When you compare modern first world to 60 years ago, people's lives have significantly improved. And if you do the same in developed countries, the difference is unbelievable.
Only vampires don't realize you can't suck every last drop out out. Every good manager knows you can't count on more than 80% employee utilization in the best circumstances with the best people. Now companies expect zero hour employees (part time employees who are guaranteed zero hours/zero schedule but expected to move their lives around their job, which is one of three part time jobs they need to survive) to do more than that by requiring employees do the manager's job of finding shift coverage off hours using their personal phone, etc while also being 100% utilized during work hours, with zero overlapping roll coverage. That isn't sustainable and no way live, and is an unreasonable expectation from a zero hour job.
I disagree that most people's lives have "significantly improved" compared with the 1960s. We have more things, but I don't think that our lives are that much better, or even better at all. In the 1950s and 60s most families could get by with a one income household -- try that today.
Even medically - on the one hand our physical health has improved through advances in medicine and life expectancy has increased considerably (mostly due to vaccines). On the other hand we have a huge increase in mental health problems. Per-capita suicide rates in the US are higher today than they were in the 1960s.
(If you're in the top 10% then yes your life has "significantly improved". If you're in the bottom 50% then probably not.)
Obviously, you're only looking inside the US. People's lives in the US haven't improved by that much because the US has been squandering its advantages for the last several decades. Outside the US, especially in developing nations, people's lives are far, far better than their parents' and grandparents'.
>In the 1950s and 60s most families could get by with a one income household
Only in the US, because of its post-war economic boom. In most other places, everyone had to work.
But comparing Europe today with the 60s isn't a fair comparison considering the entire continent was devastated -- physically and economically -- during WW2 and it was a long road to rebuilding. Same with Japan.
> especially in developing nations
That much I agree with, but the original post was talking about developed countries (US/Europe/Japan primarily)
This impression is contradicted by a mountain of data. Ourworldindata.org is a good place to start.
Anecdotally, when I talk to elderly people, they nearly all agree that they've witnessed substantial improvements in living standards. They're not always keen on the cultural changes, but they nearly always view modern living as "better off."
The promise of buddhism is to make people happy regardless of circumstances.