[makaio]

Perhaps the difference is that one of the founding principles of the US is that the government should be a strong defender of property rights. This is probably a good thing in the long run. On the other hand the US government does not have a history of ownership or investment in private companies. In the long run this, too, is probably a good thing as it seems that these actions tend to lead to cronyism and corruption.

The reason this system seems to be working so poorly now might be that its increasingly difficult to define just what "property" is nowadays.