Wired

Quote:

“Back in the 1920s in the United States, we had pretty naked capitalism. Workers were expected to get paid whatever they could get,” he says. “But then the Soviet Union came on the scene, and suggested that workers should get paid more.”

He says that during the original “Red Scare” in the 20′s, corporations — fearing a large scale shift to communism in the U.S. — voluntarily began paying higher wages and implementing more social programs, such as pensions. But a few decades later, economic competition forced Russia to allow more free trade and democracy.

But the biggest driver? War.