this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Has there actually been a better century in terms of comfort and stability for most people
Historically there would be many because the poor countries have the most people
Take China for example. A middle class person in China today lives like an upper class person compared to the 1700s. A poor person on average anywhere is doing way better than ever before..
Yes spending most of the day in a factory or a mine and rarely seeing sunlight is definitively like living as a blacksmith 300 years ago (I said blacksmith because it’s under upper class and I assume by middle class you mean office worker not middle income)
Being a farmer is much easier as well now because machines make the work 100x easier and you only have to do 1000x the amount.
Africa has certainly never had stability and the Inca/Mayans/Aztecs certainly had it worse than the rural folk of Central and South America
Remember all those old paintings of kids going through garbage to find things to sell? That’s certainly not a modern phenomenon
What about the people in winter climates that for a large portion couldn’t work in the winter? Yes they still did stuff but it wasn’t 40 hour weeks