To say that going back to 1820 is meaningless is already deceptive. At that stage the only parts of the world that weren’t in extreme poverty are those that are

To say that going back to 1820 is meaningless is already deceptive. At that stage the only parts of the world that weren’t in extreme poverty are those that are now first world and that’s marginal. In 1750 in 1990 dollars GDP per capita in the first world was 804 dollars according to Paul Bairoch. In 1830, in 1960 dollars the richest country in the world, the highly monestised Netherlands which we have excellent records for had a GDP per capita of 347. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...