3 ms·
Until roughly 1800, per capita wealth was roughly stagnant. Since then, it's increased roughly 50 times. Maybe more controversially, I'd say we're nowhere near
by abecedarius 6y ago
Until roughly 1800, per capita wealth was roughly stagnant. Since then, it's increased roughly 50 times. Maybe more controversially, I'd say we're nowhere near the limits of further development to even greater wealth: technology is a long way from physical limits (e.g. compare biology to human tech), our access to resources has barely begun (e.g. solar power and resources from space).
How do you look at this history and think the right way to approach it is as a fight over who gets what part of an existing pie? That was the standard conceptualization in the beginning! It can't be the key to the 50x change. The recent headwinds against equality have also been a period of relative stagnation in productivity growth. Shouldn't we look really earnestly into how the hell progress happened in the first place?
Yes, we also have a big problem in that poverty should not exist in a society this rich. But this is genuinely a first-world problem. Job 1 is to not screw up what got us here in the first place.