Don't forget that the initial response to labor price-gouging capital was to hire armed goons (like the Pinkertons) to break the strikes. The fight between capital and labor that ultimately led to something more balanced wasn't a purely voluntary economic transaction - there was plenty of violence involved on both sides.

And don't forget that a big part of why many Western countries started to invest more into welfare is because after 1917, their governments realized that the alternative could well be an armed uprising, and that they need to keep their citizens sufficiently content to prevent that - even if that means they have to force the wealthy to share more of their income.

(Note, I'm not saying that Soviets somehow achieved better results. The point is solely that the threat of a socialist/communist revolution was a significant factor in capitalist countries shifting away from unregulated capitalism and towards welfare state.)