Although Americans are subject to a certain perverse individualism, I think the American position can be better understood if you realize that it is not so much a disinterest in the community as a profound lack of faith in the willingness or ability of American government to serve the interests of the community, and additionally a lack of faith in the two-party-dominated electoral system to produce a candidate who display sincere interest in changing that.

In particular, it is difficult to convince Americans that contributing tax money to new social programs would actually benefit the community, when the existing programs have been administered by government officials with an utterly jaw-dropping level of fiscal irresponsibility.