One thing I notice is that not everyone shares the same vision of what, "The american dream" or the good life is. I would say that for 85 to 90% of people, the "good life" is NOT scrapping, scrounging, and fighting your way to the top, or trying to "get rich" or "leave a mark". Most people want to do as well as (or a teeny bit better than) the people in their neighborhood, have a happy family, and are satisfied with the simple things. These people view the fact that they are no longer scrapping, scraping, fighting, duking it out (like their ancestors) etc as a sign of PROGRESS. Like in the Jetsons where "in the future" people only work a few days a week. One person's "soft" is in fact another persons, "high quality of life". These people value a stable society and a rising standard of living as measured across a broad range of metrics. They believe (or believed) they had achieved "the good life" here in America. The other group sees this viewpoint as foolish. This is the more ambitious group who is not satisfied with what satisfies 90% of the population. They love a society that is churing, fragmented, and quickly changing so that they can jump on (or occasionally create) a trend to take advantage. They do not buy into the notion of a rising standard of living that should make life easier for all. They would like to, for example, see the USA flooded with new immigrants so that wages would be lower for non-entrepreneurial people, so they can get more profit. They love the idea of outsourcing, because being clever and opportunistic, they do not need a job or value stable situations. There is really no reconciling these viewpoints.
A reconciliation happens on an individual basis. We grow older, faster, and weaker. Our humanity is brought forward by sickness, injury, or trauma. Each of us, eventually, stops identifying with the aggressor. The hunter ethos gives way.
A teacher of mine in college once told us of this study that was done that asked people which would they rather have... $70k per year net income when everyone in the town was making $80k. or $60k per year net income when everyone in the town was making $50k Most people chose the $60k.
That's probably true. Money tends to be relative. A family making $30k in the US feels poor, while the same sized family in South American (or insert Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa) would feel well to do.