> Today's poor are worse-off than those in times past regardless of whatever trinkets they have. In almost every culture and occupation throughout history up to

> Today's poor are worse-off than those in times past regardless of whatever trinkets they have. In almost every culture and occupation throughout history up to the industrial revolution, working people have never spent 8+ hours a day, year round, in servile labor. Every single analysis of that ignores women. Women in the past spent basically all their time cooking and washing. Washing clothes before washing machines was an arduous, laborious task. In addition, without reliable birth control, family sizes were larger so a women had more children to take care of. Now women have the opportunity and control to not be consigned to a life of house work. Hans Rosling has a great TED talk on how socially transformative the washing machine was: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...