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120 years ago 40% of Americans were farmers, today that number is under 2%. That technical progress resulted in a few companies and farm conglomerates becoming

120 years ago 40% of Americans were farmers, today that number is under 2%. That technical progress resulted in a few companies and farm conglomerates becoming incredibly wealthy. But the benefits that we all received was we didn't have to toil in a field, and we get fresh beef on every corner. The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive.

dragontamer 2y ago
> The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive. The wealth gap was growing since 1980. Is the median person better today when the median person cannot afford a college education or a house? Both of those were easily afforded in the 80s. Also remember: the average job didn't require a college education back then either. College has become a gatekeeper due to its rising costs and diminishing returns.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Why is “affording a house” the marker of a success? I would say just the opposite. Owning a home decreases mobility and the ability to move to where the jobs are. That being said, the home ownership rate in the US is 65% and almost anyone who wants to go to college can via loans and scholarships. Only around 40% of people in the US have a college education. But that doesn’t mean that the other 60% are homeless and starving. Then cultural, as we see now, there is very much an anti-intellectual anti college bias by a major user of people in the country.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    Ok, 'having that much money (or credit worthiness to borrow it) regardless of what you do with it', then? Many people don't want to be itinerant, they want a settled home to make their own and enjoy for a long time if not life. 'Forever home' is a phrase and a positive one because that is a goal people have.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      And those same people who want their “forever home” and aren’t willing to move to where the jobs are unemployed and underemployed. I want a million dollars a year income. No one owes me that. Move to where the jobs are. I moved from my hometown in south GA the week I graduated from college because there were no jobs.
      - achierius 2y ago
        You can't both tout status-quo economic figures and then point at hypothetical alternatives. If people did as you say and took those lower-paying jobs, then the average person would be less well off -- perhaps closer to the experienced reality for many.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        Take what lower paying jobs? I am saying they need to move to where the jobs are. Do those jobs require an education? Yes. Maybe rural America should stop voting for politicians who are opposed to affordable college education (or trade school) and student loan forgiveness.
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        Well the problem, and stick with me here, is that we have people everywhere. So, as a consequence of that, having broad opportunities for everyone to earn a decent living, in more than a handful of places in the entire country, is an unambiguously good thing. And like, maybe this is pink-haired commmie-scum thought of me to say, but perhaps you shouldn't need to leave your childhood home, friends, support system, and familiar places when you finish your schooling in order to earn a living? Just because it's... really bad for you, and makes for a less stable you, which on balance over millions of times for everyone else who grew up with you, makes for a less stable society? > I want a million dollars a year income. No one owes me that. Why is this always where this type of conversation goes? No one has spoken about any entitlement here, but frankly, while you aren't owed a million dollars a year, I'd say you're owed something. Assuming you're working full time, I'd say you're owed at least a living wage.
  - dragontamer 2y ago
    That's a weird non-sequitur you did. > But that doesn’t mean that the other 60% are homeless and starving. No one said starving. I'm saying that the average person is in worse straights than the average person from the 1980s. If your message is 'Maybe not everyone needs a house' then it kinda sounds like you agree with me?
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      The home ownership rate in 1980 was also in the mid 60s… https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1991/demo/sb91-09.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1991/demo/sb91-0... In fact home ownership rate has consistently been in the mid 60s since 1960 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/home-ownership-rate#:~:text=Home%20Ownership%20Rate%20in%20the%20United%20States%20averaged%2065.27%20percent,the%20second%20quarter%20of%201965. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/home-ownership-ra... In which way is the average person worse? Worse health? Worse life expectancy? More homeless people?
      - dragontamer 2y ago
