I disagree that the ability to tax the richest and set up the National Health Service and make social changes arose from: "patriotism and good will that was born of overcoming the war." (I don't know the book and am merely responding to the post.)
Eg a lot of people were very shocked that the epitome of patriotism, the war time prime minister, Winston Churchill, was deposed in the 1945 general election in favour of a Labour government promising those changes.
IMHO it's much more the case that the Second World War, like the First, suddenly changed the value the country assigned to different individuals.
The rich suddenly found they needed things from other people that money just couldn't buy –like running into machine gun fire or digging them out of a bombed house with a UXB still in it. Or turning up to work at the hospital day after day, night after night. Or just digging for victory at the allotment.
And the people who did those things found themselves suddenly visible and valued by people who'd been considered "above" them in the peacetime social and economic structure. (On a human level they often found themselves equal just by getting to know each other as war work fractured hierarchies.)
Those lower in the peacetime socio-economic scale gained immense bargaining power, and an awareness of their own worth leading to a feeling of greater entitlement – a worth which was recognised by those further up the peacetime scale, who also felt a sense of moral obligation.
So I would contend that fuzzy, unspecified feelings of "patriotism" were no more responsible for social and economic change after WW2 than "patriotism" was responsible for women getting the vote after WW1. What happened was that a structurally disadvantaged group became much more visible and their unbuyable co-operation much more necessary to those who'd previously held power. The disadvantaged group were able to leverage this, where previous appeals to "good will" or "natural justice" had been met with silence intermitted with sneers that the disadvantaged must be innately inferior.
And, this is what we're about to see with healthcare workers.
I've been on these boards long enough to see the attitudes of some posters, smug with their private healthcare, or being incredibly nasty when junior doctors, nurses or other HCPs say that working conditions and pay are endangering both their professions and the services. The contemptuous sneers at low-paid essential workers like care workers, simply for being low-paid – they're "not contributing" apparently.
Well a whole load of people who've spent years minimising their tax burden are about to find out that, actually, low-paid workers ARE contributing. In fact, may be contributing MORE than themselves.
A lot of people are suddenly going to become aware for the first time just how much their life depends on the labour, skill and personal sacrifices of a low-paid, zero-hours worker they'd previously demonised for having a job that couldn't cover the rent.