4 ms·

A relevant quote about the change of affordability of certain things from the late Agatha Christie looking back at her early years - "I couldn’t imagine being t

A relevant quote about the change of affordability of certain things from the late Agatha Christie looking back at her early years - "I couldn’t imagine being too poor to afford servants, nor so rich as to be able to afford a car." With respect to material culture - so also with respect to what clothing styles and fashions are possible - anybody who can afford a car is far richer than people who had servants a hundred years ago.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
Cars were an arguably overvalued novelty at the time. The more fundamental question should be something like, do you need to work to put food on your table. If yes, then you are not wealthy.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Here in Berlin, we have a "pfand" (deposit) on various bottles. At a summer barbecue you sometimes get people asking to take your bottles away, so they can collect that deposit themselves. For the larger bottles, just four per day would equal the income of a pre-industrial farmhand.
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    ..., ignoring inflation.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      No, that's inflation adjusted. If I ignored inflation (and hand-waved at least three major currency replacements) it would be eight month's wages.
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      This is the thing, no. _Even adjusted for inflation_, the pre-industrial working class (and the early-to-mid-industrial working class, for that matter) was paid barely anything. This was recognised as a problem at the time, even; a lot of the push for the reform of the Corn Laws in Britain, say, came from capitalists, who were, rightly, concerned that the working class _couldn't actually afford to buy any of their products_ (this largely played out; once they were repealed, living costs fell, wages rose, and the consumer market expanded greatly). Adjusting for inflation also gets messier the further you go back. After the repeal of the Corn Laws the average person's day to day obligatory expenses went down dramatically, but it's barely a blip on the inflation charts.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

marginalia_nu 3y ago

Cars were an arguably overvalued novelty at the time. The more fundamental question should be something like, do you need to work to put food on your table. If yes, then you are not wealthy.

ben_w 3y ago
Here in Berlin, we have a "pfand" (deposit) on various bottles. At a summer barbecue you sometimes get people asking to take your bottles away, so they can collect that deposit themselves. For the larger bottles, just four per day would equal the income of a pre-industrial farmhand.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  ..., ignoring inflation.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    No, that's inflation adjusted. If I ignored inflation (and hand-waved at least three major currency replacements) it would be eight month's wages.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    This is the thing, no. _Even adjusted for inflation_, the pre-industrial working class (and the early-to-mid-industrial working class, for that matter) was paid barely anything. This was recognised as a problem at the time, even; a lot of the push for the reform of the Corn Laws in Britain, say, came from capitalists, who were, rightly, concerned that the working class _couldn't actually afford to buy any of their products_ (this largely played out; once they were repealed, living costs fell, wages rose, and the consumer market expanded greatly). Adjusting for inflation also gets messier the further you go back. After the repeal of the Corn Laws the average person's day to day obligatory expenses went down dramatically, but it's barely a blip on the inflation charts.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]