Right, I'm hardly a shill for crony vulture capitalism, where the motto is "dog eat dog, even if he's not hungry". Extreme individualism is a disease of its own.
I suppose, that with most ideologies - it works so long as the people are in the same mindset. I would likely find myself distancing from such a mentality (and I have a Filipino friend who moved to Canada for that reason), but then again - I'm a product of my culture.
No, not really - I moved to Israel 10 years ago from the Netherlands, which is still a Western culture, even if on the surface it seems to be different. So no, I've always lived in the West one way or the other, though I've been exposed to foreign cultures (Soviet parents and all that) vicariously.
You half-Thai daughter is probably an example of culture shaping perspective, like you said. Anyway, it seems that you've really found your place and this was an interesting insight! I might go around to read your other posts too, then :) Cheers!