        People who owned a home in 1980 only had to pay $47k, or roughly 4x average salary. (12513: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html). People who own a home in 2025 have to pay $350,000ish on a wage of only $66k. Home prices have gone up dramatically more than wages. > In which way is the average person worse? The amount of debt needed to own a home. Which is related to income vs cost-of-home. This ignores the fact that to reach $66k+/year salaries to begin with, you needed tens-of-thousands in student loan debt as well (which the average person in 1980 didn't need). ---------- 1. Costs of education have gone up. It costs more money to be able to get a comfortable salary to begin with in today's world. 2. Younger folk are entering a very high-priced housing market, despite being already saddled with student loan debt (and thus starting off with no savings). 3. The bulk of "starting a new life" costs are car, house, and education. While yes computers and food have gotten cheaper, I would argue that car/house/education costs are the primary gatekeeper into income and/or class mobility. ----------- For the 40%ish who cannot afford a house, it gets even worse. Rental prices in 1980 were $243/month. Do you want me to run the numbers on how screwed they've gotten? Or do you have the gist yet? Also remember: 1980 was a recession year with high unemployment and incredible inflation. We're comparing ourselves to the WORST time of stagflation and some of the worst geopolitical crisis of that era.
  - authorfly 2y ago
    Well inability to own a house was a major prelude to the 1930s economic and later conflict issues, particularly in western Europe (where it was more expensive in places like Britain to buy a house than even today, about 10-14x salary vs 8x today). House prices have been how they are now before: in the 1920s... (America is a bit of an exception because of all the expansion into California etc in the early 1900s). Male crime rates correlate with economic opportunity too, so even if you don't care about the 1930s and the economic reset of WW2 and its rebuilding (and WW1, but to a lesser extent), you should care about the possibility of crimes rates continuing to regress. Serious crimes don't get solved at a much higher rate than in the past, even if they have decreased since the 90s. Home ownership is a lagging indicator and doesn't show the whole picture: If people used to buy a home at 25 and move into it, but today they wait and live in their parents house until 30 before moving into a home, the stats might appear the same. The quality of life won't be. Home ownership rate needs context too, in some countries rent is low and house prices are high(er than the US), where many people rent through retirement, and where the implication of rising house prices is not as bad unless rent also raises.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      And what exactly is wrong with living with their parents longer like most other countries do and is still prevalent among first and second generation Americans? As I asked before, what do you propose? Rent control? Affordable higher education? I agree with that. But half of America as seen by the support of DOGE and the lack of support for student loan forgiveness of any kind don’t. America is getting exactly what they voted for - especially in the poorest, least educated states that vote Republican.
  - asdf6969 2y ago
    > mobility and the ability to move to where the jobs are. This is a sign of low class status and lack of success. Rich people change the world to fit their needs. Poor people change themselves to fit the world. Leaving your entire family and social network behind for work is extremely middle class behaviour
    - JustExAWS 2y ago
      Yes, that’s why Musk still lives in South Africa..
      - asdf6969 2y ago
        Immigration is different. No individual can make a shitty country good
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  > Both of those were easily afforded in the 80s. That's due to the post-war boom. The book Capital in the 21st Century goes over this, that the period between 1950 - 2000 was an anomaly for the US that cannot be replicated, yet people bring up this stat as if it were normal.
  - dragontamer 2y ago
    1980 was during the stagflation era and a major Middle East crisis with nearly 20% interest rates.
- milesrout 2y ago
  The average person didn't have a college education in the 1980s. Rates of educational attainment have skyrocketed. So obviously a lot more people spend a lot more money to be university-educated than did in the 1980s. Maybe people put more value on education today? Students expect a lot more services from universities today. They expect regular formative assessments. They expect various support services. They expect warm, air conditioned buildings without draughts. They expect healthcare, mental health support, disability services, and expensive facilities for everything: projectors and screens and computers and everything. Could that also be part of the drive of cost? The services definitely are, theyre a big driver of the increase in admin staff at universities. The cost of education is pretty irrelevant anyway because nobody actually pays it. You get a loan. That is paid by someone else: you, later. But young men and women heading off to university don't have a moment where they have to give up the opportunity to go because they don't have the money.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > The wealth gap was growing since 1980. Is the median person better today when the median person cannot afford a college education or a house? The house is due to population increasing far faster than new houses being built. That's a function of policy, not of rich people existing.
aiajsbdbdjxjx 2y ago
