Okay, I’ll bite. I don’t think this large contingency of people exists. I’m sure a lot of people would keep lost money rather than turn it in, but I’m very skeptical that there is a widespread view that this is an acceptable or justifiable action.
That said, I was mostly pointing towards what I see as an explanation for the difference in attitudes regarding wealth and poverty and how it intersects with peoples opinions of personal responsibility, which I think does have a place in that scenario, even if it's not always the primary driver.
Yeah OP is way off on his God scapegoat. People in the West are far more likely to not return a lost wallet due to the wide variance in cultural identity. Japanese people have such a shared identity which promotes a level of empathy that only Americans in small towns could hope to replicate. Call it hospitality. Religion has nothing to do with it.