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Comment by RugnirViking | Hacker News Reader

> pretty consistently improved

I can accept the premise that condiitions have improved, but not that it was consistent. It seems to me that it was anything but; more like extremely spiky. great depression, postwar economic miracle. Massive labor movements rose and fell, general strikes... Plus most countries have had several wars + revolutions in the last 200 years, including two world wars. Not all of those are to do with technology, but I also dont think technology wasnt indirectly responsible for the conditions that created some of them

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The problem with these discussions is that it’s hard to control for the horrendously lower living standards of pre-industrial life where things like antibiotics and flushing toilets weren’t around.

Certainly, many people still lack access to those things. But also, the median person essentially lives better than the monarchs did 400 years ago when it comes to some of the more important things in life.

Sometimes, whether or not your power distance from your employer is high is less relevant than all the other important stuff in your life.

not only inconsistent over time, but also inconsistently distributed over people. rich people got richer (at least lately) and the less rich didn't get much richer (if at all)

Such a good comment, I would also add how much our perception of technology lifting conditions is conflated with the increased ability of governments to steer the economy to smooth things over.

All of those problems had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with economic mismanagement. And the commies were the worst at it. The US never had famines even at the worst of the great depression.

How much of the last ~25 years of outsized capital returns in the US came from selling our industrial base to the Communist Party of China?

You mean exploiting labor of Chinese poor for the benefit of American customers and investors?

American Labor: + cheap iPhones, - jobs

American Capital: +++++++++ money

America: ------- industry

Behold the responsible economic management.

Economic mismanagement assumes there is economic management, and this is a very recent development. I would wager that we still do not know how to manage economies well in the long run - case in point US deficit and wealth inequality.

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