> US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US.

I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form.

It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US. People are supposed to be pushing for more and more money and they are considered successful to the extent they can make it.

This results in good and bad things alike. Most of the other parts of the world suffer from some form of the tall poppy syndrome: if you want to be socially accepted, you aren't supposed to be deviating too much from those around you. Meaning that entrepreneurship is much smaller and also that many things are just not considered to be for sale in good taste (private prisons, expensive private schools, expensive hospitals).