Still better than what most of the people before us lived through. It’s just that our parents were especially lucky with the time period they lived in.
The idea that people before us lived worse lives is one often used to obscure the clinical nature of standards we attribute to quality of life such as lifespan, infant mortality, food security, and housing. This is because it allows corporations to trivialize the impact of doubling the workload by normalizing the 40 hour work week and housework and child care, what used to be two people’s worth of work, into one.
Are we living ‘better’ lives? On paper, sure. Are we living happier lives? That’s hard to say.
I dunno I prefer not being murdered for practicing (or even converting from) the wrong religion, dying of plague or famine, or being enslaved for economic convenience. But maybe that’s just me.
Still better than what most of the people before us lived through. It’s just that our parents were especially lucky with the time period they lived in.
The idea that people before us lived worse lives is one often used to obscure the clinical nature of standards we attribute to quality of life such as lifespan, infant mortality, food security, and housing. This is because it allows corporations to trivialize the impact of doubling the workload by normalizing the 40 hour work week and housework and child care, what used to be two people’s worth of work, into one.
Are we living ‘better’ lives? On paper, sure. Are we living happier lives? That’s hard to say.
I dunno I prefer not being murdered for practicing (or even converting from) the wrong religion, dying of plague or famine, or being enslaved for economic convenience. But maybe that’s just me.
And squandered the shit out of it.
The rise of the middle class was definitely a historical anomaly. Most of history has been the top 1% oppressing most everyone else.