America's agricultural industry, Ford, AT&T, IBM and all the unions that built our cities have surprisingly cooperative origin stories -- and government essentially forced Rockefellers and Carnegies to develop American "noblesse oblige."

The govt didn't position itself against huge private interests for a long time during and after the Cold War, the "freedom" to get rich being our main ideological weapon.

But so many places where you see deeply rooted communities, there were working people who chose to lift each other up. If you're talking about our history, the current individualism is unusual.