The alternative perspective on that is that "Main Street" got to collect its interest payments from the local Savings & Loan or from US Government Savings Bonds while Wall Street did whatever fancy stuff it did with exotic investments like equities--which were mostly gated by expensive full-service brokers and other financial people.

This is true. It does align risks much better in the sense that US unions have always been far more antagonist, hyberbolic, and aggressive than their foreign counterparts, which lead to severe impairment/destruction once the protected industries they existed in were exposed to foreign competition. The most powerful unions now, of course, are the public sector unions, which have a similarly deleterious effect but are immune to competition, direct and indirect.