Poverty was rampant and people lived in a feudal society, but people were by and large comfortable. The minimalistic Japanese esthetic that exists even now is a carry over from that period. People's dwellings were very small, but in comparison to European standards things were incredibly clean. There are numerous writings from Europeans who almost universally remark on both the level of poverty and on the surprising level of happiness.
There is an interesting book (the name of which escapes me at the moment) where the author tries to enumerate some of the things that the Edo period Japanese got right and that could be used as a model going forward.
One of the things that I think we, as a more affluent generation/society, often get wrong is that we equate prosperity with comfort. Indeed, we also equate comfort with being better.
A friend of mine was eating grapes that he brought with his lunch. "You know how sometimes you eat a grape and it's got this amazing flavour and sweetness, but sometimes you eat a grape and it is virtually tasteless? I mean, even with the same variety of grape. Why is that?" I had to explain to him that eating grapes in February is not necessarily going to lead to tasty grapes because they aren't really in season anywhere.
Why are we flying unripe grapes from half way around the world? And why are we ever trying to buy and sell grapes that are over irrigated and over produced so that they no longer have any flavour? Well, the answer is that people want to buy inexpensive grapes in Canada in February.
But, is this actually a good idea? As a society, perhaps we would actually be better off if you could only buy grapes in Canada in September or October. Maybe you would have culturally relevant food as well, instead of fulfilling every whim of every person in society.
And maybe we don't need cars everywhere. I mean, how many families have 2 cars? How many have kids and therefore have 3 or 4 cars? Are we actually better off this way? And do you actually need air conditioning in most parts of North America? And do we need to keep our houses at 22 C, and have remote car starters so that our cars idle and are sitting at 22 C for when we dash into them and we have giant underground tunnels all heated to 22 C and we don't have to walk outside when we are shopping, and all the parking garages are heated so that we don't even have to run to our car and don't even get me started about taking a bus, or walking out of doors: It's winter out there!
Which is not to say that I am idolising the noble savage and thinking that we're all going to turn into Tarzan and swing from tree house to tree house on vines in a wonderful magical world where we don't need anything. It's just that I don't think the pursuit of riches is necessarily going to enrich our lives and culture. I've been rich and I've been poor and I've got to say that the rich are often the ones missing out.