Personally, I'd counter it was the inequality compression caused by WWII that lead to the prosperity of the 50s and 60s.
Or in other words, on the timescale of decades, the mob of capital doesn't act in its own best interests. Because individual greed overcomes sustainability.
I think it was the entire productive capacity of the remaining world being bombed to destruction was the reason the USA experienced prosperity during that period. The US dollar becoming the international reserve currency probably helped also.
Just to clarify, I'm not trying to make the claim that the US was prosperous during that period solely because I think the war created more conscientious people. But I do think part of the reason you saw that prosperity distributed better and had things like pensions was because people back then had a better sense of what the cost of NOT distributing more fairly is, along with a better sense of the importance of camaraderie. That's an admittedly romantic view of the time, but I think there's truth to it. Widespread adoption of computers has lead to huge increases in prosperity after that period, and I think part of the reason that hasn't be shared is that the generations since then are more child like and have less of a sense of responsibility.
Although obviously war is horrible and hugely detrimental on net, I think the one silver lining is that you are put into life threatening situations in which you NEED to trust the people around you. Political backstabbing, greed, brown nosing, refusal to take responsibility, laziness... these will get you and/or the people around you killed. I believe people that go through that tend to put more emphasis on creating healthy, sustainable, working organizations than their own self aggrandizement.
When people come on hard times during recessions, I don't think the dynamics are such that it makes strong people, necessarily, or that it offsets selfish impulses in the same way something deeply scaring and emotionally impactful like war can. But I do think people that come out from recessions figure out what lead to the bad times, and generally come out stronger in that they're less likely to repeat the same mistakes.
You can't serve next to folks in combat situations and look at "others" with quite the same distain as is evidenced today.