It feels like promotion of virtue is a valuable social function and neither bigcorps nor government are incentivized or interested in doing it in the US?

Possibly explains the popularity of "12 rules for life" etc. Also I feel like it's an underappreciated theme in @balajis.eth's writings on network states.

Yes. Virtue is good because it’s decentralized self-control. The more virtuous the society, the more self-disciplined, the less need for centralized law enforcement, rules, and punishment in general.

Virtue is why we can have nice things.

Could you have a culture or social order that is not virtuous, but the rules and laws are still largely internalized and therefore have small government?

I feel like religions perform this function