Most Americans want to punish people when they harm the public good, but some cultures (especially former Communist countries) punish people that help the public good for some reason. There's more speculation on why that is in the comments, but as always be careful reading those.
I'm eastern european so I hope you don't mind me chipping in my opinion as a reply to you.
I just simply don't trust the 'public good', aka the government. When I'm looking at my payslip, 46% goes to the state in the form of taxes. Out of all that's left, no matter if I save or spend, at least 19% of it will go to the government again in the form of VAT. A lot more if I want to become an entrepreneur or buy something big like a house or a car.
I pay a lot in taxes. A lot of people pay a lot in taxes, yet things have always been the same. Add in the political scandals that happen pretty much on a weekly basis: money siphoning or laundering, weird law bills, election fraud etc. and it's easy to see why people are distrustful of the government.
