"Our system is currently working as intended" implies that someone designed the system to work the way it does. What you're really arguing is that no actor is incentivized to improve things, and multiple actors are incentivized to preserve the status quo.

I'd argue that strident condemnations (ala your "our system is currently working as intended") is actually one of the features of the US political system that tends to create/preserve a subpar status quo: https://twitter.com/JohnArnoldFndtn/status/11063022464493690...

I don't believe that the US has a monopoly on greedy businesspeople or politicians, relative to other countries. But I do find myself wondering if the toxicity of our politics tends to filter out candidates with a good faith desire to serve the public. People who enjoy conflict tend to be jerks.

EDIT -- Here is some specific evidence that US elites are not uniquely rapacious:

A solid majority of Giving Pledge signatories hail from the US: https://gpcatalysis.blob.core.windows.net/gphostedcontent-pr... From the bottom of https://givingpledge.org/

While the US only has 735 of the world's 2640 billionaires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...