I saw a "conspiracy theory" that the only reason we saw quality of life improve in the west after ww2 and until a bit after the fall of the iron curtain is that western oligarchs feared the population would turn east and there would be red revolutions everywhere otherwise. The only way to beat the USSR was to improve quality of life in the west. Now that this threat is gone, there's no reason to keep a foot on the brake of welfare-capitalism. The population pays for the cockups (quantitative easing), while the shareholders take all the profits. This is the source of the growing economic inequality.