People have lost faith that society can work for them and have observed those in power engaging in corruption and grifts. They then conclude that only a sucker plays by the rules.
There's bound to always be some number of people in that situation, but there's also plenty of ways we can do better to make society work for more of us.
My pet theory is that the #1 problem in the USA in the past few decades is wealth inequality, and if we can find ways to stop the rich extracting wealth from the poor, many of our issues will sort themselves out.
Being poor in Shanghai leads to returning to whatever bumfuck village for government benefits because you don’t have a Shanghai hukou
The other two don’t have such an issue because they have cheap and small housing options, which are effectively banned in the US due to the effect of various regressive and “seemingly progressive” housing policies
The culture that I live in here in the Czech Republic would paint your statement as pretty false. The police here are extremely laid-back and it's pretty easy to get away with petty thievery, yet crime is exceptionally low because people are not desperate enough to risk even the low chance of getting in trouble. You only take chances when you have nothing to lose and you only have nothing to lose when you have been completely excluded from society.
In addition to avoiding the risk, it just feels good to play by the rules if you think the system is reasonably just. I suspect a large fraction of people prefer to be honest and pay for the products and services they want.
