Evolving social priorities?

The current (2012) presidential campaign got me thinking about economic principles and the goals of these principles. Bill Clinton did a good job in summarizing the politically palatable aims of the Mitt Romney compared to Barack Obama: "you're on your own" compared to "we're all in this together." I would actually argue that the Obama administration has not lived up to the goal of "we're all in this together" but that has been well stated elsewhere and I see no need to reiterate.

I want to focus on the implied aims of the 2 proclamations "you're on your own" and "we're all in this together" and to take it a little further. To my mind, the "you're on your own" policy was in effect for the majority of (human) historical record and well illustrated in pre-enlightenment Europe where first persons to realize an opportunity were able to acquire maximum amount of resources and retain them through multiple generations. The "we're all in this together" policy is perhaps most apparent in the modern Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden with modest income inequality and generous social safety nets.

So to summarize:
pre- enlightenment = grab and hoard as many resources as possible
post-enlightenment = some communal sharing of resources

So the questions this brings to mind is where would further social evolution take the economies of the western world? …
Could it be (a) each to their potential; (b) each to their ability; (c) each to their happiness or (d) each to their will.

Additionally…
- How might such goal(s) be achieved?
- At what cost can they be achieved?
- What would such societies look like?


This all presupposing that climate change does not result in a retrograding of western culture.