Nobody’s arguing things aren’t better in some ways than the past. But your argument amounts to what is essentially trickle down economics. The median American is getting a marginal improvement - the top .1% American has gotten an astronomical improvement. The wealth gap increasing is a moral failure of our billionaires. They should take pride in building a better tomorrow for their fellow countrymen. And what we have now is the exact opposite of that.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  It's not just a moral failure of the billionaires. Many of us live in democracies, so we are choosing (through our elected officials) that creating a few billionaires is more important than building a better tomorrow. The sorry state of things could be undone in a single election if people didn't explicitly want and vote for the sorry state of things.
  - graemep 2y ago
    We have a limited choice of who to vote for. Here in the UK that is the big parties think, and most of the smaller ones too. The same is true in many democracies. Douglas Adams described it well: "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
IshKebab 2y ago
Yeah the thing is there were better jobs that ex-farmers (or at least their children) could go to. I'm unconvinced that's the case this time round. Especially for unskilled people.
- anon7000 2y ago
  Is that really true 120 years ago? We have a lot of hindsight bias, but things really weren’t amazing for the average person in the US even one hundred years ago. Today, the average person has affordable access to a lot of things that may have been luxuries, or simply didn’t exist, 100-200 years ago. Running water, electricity, internet, mobile phones, modern sanitation & infrastructure, and any number of tiny cheap devices that improve QoL. And yes, we also have huge problems with wealth disparity and late stage capitalism. The problem is, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Like, we do not have widespread food scarcity problems today. Extremely advanced medical technology is available, if too expensive. Our tech bubble is only one small part of actual technology. There is still very cool research going on in other fields. Big tech is all about personal computing & social media, and yeah, AI in this area is dubious and hard to get excited about. At the same time, there are SO MANY other areas of technology which can have huge impacts on humanity. For example, the tech behind modern AI models has already produced breakthrough research in the field of protein folding. (https://youtu.be/P_fHJIYENdI https://youtu.be/P_fHJIYENdI) This will have a big impact on our ability to solve biological problems. All that to say… let’s stop being so closed-minded about tech. Yes, the big tech social media, app, and SaaS companies are not going to give us a utopian future. But technology is way more than that. It includes robotics advances for cheap manufacturing, cheap energy from small scale hydro or even nuclear installations, advances in our ability to fight diseases and viruses (the COVID vaccine would not have been possible as quickly without modern technology), more clever & efficient construction techniques, and the list goes on and on. Tech is absolutely solving tons of real problems that we face. We can be excited for that and also not care about the next knock-off AI wrapper SaaS company.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    > Is that really true 120 years ago? We have a lot of hindsight bias, but things really weren’t amazing for the average person in the US even one hundred years ago. I didn't say they were. I said they had better jobs to go to than working in the fields. I'm not saying their lives were better than ours are now. Obviously not.
pphysch 2y ago
96 years ago we there was a massive financial crisis and depression that killed a lot of people and is directly related to the (lack of) national policies of the time. USA recovered remarkably well, but only because there was a big pivot away from crony capitalism and towards "socialism" under FDR. Big investments in The People, unions, education, infrastructure. We are going in the former direction right now.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Causal relationships can be hard to discern. Some say that FDR's policies extended the downturn to 10 years whereas recovery from previous downturns was much quicker. (Also, it is not clear to me how any of this is relevant to "The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive".)
  - teucris 2y ago
    Can you provide references? This is the first I’ve ever heard of this.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      For example, Murray Rothbard argued in America’s Great Depression (1963) that both Herbert Hoover and FDR worsened the economic downturn through interventionist policies. He believed FDR’s price and wage controls, massive public spending, and business regulations stifled economic recovery. My point is not that the person I was replying to is definitely wrong about FDR's policies, but rather that the effects of FDR's policies are uncertain enough that the fact that FDR imposed them in the 1930s cannot credibly used to lend strong support to any argument for any economic policy to be imposed today. The post-WWII economic boom for example happened after most of FDR's policies had been repealed.
      - teucris 2y ago
        Thanks for the reference. I generally agree that, from a very high-altitude, it's difficult to know whether New Deal policies shortened the depression given that WWII shook up the US so much. However, there are many things introduced during that time that have had a visceral effect on the average American's quality of life, saved lives, and would be terrible to abandon: the FDIC, the construction of a massive amount of infrastructure, social security, etc.

