[Julian658]

You sound like you at least got the pom-poms.

Since arriving at this planet I am always looking for intelligent lifeforms. Along the way I have found fascinating species with very unusual behaviors and points of views.

[ckaihatsu]

Since arriving at this planet I am always looking for intelligent lifeforms. Along the way I have found fascinating species with very unusual behaviors and points of views.

Does your politics even *allow* for this -- wouldn't you rather be *forcibly repatriated* back to your home world?

[Thunderhawk]

This is pattently untrue, as any visit to a Harbor Freight or a 'Big Box Store' will show you (in terms of better quality/durability of goods under capitalism).

Marx addressed directly the reduction of consumer choices (in modern neoclassical speak) under capitalist production, which is arguably symptomatic of the same phenomena. I haven't been able to locate the exact passage just now, but he essentially details how many commodities had been crowded out of the market due to the dominance of substitutable (though in many cases inferior) products which came to dominate particular classes of commodities on the basis of becoming objects of large-scale factory production. Materials for making clothes, for example. Marx also details how industrial capitalism had slaughtered the handicraft industries of the petite bourgeoisie, which is broadly relate to the alienation of workers from their labor.

I have the same gripe regarding quality, especially tools (I have tools ranging from 100+ years old to new), however ..

1) I took the comment about being wealthier now being the trend of humanity - be it over the last couple millennia, or centuries or even decades. Hiccups happen, but the trend is increased wealth.

2) The cost of most things, and by cost I mean how much work is spent for these things (be it paid work, whose money is then spent to buy things, or one's own work/labour), is lower for most items. A tool that costs 1-2 days work and is bought 4x rather than 1x in a life time are small exceptions. The big exceptions that come to mind are where the cost is years of work, and often they are so because demand is much stronger than supply - be it limited resources (real estate is a limited resource in major cities) or education. These big exceptions (to me) seem to be a major part of modern lives. If these exceptions are a hiccup or a failure of capitalism is in the category of 'now v future' so not relevant to the 'now v past' discussion that is the OP.

3) Quantifiability bias in data and perspective. I see an entire class of items -low usefulness, low usage, low cost- that is now mass produced commercially, bought and collected. Cheap products that because they have a price makes them quantifiable, that in the past would have been home made and quickly used up/recycled or something not considered as part of wealth. $5 toy/book/etc. that is played with shortly and then sits in a drawer is an asset. Its a garbage asset you cannot sell to recoup any of that $5, but you have it so you are 'wealthier'. Is it a lot different from a toy from sticks and then tossed or a story told on a camp fire and then forgotten? not really, but the former $5 price means its ready for recording and its a thing you still physically have, while the later are hard to quantify/'not applicable' and thus valued at $0.

[Steve_American]

Why are we as a whole wealthier than before?

First, you didn't define 'wealth'. So, I have to assume a definition.

People today (in advanced nations) live better because we burn a lot of fossil fuel. That is the whole reason. Money has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all, except that it "oils" the flow of everything.

Wealth usually has to do with money. Most wealth is in the form of corp. stock, land, and buildings; also gold. Another big chunk is in the form of money, that is, bank accounts, US bonds, state & local bonds, corp. bonds, and the about $5T in dollars of cash, etc.

So, to answer the question; the main source of the increase in "wealth" is the past deficit spending by the US Gov. that doesn't create a corresponding debit against anyone's wealth.

Like I have explained many times, there is absolutely no way that the US can ever run a cumulative surplus over any huge number of years that totals about $25T. The only way the US can get rid of its debt is to create about $25T in cash to pay it. [I'm ignoring the far, far worse idea of just canceling it, and the even worse idea of creating hyper inflation to pay the debt off at $0.00001 on the dollar.]
. . . So, there is no corresponding debit anywhere in the economy.
.

[Reaper]

We’ve had oil for 100 years. Why are we wealthier than we were in 1920 if the sum total of your answer is oil?

[ckaihatsu]

U.S. Real GDP Per Capita (1900 - 2017)

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/chart/ ... trendline/

But:


Wealth Inequality in America

A Look At Income Inequality In The United States _ TIME

[Puffer Fish]

Where does wealth grow from?

The answer to this is basically that capital is used to create more capital.

In addition to that there are technological increases (but I don't want to overemphasize that here).

But the reality is that most developed Western countries have not really grown that much, in actuality.

I did a rough calculation in another thread and found that the real per capita wealth of the US has only increased by about 20 percent since 1970 (at least by one indication).

(How much has GDP really increased since 1970 - viewtopic.php?f=9&t=177689 )