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> our society manages to function quite well, roughly.

I don't think that's true at all. It's only true if "roughly" means "for specific kinds of people". I think that clause is necessary for the sentence to be true. And with it, we've contradicted the statement "our society generally functions well".

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It functions at least as well as it did 50 years ago.

Probably. That's not really a useful observation though. "Not worse in aggregate" is basically the lowest bar you could set for a society.

In 1966 we had a middle class. In 1966 minimum wage was $1.20 which is $8.29 in 2012 dollars.(1)

(1) https://www.dol.gov/featured/minimum-wage/chart1

I am unsatisfied with the state of things, but I don't think low wages is fundamentally a problem. Ideally we are able to do more and more with less and less money. In an ideal society you don't need money at all unless you want to do a long-term project that requires a financial instrument.

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