The problem with this though is that because of the perpetual reluctance of Western governments to use fiscal policy to drive growth and pursue public works, social welfare, or job programs, they are basically left with only a single tool (monetary policy) to manage the economy.

Yes you can say it would have been better to raise interests rates much earlier in order to avoid the asset bubbles we have now, but the ultimate effect of that would have also likely have been chronic stagnation and chronic high unemployment, and an even shittier recovery than we actually got after 2008, because there was a fundamental lack of interest or inability in bourgeois states to confront these problems in any way other than cheap credit and quantitative easing.

Certainly there are strong monetary influences on the current situation but I don't think you can understand this as purely a failure of monetary policy, because monetary policy really isn't supposed to deal with all of the issues it's being used to deal with on its own.