Honestly we have a fair bit more regulation than we had in the past, and other capitalist nations don't have the problems we do. It's a lot more than just economic policy.
Mostly I think the problem is our death cult of individualism and exceptionalism. Half the country thinks everyone should either pull themselves up by their bootstraps or die.
I think it's the giganticness of the country and how that leads to a low degree of education for the average person (among other things, like safety nets). In a developing New World nation, you need individualism because that's how you settle a frontier, even if the individuals eventually become towns and states. The problem is that it's difficult to eventually coalesce that into a system that supports people the way Western European or Asian nations have. It takes loads of resources and hence loads of political will. If the Swiss single-handedly colonized North America, they wouldn't be able to replicate their system across the continent either. It takes a long time. Things are improving, though, I think! It's just a slow-moving process.
Honestly we have a fair bit more regulation than we had in the past, and other capitalist nations don't have the problems we do. It's a lot more than just economic policy.
Mostly I think the problem is our death cult of individualism and exceptionalism. Half the country thinks everyone should either pull themselves up by their bootstraps or die.