The mid-20th century. For many reasons, which you can emphasise as you see fit: There was massive government involvement -- the wartime economy was not very Ad

The mid-20th century. For many reasons, which you can emphasise as you see fit: There was massive government involvement -- the wartime economy was not very Adam Smith, starting with the fact that it could draft its labor. This also set the tone that a CEO's salary & benefits might be like a general's. But also many sectors were tolerated monopolies, or close, for decades. People got promoted up the ranks, rather than having bidding wars. There was high social cohesion, carefully curated for the purpose of winning big wars, and helped by almost zero immigration for 4-5 decades. There were only a few TV stations and they pushed a wholesome christian vision. The stage of technology was such that big factories could use all the semi-skilled labor they could get, and churn out products which improved everyone's standard of living. It helped that energy was cheap. And transport was expensive, so there was little foreign competition in most goods. And that the pension promises they signed in good years were mostly far from coming due.