack there is not reason to use it everyday, but it's practical if you make your own wood.

In the US overdraft is usually very high rate and carried a flat fee too. Accredit card would cost you much less.

A credit card is not automatic debt. It is a line of revolving credit. Think of it as an abstraction on top of the money you already have on your bank account. Additionally, credit cards provide additional protection, such as fraud prevention and charge backs. Yes you can misuse them but... Don't?

Edit: I guess a better way to phrase that is that a credit card is the ability to take out small short term debt in real time. And potentially pay it off for free.

Almost everything I buy is on my credit card. All my bills, all my food, gas, insurance. Everything except my mortgage payment. I make hundreds a year in rewards points, get great warranty protection on items I purchase, get automatic rental car insurance, and other benefits I can't remember now. I also get to yank my money back from unscrupulous vendors if I need to, instead of hoping they'll return my money. AMEX will go to bat for it's members.

The only thing I have to do is pay the bill in full each month. I can't imagine letting people have access directly to my bank account.

I get all that (minus rewards) from my VISA card. Without a credit line.

That's not really an option in the US. So to once and for all address your main point:

1. Yes, the US system overall is less than ideal. Banks could take initiative to simplify the system and the consumers probably should demand that they do.

2. American consumers are not somehow more stupid than people elsewhere. Introduce the same incentives elsewhere and people will follow the same pattern. The only reason other countries seem not to get into as much personal debt is mostly because loans are not as widely available and ones that are cost much more. In the US this used to be the case during the majority of the 20th century. Since relatively cheap credit became available, americans started taking advantage of it. This has nothing to do with whether they are smart or stupid.