The rate of nepotistic power succession is far higher among union bosses and politicians than among executives at competitive industries. There were 2000+ American carmakers at one time, and only one, Ford, has managed to keep substantial family ownership. The nature of free market place where the consumer has the ultimate power is such that each individual consumer can shop elsewhere if the younger generation owners fail to deliver or someone else can deliver better (there usually are, eventually). Many big name industrialist families actually did resort to political machination in the 20th century, in order to keep wealth in the family. Politics is where real coercion is.
Your characterization of what unions have done is also quite mistaken. Union attempts at low end of the labor market never worked (just look at the current attempt at unionize fruit pickers; it gets nowhere). The big "successful" unions were always in industries where workers already commanded substantial price premium over the average labor income in the society at the time: Steel workers in the mid to late 19th century, autoworkers in the early to mid 20th century, airline pilots in the mid to late 20th century. Unions used to call themselves "knights of labor" for a very good reason: they were indeed the elite workers. They were not the "foot soldiers of labor," "shield bearers of labor" or "dreg camp followers of labor." The real purpose of the union was always to maintain their own price premium by keeping other workers out of those high paying industries. Even today, the overwhelming majority of union members are government employees, and on average they make twice as much as the rest of the society before counting benefits.
"we have become a nation of the extremely rich and powerful" precisely because all the government interventions to take wealth from the poor and middle-class and give it to the rich and relatively better off, including the union members. The playing field has become less level and less fair due to precisely the same reason.
"Most American workers just want a liveable pay and benefit package, and a level playing field when it cmes to loans, investments or survuving in this competitive society."
This statement does sound similar to the elementary cognitive mistake that Karl Marx made a century and half ago. What's a "liveable pay and benefit package" changes over time; there is no limit to human desire for betterment, nor should there be. If one has no desire to improve upon his/her own circumstances, why get out of bed in the morning? It is precisely the desire and want that motivates us out of bed every day. It's not as dire as it sounds: when the Bible was written, the land of milk and honey was the limit of human imagination for well being; today, you can have that for less than $10, and cover your own kitchen floor entirely with milk and honey. The clean-up afterward costs extra. The material living conditions of even the poorest American today is far better than even the kings and queens a mere 150 years ago could imagine: the latter could not imagine air conditioning, automobile, computer, cell phones, or an advisor as knowledgeable as Wikipedia! All the improvements have been possible because of continuous market competition putting consumers in the driver's seat.
There is no conceivable cost limit to a "liveable benefit package," considering that dying is an inevitable human condition. It is indeed theoretically possible to spend the entire country's GDP on trying to cure one person's disease; many despots throughout the ages tried to do just that. Considering the friendly banters between Newly and Fabian around here, it is quite obvious that sexual partnership is also an integral part of "liveable" condition. How exactly would a government guarantee that for everyone without essentially raping someone else? That's essentially the same situation whenever we are talking about any type of goods or service that involve two parties: a producer and a consumer. Government can only guarantee personal enjoyment that you can deliver for yourself: breathing available free air, free speech, free association, self indulgence, etc.; it can not guarantee anything that involves someone else without essentially raping or pillaging someone else.
I can certainly agree with you that America today is less free and has less vitality than it used to be. It's the result of vast growth of the monopolistic government sector in the past half century. While overall tax rate has stayed more or less constant at 25% of the economy, the cumulative deficit is the numerical indicator of just how much bigger the government has grown vis the real productive economy. Tax+deficit is the total sum of government consumption. It is no coincidence that as the monopolistic sector expanded, the economy has lost vitality, the playing field has become less level, and people feel the society has become less fair.
I wouldn't advise emigration though, at least not yet. Riots and revolutions are spreading around the world not because they are doing well. Many places are run in an even more monopolistic fashion than the US, and they have the bad economy and unstable society as a result.
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