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You could ask the same question of people in Tokyo who do return wallets.
Collapsing this to a question of incentives is missing the point entirely. People who return wallets are not following incentives because the incentive is always to defect.
The Japanese literally have several words for the different gradations of these people.
Your model of high trust societies seems lacking.
I don't think it's about shame, but it's absolutely about incentives. In a society that reflects you, where everyone has had a similar upbringing to yours, probably looks somewhat like you, has gone through roughly the same events as you, you can reasonably expect your neighbor to act approximately like you.
So in that kind of society, the incentive to be the kind of person who returns a wallet is that you get to live in a society that would likely return your wallet too.
If your society is not just atomized, but also doesn't reflect you, the link between the action and the incentive is harder to see, and by that token becomes less strong.
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I would argue that they absolutely are following incentives. The close-knit and shame-based culture in which having a reputation as a good person is necessary to do well in life simply changes the incentive landscape to promote pro-social behavior. If I can lose face and thus lose out on opportunities that would otherwise come your way if you were doing the right thing.
Now the part you quoted I was actually talking about American society in which everyone is highly mobile and atomized and in which you aren’t shamed for being anti-social. In America, even if someone found out you keep the wallet, you don’t face the prospect of having that information follow you around. You don’t develop a reputation because you aren’t likely to stay in the same place and do the same job around the same people. And honestly the fact the the Japanese have so many words for people who do bad things kinda supports my idea here. Social shaming works to promote pro-social be happy especially when a person is rooted in a community long enough to develop a reputation.
You are missing out on the fact that nobody will know if you don't return the wallet in Japan. Japan is even more urbanized than the US (90%+). Most people live in huge cities where they are just as atomized as any rich low trust society. That's why old people die in their apartments and are not discovered until the stink of their decomposing bodies makes them known.
As for NEETs, until 2004 the US had higher prime age labor force participation rate than Japan. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?locations=JP-US
I guess Japan invented social shaming for NEETs 20 years ago?
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