The amount of money we collectively leave on the table is staggering.
Right if your goal is to make truckloads of money sure. Not all software professionals ascribe a great deal of value to this end. Many major advances in bringing high-end operating and distributed systems to the masses have come from "Open Source" movements. Is is that hard to imagine a more protectionist, profit-driven software industry where these technologies are shelved in favor of propping up current money makers? In effect denying cheap, high quality solutions to a generation of innovators and start up companies?
As a side note I found your call for unionization to be a flawed comparison. The organizations you've alluded to (AMA and ABA) deal in inelastic goods that enjoy popular legal protections. This is for good reason, no one wants brain surgery from an amateur, but I might give one a shot at standing up my wordpress site.
Sometimes the only way to jump over the heads of the paymasters is to do something for free.
Wrong browser window maybe? :)
To see the other side of that, you can always work as an independent consultant. You'll probably make more money if you do it well, but you'll have a lot more risk and variability in your income. Can't find a client this month? Tough luck, hope you've got savings. That's what you're giving up money for protection from.
There's also usually a bunch of other stuff provided, which may include sales, advertising, market analysis, customer relations, infrastructure management, etc.