Whenever I hear someone in a privileged job, such as a software engineer, complain about unions or collective bargaining or in fact any form of collectivism, I have to suppress my rage because every concession to the working class, such as weekends, safety standards, overtime pay, PTO, sick leave and so on was paid for in blood by your forebears.

The biggest changes came shortly after Henry Ford conceded the weekend when the ultra-wealthy wrecked the economy (ie the Great Depression) and FDR was elected and, despite being a capitalist, realized he needed to address the very real issues to stave off the perceived threat of Communism. That's where Social Security, the right to join a union and a bunch of other things came from. There was even an attempted coup by the wealthy to avoid all this (ie the Business Plot [1]).

After WW2, the US (in particular) saw this as an opportunity to claw back these concessions. The Soviet Union became the Great Enemy. Former Naxis were recruited to fight Communism, both inside and outside the US. NASA, the FBI, the CIA, NATO, etc all filled with former Nazis despite their "morale lapses" [2] under the Third Reich.

Domestically, we got the Red Scare and McCarthyism. This really went into overdrive in the 1980s when Baby Boomers, whose fears of crime were fuelled by intentional propaganda as well as CIA efforts such as the crack epidemic, voted for Reagan in record numbers. Reagan won 49 states in 1984 (all but Wyoming).

One of the things I respect about Mad Men is how it pointed to the rising cult around Ayn Rand in the 1960s [3]. The 1950s, that tends to be romanticizied by so many hyper-individualists and right-wingers, had a top marginal tax rate of 91% and the CEO to median pay gap hadn't exploded yet [4]. By the way, that idea that CEOs were underpaid came from the Patton studies at McKinsey in this time [5].

My point is that this hyper-individualism is entirely manufactured by decades of spending to undermine any form of collectivism. And as a privileged worker, you owe those less fortunate to you some form of solidarity.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2014/10/28/during-cold-war-cia-fbi-...

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKX8C6qKuac

[4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1na8fww/the_typical...

[5]: https://ritholtz.com/2013/08/is-mckinsey-to-blame-for-skyroc...