Perhaps by then it was already too late to organize. But in any case, this individualist ideology produced a trap, which one might call the “individualism trap” or perhaps the “liberty trap”. They were prevented from acting in their own interests by their view of individual liberty, by their view that it was in their interest to retain that liberty of action which trades union commitments would abridge. In Europe, professional workers often do belong to unions which bargain collectively on their behalf, but in the US rarely. Jill Fraser writes about the consequences in her White-collar sweatshop: the deterioration of work and its rewards in corporate America (Norton, 2001), a book which I recommend.