Nah, it's just working with the material conditions in the Mojave imo. You can't just start building communism, so the No Gods No Masters quest is the closest you can come to setting the Mojave on a better path. On reflection I think that's why I like Wild Card, because it splits the difference of still allowing the game to analyse sad dead old-world ideologies, while allowing the player to do something about em.
Fallout games aren't really about the stagnation of history, Fallout 2 features lots of societal progression since Fallout. Bethesda definitely wants to wallow in a stagnant world, but Interplay-related staff try to explore the follies of our current (western) world through the stumbling steps of the new one.