dragontamer 2y ago

> The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive. The wealth gap was growing since 1980. Is the median person better today when the median person cannot afford a college education or a house? Both of those were easily afforded in the 80s. Also remember: the average job didn't require a college education back then either. College has become a gatekeeper due to its rising costs and diminishing returns.

scarface_74 2y ago
Why is “affording a house” the marker of a success? I would say just the opposite. Owning a home decreases mobility and the ability to move to where the jobs are. That being said, the home ownership rate in the US is 65% and almost anyone who wants to go to college can via loans and scholarships. Only around 40% of people in the US have a college education. But that doesn’t mean that the other 60% are homeless and starving. Then cultural, as we see now, there is very much an anti-intellectual anti college bias by a major user of people in the country.
- OJFord 2y ago
  Ok, 'having that much money (or credit worthiness to borrow it) regardless of what you do with it', then? Many people don't want to be itinerant, they want a settled home to make their own and enjoy for a long time if not life. 'Forever home' is a phrase and a positive one because that is a goal people have.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And those same people who want their “forever home” and aren’t willing to move to where the jobs are unemployed and underemployed. I want a million dollars a year income. No one owes me that. Move to where the jobs are. I moved from my hometown in south GA the week I graduated from college because there were no jobs.
    - achierius 2y ago
      You can't both tout status-quo economic figures and then point at hypothetical alternatives. If people did as you say and took those lower-paying jobs, then the average person would be less well off -- perhaps closer to the experienced reality for many.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        Take what lower paying jobs? I am saying they need to move to where the jobs are. Do those jobs require an education? Yes. Maybe rural America should stop voting for politicians who are opposed to affordable college education (or trade school) and student loan forgiveness.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      Well the problem, and stick with me here, is that we have people everywhere. So, as a consequence of that, having broad opportunities for everyone to earn a decent living, in more than a handful of places in the entire country, is an unambiguously good thing. And like, maybe this is pink-haired commmie-scum thought of me to say, but perhaps you shouldn't need to leave your childhood home, friends, support system, and familiar places when you finish your schooling in order to earn a living? Just because it's... really bad for you, and makes for a less stable you, which on balance over millions of times for everyone else who grew up with you, makes for a less stable society? > I want a million dollars a year income. No one owes me that. Why is this always where this type of conversation goes? No one has spoken about any entitlement here, but frankly, while you aren't owed a million dollars a year, I'd say you're owed something. Assuming you're working full time, I'd say you're owed at least a living wage.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  That's a weird non-sequitur you did. > But that doesn’t mean that the other 60% are homeless and starving. No one said starving. I'm saying that the average person is in worse straights than the average person from the 1980s. If your message is 'Maybe not everyone needs a house' then it kinda sounds like you agree with me?
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    The home ownership rate in 1980 was also in the mid 60s… https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1991/demo/sb91-09.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1991/demo/sb91-0... In fact home ownership rate has consistently been in the mid 60s since 1960 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/home-ownership-rate#:~:text=Home%20Ownership%20Rate%20in%20the%20United%20States%20averaged%2065.27%20percent,the%20second%20quarter%20of%201965. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/home-ownership-ra... In which way is the average person worse? Worse health? Worse life expectancy? More homeless people?
    - dragontamer 2y ago
