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.

The US Founders are famous for being the harshest realists about human nature, and designing incentive structures that account for it. 

But even they all agreed on the crucial role of virtue!