The funny thing is, I've never met a single person who has read much anthropological or historical literature who holds this view. Truly. Not one. It's only ever held by people who know nothing of so-called 'tribal living' (as if pre-modern 'tribes' in different parts of the world have much in common!).
Human cultures can be so vastly different as to be truly incommensurable. Have a read of Bill Gammage's 'The Biggest Estate on Earth', about the Australian indigenous nations. They managed the entirely of Australia a single 'estate', providing ample, easily-obtained subsistence from a massive variety of sources, using a variety of agricultural and hunter-gathering techniques. For 60,000 years. The depth of culture and development of rich social interaction this engendered is literally unimaginable to us. A contemporary American or Australian, with our love of comfort and trivial gadgets, philosophical naivety, absence of acquaintance with the nonhuman world, and lack of concern for conspecifics may well seem like an unfathomably ignorant and petulant child to an Australian of 1000 years ago.
There's far too much to say about this in an HN comment, but the notion that modern living is objectively and unambiguously 'better' than that is plainly false. Particularly when you consider that our culture is very likely to destroy most natural systems in the next 100 years. The fashionable lingo is that our societies are 'unsustainable', but the plain accurate truth is that, so far, we have proven to be unviable. Maybe we'll fix this, maybe not. But indigenous Australians have a 60,000 year proven track record.
Note I'm not claiming the converse of your claim is true, but just that you're being grossly simplistic.
> If you didn't believe that, go back to tribal living.
That's an unworthy and silly rhetorical jibe, as you surely must know. We are moderns and must make our lives where we are. That doesn't prevent us from taking a fair and knowledge-based look at premodern cultures.