      People who owned a home in 1980 only had to pay $47k, or roughly 4x average salary. (12513: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html). People who own a home in 2025 have to pay $350,000ish on a wage of only $66k. Home prices have gone up dramatically more than wages. > In which way is the average person worse? The amount of debt needed to own a home. Which is related to income vs cost-of-home. This ignores the fact that to reach $66k+/year salaries to begin with, you needed tens-of-thousands in student loan debt as well (which the average person in 1980 didn't need). ---------- 1. Costs of education have gone up. It costs more money to be able to get a comfortable salary to begin with in today's world. 2. Younger folk are entering a very high-priced housing market, despite being already saddled with student loan debt (and thus starting off with no savings). 3. The bulk of "starting a new life" costs are car, house, and education. While yes computers and food have gotten cheaper, I would argue that car/house/education costs are the primary gatekeeper into income and/or class mobility. ----------- For the 40%ish who cannot afford a house, it gets even worse. Rental prices in 1980 were $243/month. Do you want me to run the numbers on how screwed they've gotten? Or do you have the gist yet? Also remember: 1980 was a recession year with high unemployment and incredible inflation. We're comparing ourselves to the WORST time of stagflation and some of the worst geopolitical crisis of that era.
- authorfly 2y ago
  Well inability to own a house was a major prelude to the 1930s economic and later conflict issues, particularly in western Europe (where it was more expensive in places like Britain to buy a house than even today, about 10-14x salary vs 8x today). House prices have been how they are now before: in the 1920s... (America is a bit of an exception because of all the expansion into California etc in the early 1900s). Male crime rates correlate with economic opportunity too, so even if you don't care about the 1930s and the economic reset of WW2 and its rebuilding (and WW1, but to a lesser extent), you should care about the possibility of crimes rates continuing to regress. Serious crimes don't get solved at a much higher rate than in the past, even if they have decreased since the 90s. Home ownership is a lagging indicator and doesn't show the whole picture: If people used to buy a home at 25 and move into it, but today they wait and live in their parents house until 30 before moving into a home, the stats might appear the same. The quality of life won't be. Home ownership rate needs context too, in some countries rent is low and house prices are high(er than the US), where many people rent through retirement, and where the implication of rising house prices is not as bad unless rent also raises.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And what exactly is wrong with living with their parents longer like most other countries do and is still prevalent among first and second generation Americans? As I asked before, what do you propose? Rent control? Affordable higher education? I agree with that. But half of America as seen by the support of DOGE and the lack of support for student loan forgiveness of any kind don’t. America is getting exactly what they voted for - especially in the poorest, least educated states that vote Republican.
- asdf6969 2y ago
  > mobility and the ability to move to where the jobs are. This is a sign of low class status and lack of success. Rich people change the world to fit their needs. Poor people change themselves to fit the world. Leaving your entire family and social network behind for work is extremely middle class behaviour
  - JustExAWS 2y ago
    Yes, that’s why Musk still lives in South Africa..
    - asdf6969 2y ago
      Immigration is different. No individual can make a shitty country good
satvikpendem 2y ago
> Both of those were easily afforded in the 80s. That's due to the post-war boom. The book Capital in the 21st Century goes over this, that the period between 1950 - 2000 was an anomaly for the US that cannot be replicated, yet people bring up this stat as if it were normal.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  1980 was during the stagflation era and a major Middle East crisis with nearly 20% interest rates.
milesrout 2y ago
The average person didn't have a college education in the 1980s. Rates of educational attainment have skyrocketed. So obviously a lot more people spend a lot more money to be university-educated than did in the 1980s. Maybe people put more value on education today? Students expect a lot more services from universities today. They expect regular formative assessments. They expect various support services. They expect warm, air conditioned buildings without draughts. They expect healthcare, mental health support, disability services, and expensive facilities for everything: projectors and screens and computers and everything. Could that also be part of the drive of cost? The services definitely are, theyre a big driver of the increase in admin staff at universities. The cost of education is pretty irrelevant anyway because nobody actually pays it. You get a loan. That is paid by someone else: you, later. But young men and women heading off to university don't have a moment where they have to give up the opportunity to go because they don't have the money.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> The wealth gap was growing since 1980. Is the median person better today when the median person cannot afford a college education or a house? The house is due to population increasing far faster than new houses being built. That's a function of policy, not of rich people existing.

