Originally Posted by roachboy

how is it that relative economic prosperity enjoyed by particular class elements/sections/fractions--however measured (and the devils in the details of course--but that would require that you read a fucking book or three...)----is anything like a measurement of the ideological characteristics of the regime that enables that prosperity?

Originally Posted by loquitor

If you step back and look at the main indicators of material well-being, which to my mind include things like life expectancy and nutrition, we are better off now than we ever have been. Not to beat a dead horse here, but we have the richest poor people in history - our poor people are obese rather than starving. The standard of living of a middle class person in the US at the turn of the 20th century was lower than the standard of a poor person at the turn of the 21st.

This does NOT mean we live in Utopia, nor does it mean we have no economic problems, nor does it mean things can't be improved. But this notion that there is impending economic doom is simply not supported. I suspect some of it is due to the obsessive focus on income inequality and the insistence that unless everyone has the same amount of stuff, that means the people who have a bit less than others are ipso facto deemed to be miserable - which is manifestly not true, unless you think envy is a good thing.