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Inflation figures over 200 years are pretty dodgy. How much was a dose of penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in 1819? There's a very real sense in wh

Inflation figures over 200 years are pretty dodgy. How much was a dose of penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in 1819? There's a very real sense in which very average Westerners now are far wealthier than Darcy. Conversely Darcy would have had far more power than the someone with net worth £16.8-28m would today. He'd probably have had a large say in who the local MP was, the local priest. Probably could turf a large chunk of the local population out of jobs and homes. Likely had a small army of servants.

ghaff 7y ago
And "needed" that small army of servants because he couldn't just buy a reliable car and drive it himself. Cooking and washing were major chores. Dress and other tasks related to his station in life took help in a way that almost no one needs or even wants today.
danans 7y ago
Your examples have an interesting pattern. > How much was a dose of penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in 1819? There's a very real sense in which very average Westerners now are far wealthier than Darcy. One's wealthiness is always relative to others. The items listed here are goods that are broadly available today across wealth bands, and are therefore not markers of wealthiness. > Conversely Darcy would have had far more power than the someone with net worth £16.8-28m would today. He'd probably have had a large say in who the local MP was, the local priest. Probably could turf a large chunk of the local population out of jobs and homes. Likely had a small army of servants. Power is a great (the ultimate ?) example of a resource whose access and distribution can be compared over time. Power over others has never been quantified like monetary wealth has, yet it is intrinsic to humans given we are a highly social species. For people like Darcy, such power over others was a hereditary birthright. You couldn't buy a share of that power as an investment. Therefore, there was no market that could estimate the monetary value of that power.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Slavery would seem to be a pretty straightforward example of such a market? https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery2009.php https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery2009.php
  - danans 7y ago
    Not for the purpose for quantifying the wealth of someone who owns no slaves. And slavery is a definitionally different situation because a slave has absolutely no leverage to negotiate for their interests, so whatever quantification of a slave's value and consequent slave owner's net worth is not generalizable to relationships between free people except in very extreme situations. Another way of looking at this is that all else equal, when freed, a former slave's net worth goes up by a constant factor based on their new status and rights.
- roenxi 7y ago
  > One's wealthiness is always relative to others. That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure. Inequality, power and to some degree satisfaction are relative to others, but wealth can be created and destroyed independently. Which is the major argument against socialism, incidentally. If wealthiness were a relative measure, full blown communism would be great for wealth. Which it most certainly is not. Modern inhabitants of the first world are insanely wealthy.
  - danans 7y ago
    > That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure That's why I used the adjective "wealthiness", as in "He is wealthy" vs the noun "wealth" as in "His wealth is X". The adjective is relative, and implies more wealth relative to a population. The noun is not relative.
joshvm 7y ago
Is this a conflation between wealth and standard of living?
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  I think the point is, you have to conflate them more and more the farther back in time your inflation calculation tries to go. Some things are pretty much the same today as they were 200 years ago, like land or a person's time. Relative wealth--relative to your surrounding society--allows you to buy those. That was true 200 years ago, and it's true today, although it might cost you a bigger pile of nominal currency (e.g. more British pounds) today than back then. But no amount of wealth in the early 1800s could have bought you a 6-hour journey from London to New York, NY. Whereas, today it is something that many people can afford, at least occasionally. No amount of money in the 1800s could have bought you high-fidelity recordings of all Beethoven's works that you can carry with you anywhere on your wrist. So which category better represents inflation since the early 1800s? In terms of things you could buy back then, like land or people's time, you can do a pretty straight calculation. But when you get to brand new categories of things to spend money on, like penicillin or an electric scooter trip, you're essentially "dividing by zero" because these things did not exist at all back then. You have to invent some sort of way to value a thing in past dollars that could not have actually existed at that point in the past. The farther back you go, the more it just becomes guesswork.
- conjectures 7y ago
  If you think this is a conflation, perhaps you could explain how and why they shouldn't be?
  - joshvm 7y ago
    Standard of living is a function of wealth, but wealth is not the sole factor. It also includes quality of the environment, crime levels, access to good medical care, education standards, civil rights, house affordability and so on. Most people nowadays are poorer than Mr Darcy in a monetary sense, but probably have a higher standard of living. The sibling post makes the point that in the past, being wealthy was a much bigger component of this - if you're rich you can afford a doctor (versus none), you can eat when others go hungry, you can afford to travel at all, you can be educated, etc. As I understand it, standard of living is objective - you can quantify it fairly well. Quality of life is subjective.

