Circa 1970 Issac Asimov wrote an essay that started with a personal anecdote about how amazed he was that he could get a thyroidectomy for his Graves Disease for about what he made writing one essay -- regardless of how good or bad it really is today, you're not going to see people express that kind of wonder and gratitude about it today.
This discussion circles around it
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074389
but I think the real working class stance is that you want protection from economic shocks more than "participation", "ownership", "a seat at the table", "upside", etc. This might be a selfish and even antisocial thing to ask for over 80 years near the start of the second millennium, but I think it would sell if it was on offer. It's not on offer very much because it's expensive.
One could make the case that what we really need is downward mobility. Like what would have happened if Epstein had been shot down the first time or if Larry Summers had "failed down" instead of "failing up?" My experience is that most legacy admissions are just fine but some of them can't test their way out of a paper bag and that's why we need a test requirement.
Got it in one. Would I like to travel First Class and stay in fancy hotels? Sure, but I’d much rather have a house that I can improve to meet my needs instead. Would I like a fancy luxury car with all the trimmings over my sixteen-year-old Honda? Absolutely, but the latter is paid off and gets us around just fine. Would I like that spiffy Hasselblad X2D and some lenses? You betcha, but I’d rather take a proper holiday for the first time in fifteen years instead of buying another thing.
The problem is that society at present isn’t organized to prioritize necessities like shelter and healthcare, favoring wealth extraction and exploitation instead. Workers don’t want megayachts and hypercars and butlers, we just want to live more than we work.
It can mean moving within a class.
Surely most people want to better their station. To argue against that is insane and counter to every observable fact about human nature.
Many things changed around that specific time, and I think it does deserve scrutiny. Implied cultural factors seem to be merely correlates of greater historical tide, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system#Nixon_sho...
My take here is a monetarist.
Understanding the interconnectedness of systems beyond your own realm of expertise is how you learn what needs to be done to fix issues - and avoid falling for snake oil “silver bullets”/“one weird trick” populist positions.
Naturally, unmentioned are those shut out of reasonable opportunities for meaningful productivity, regardless of technical potential (but largely in line with (lack of) social capital). A few years of this maybe encourages an entrepreneurial spirit. Two decades is quite convincing that there's no place for them in the current order.
The upwardly-mobile opportunity hoarders need to understand, much as the wealth hoarders ought to, that the whole thing falls apart without buy-in from the "losers".
Tang ping bai lan.