I read a passage that gave me a start:

"Ordinary people are exhausted and panicked; exhausted and panicked people cannot afford to pursue ideals. They must put food on the table. In our age, both public and private morality are declining at an alarming rate. You cannot expect people with extremely poor living conditions to have character."
——《The Long Goodbye * Raymond Chandler * 1953》

When the author completed the book, it was at the tail end of the Gilded Age, when everyone was struggling desperately just to survive...