> I think we're all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are crumbling, and no matter how "rich" the country as a whole is, if you haven't built up your own security through wealth, you're [going to be] fucked. And that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so they don't lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to spend on workers are well-positioned to take advantage of that, and they do.

I disagree. That only makes sense if you assume you (and everyone like you) are politically powerless and the rot and decay are inevitable.

There's also another option: redirect that excess effort you're expediting to hoard for the failure into fixing the system before it fails. Your personal efforts to fix it might fail, but some other group that heeded the same call might succeed, and that's all it takes.

Hoarding wealth might seem like a safer bet, but it's just as prone to failure. The kind of wealth you could accumulate through hard work might not be enough to give you the security you want, and to get more you have to take big risks anyway.