I have seen a few of these with similar story lines and realized we are living it right now. They have the best healthcare, the best food, the best everything and most of us are a few dollars from disaster. That scares some of us to death literally from all the stress it causes.
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You’re right that we have more luxuries today, many that we could live without. And we have them because of higher efficiency and specialization. One person operating machines can farm what took 40 people before. One person in a factory makes thousands of shoes vs making one pair by hand. We’re able to create immense value. The issue is that people who own land and buildings and machines take an oversized share of the value being created, while some workers struggle to meet basic needs. Of course there are many people who live middle class lives. There are also plenty of people who work very hard and still have a low quality of living. We should commit to meeting everyone’s basic needs.
There’s a kernel of truth here- yes, a lot of everything is more complex (and a lot of it, like cars that now have better safety features and standards- is just better) today than it was- but that’s not the whole story behind why everything is more expensive today, particularly in terms of labor’s buying power.
Today, there are things that haven’t improved in power or technology or quality (looking at you, broadband cable and cell phone connectivity, and basic foodstuffs, and commodities like fuel and timber, and health insurance, and housing) but cost so much more because largely none of these markets are elastic or competitive, and there’s been so much ‘vertical integration’ in these spaces that in years past would have run afoul of basic antitrust enforcement of laws on the books.
Speaking of things that used to be illegal and still should be but aren’t, stock buybacks account for a lot of money that used to go to payroll, but which now sidesteps payroll and goes directly to capital in seriously tax-privileged ways.
Basically, that means capital has been getting regular raises since the 70s but labor’s rates mostly haven’t kept up with inflation- and as such, ought to be regarded to be pay cuts.
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These are perfect examples of things that at scale should become cheaper but don’t. Yes, there’s more of it and that cost something to deliver, but the cost of delivering bandwidth per Mbps has decreased drastically (like, by 80+ percent) while the price of having a plan does not in any way reflect that. Likewise, the cost of delivering cell phone service has gone substantially down but the dollars-and-cents price of having a cell phone more than tripled between 2006 and 2020.
Sure, they’re better and faster than they were, but there’s no good reason for them to cost more, other than you have money and they want it