Maybe its competition...
Maybe its christianity...
Maybe its the enlightenment and the founding fathers
Or maybe....just maybe....it was all just a big headstart from WW2; we aren't the best and should stop jerking ourselves off long enough to assess why that is.
China has a much stronger family unit I might add. But it has been a problem.
The logical end-point of a competitive system is an oligarchic monopoly. Capitalism doesn't work in the long run, its just good to get the factories running faster than they would otherwise. The Chinese and their strong family ties excelerate this. That's probably how they passed us in government innovation despite their disadvantages in the great war eras. They understood the problems of concentrated inherited wealth better.