aiajsbdbdjxjx 2y ago

Nobody’s arguing things aren’t better in some ways than the past. But your argument amounts to what is essentially trickle down economics. The median American is getting a marginal improvement - the top .1% American has gotten an astronomical improvement. The wealth gap increasing is a moral failure of our billionaires. They should take pride in building a better tomorrow for their fellow countrymen. And what we have now is the exact opposite of that.

ryandrake 2y ago
It's not just a moral failure of the billionaires. Many of us live in democracies, so we are choosing (through our elected officials) that creating a few billionaires is more important than building a better tomorrow. The sorry state of things could be undone in a single election if people didn't explicitly want and vote for the sorry state of things.
- graemep 2y ago
  We have a limited choice of who to vote for. Here in the UK that is the big parties think, and most of the smaller ones too. The same is true in many democracies. Douglas Adams described it well: "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

IshKebab 2y ago

Yeah the thing is there were better jobs that ex-farmers (or at least their children) could go to. I'm unconvinced that's the case this time round. Especially for unskilled people.

anon7000 2y ago
Is that really true 120 years ago? We have a lot of hindsight bias, but things really weren’t amazing for the average person in the US even one hundred years ago. Today, the average person has affordable access to a lot of things that may have been luxuries, or simply didn’t exist, 100-200 years ago. Running water, electricity, internet, mobile phones, modern sanitation & infrastructure, and any number of tiny cheap devices that improve QoL. And yes, we also have huge problems with wealth disparity and late stage capitalism. The problem is, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Like, we do not have widespread food scarcity problems today. Extremely advanced medical technology is available, if too expensive. Our tech bubble is only one small part of actual technology. There is still very cool research going on in other fields. Big tech is all about personal computing & social media, and yeah, AI in this area is dubious and hard to get excited about. At the same time, there are SO MANY other areas of technology which can have huge impacts on humanity. For example, the tech behind modern AI models has already produced breakthrough research in the field of protein folding. (https://youtu.be/P_fHJIYENdI https://youtu.be/P_fHJIYENdI) This will have a big impact on our ability to solve biological problems. All that to say… let’s stop being so closed-minded about tech. Yes, the big tech social media, app, and SaaS companies are not going to give us a utopian future. But technology is way more than that. It includes robotics advances for cheap manufacturing, cheap energy from small scale hydro or even nuclear installations, advances in our ability to fight diseases and viruses (the COVID vaccine would not have been possible as quickly without modern technology), more clever & efficient construction techniques, and the list goes on and on. Tech is absolutely solving tons of real problems that we face. We can be excited for that and also not care about the next knock-off AI wrapper SaaS company.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  > Is that really true 120 years ago? We have a lot of hindsight bias, but things really weren’t amazing for the average person in the US even one hundred years ago. I didn't say they were. I said they had better jobs to go to than working in the fields. I'm not saying their lives were better than ours are now. Obviously not.

pphysch 2y ago

96 years ago we there was a massive financial crisis and depression that killed a lot of people and is directly related to the (lack of) national policies of the time. USA recovered remarkably well, but only because there was a big pivot away from crony capitalism and towards "socialism" under FDR. Big investments in The People, unions, education, infrastructure. We are going in the former direction right now.

hollerith 2y ago
Causal relationships can be hard to discern. Some say that FDR's policies extended the downturn to 10 years whereas recovery from previous downturns was much quicker. (Also, it is not clear to me how any of this is relevant to "The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive".)
- teucris 2y ago
  Can you provide references? This is the first I’ve ever heard of this.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    For example, Murray Rothbard argued in America’s Great Depression (1963) that both Herbert Hoover and FDR worsened the economic downturn through interventionist policies. He believed FDR’s price and wage controls, massive public spending, and business regulations stifled economic recovery. My point is not that the person I was replying to is definitely wrong about FDR's policies, but rather that the effects of FDR's policies are uncertain enough that the fact that FDR imposed them in the 1930s cannot credibly used to lend strong support to any argument for any economic policy to be imposed today. The post-WWII economic boom for example happened after most of FDR's policies had been repealed.
    - teucris 2y ago
      Thanks for the reference. I generally agree that, from a very high-altitude, it's difficult to know whether New Deal policies shortened the depression given that WWII shook up the US so much. However, there are many things introduced during that time that have had a visceral effect on the average American's quality of life, saved lives, and would be terrible to abandon: the FDIC, the construction of a massive amount of infrastructure, social security, etc.