Keep in mind that the Wild West of North America was a period of social and technological flux. It was not the location, but the inherent conflict of societies which created it.

Without going into why or the morality of things, there were three dominant cultures playing for control and dozens of sub-cultires and factions. In addition, slavery, both African and Asian, was a major influence exploited by almost everyone.

It was inherently unstable. European settlers, sold a dream of cheap land from a place where land ownership was night impossible to achieve, and poor Americans who were forced West by bankruptcy and poverty, the native population struggling to stand against the tide, and would-be dons who had invaded in the previous generation and claimed ownership of vast tracts of land also claimed by the native peoples vied for control, with corruption of what government that existed being the norm.

This happened several times in Imperial China. The era of the various Khans and the Manchurian Warlords come to mind. It was going on in India when Europe invaded, with the Moghuls a fading power surrounded by ethnic and religious expansions, and in Europe at least a dozen times since the fall of Rome.

The Wild West is not unique to a specific geography, it is a period of radical transition in a time and place where cultures clash and governments are incapable of exerting control through force. It is always unstable, but within a generation the winner emerges, and then it sucks to be on the losing side.

Good news: in the subsequent generations it happens again, and sometimes new victors emerge. Then it sucks to have been the children of the previous victor.