ghaff 7y ago

And "needed" that small army of servants because he couldn't just buy a reliable car and drive it himself. Cooking and washing were major chores. Dress and other tasks related to his station in life took help in a way that almost no one needs or even wants today.

danans 7y ago

Your examples have an interesting pattern. > How much was a dose of penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in 1819? There's a very real sense in which very average Westerners now are far wealthier than Darcy. One's wealthiness is always relative to others. The items listed here are goods that are broadly available today across wealth bands, and are therefore not markers of wealthiness. > Conversely Darcy would have had far more power than the someone with net worth £16.8-28m would today. He'd probably have had a large say in who the local MP was, the local priest. Probably could turf a large chunk of the local population out of jobs and homes. Likely had a small army of servants. Power is a great (the ultimate ?) example of a resource whose access and distribution can be compared over time. Power over others has never been quantified like monetary wealth has, yet it is intrinsic to humans given we are a highly social species. For people like Darcy, such power over others was a hereditary birthright. You couldn't buy a share of that power as an investment. Therefore, there was no market that could estimate the monetary value of that power.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
Slavery would seem to be a pretty straightforward example of such a market? https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery2009.php https://www.measuringworth.com/slavery2009.php
- danans 7y ago
  Not for the purpose for quantifying the wealth of someone who owns no slaves. And slavery is a definitionally different situation because a slave has absolutely no leverage to negotiate for their interests, so whatever quantification of a slave's value and consequent slave owner's net worth is not generalizable to relationships between free people except in very extreme situations. Another way of looking at this is that all else equal, when freed, a former slave's net worth goes up by a constant factor based on their new status and rights.
roenxi 7y ago
> One's wealthiness is always relative to others. That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure. Inequality, power and to some degree satisfaction are relative to others, but wealth can be created and destroyed independently. Which is the major argument against socialism, incidentally. If wealthiness were a relative measure, full blown communism would be great for wealth. Which it most certainly is not. Modern inhabitants of the first world are insanely wealthy.
- danans 7y ago
  > That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure That's why I used the adjective "wealthiness", as in "He is wealthy" vs the noun "wealth" as in "His wealth is X". The adjective is relative, and implies more wealth relative to a population. The noun is not relative.

joshvm 7y ago

Is this a conflation between wealth and standard of living?

snowwrestler 7y ago
I think the point is, you have to conflate them more and more the farther back in time your inflation calculation tries to go. Some things are pretty much the same today as they were 200 years ago, like land or a person's time. Relative wealth--relative to your surrounding society--allows you to buy those. That was true 200 years ago, and it's true today, although it might cost you a bigger pile of nominal currency (e.g. more British pounds) today than back then. But no amount of wealth in the early 1800s could have bought you a 6-hour journey from London to New York, NY. Whereas, today it is something that many people can afford, at least occasionally. No amount of money in the 1800s could have bought you high-fidelity recordings of all Beethoven's works that you can carry with you anywhere on your wrist. So which category better represents inflation since the early 1800s? In terms of things you could buy back then, like land or people's time, you can do a pretty straight calculation. But when you get to brand new categories of things to spend money on, like penicillin or an electric scooter trip, you're essentially "dividing by zero" because these things did not exist at all back then. You have to invent some sort of way to value a thing in past dollars that could not have actually existed at that point in the past. The farther back you go, the more it just becomes guesswork.
conjectures 7y ago
If you think this is a conflation, perhaps you could explain how and why they shouldn't be?
- joshvm 7y ago
  Standard of living is a function of wealth, but wealth is not the sole factor. It also includes quality of the environment, crime levels, access to good medical care, education standards, civil rights, house affordability and so on. Most people nowadays are poorer than Mr Darcy in a monetary sense, but probably have a higher standard of living. The sibling post makes the point that in the past, being wealthy was a much bigger component of this - if you're rich you can afford a doctor (versus none), you can eat when others go hungry, you can afford to travel at all, you can be educated, etc. As I understand it, standard of living is objective - you can quantify it fairly well. Quality of life is subjective.