[petegrif]

Being facetious doesn't advance your argument. You are of course right that appalling working conditions are not new. The labor movement was a response that such conditions. But the key point being made is not that conditions today are in all regards worse than all conditions in the past but rather that despite all our much vaunted progress and productivity gains many people don't experience the benefits and are in fact working in toxic work conditions that are profoundly stressful. And that point is, I believe, not especially difficult to substantiate.

[Dr_tldr]

I'd agree, but a common doom-mongering narrative is "things are worse than they used to be and they're getting ever worse!"

Very few people say "the present has a number of trade-offs that's arguably not much better or about as bad as the past." That said, I think a lot of the gains are invisible to white professional class heterosexual secular/christian males, which is part of the problem.

As a pure issue of labor, the average work conditions are probably the same or worse than in 1970 and purchasing power is about the same. Both of those are bad things that need to change, but there are vast cultural and technological improvements that often get diminished, and I think the comment above is a pushback against that, which does advance their argument.

If you only identify with the historically most privileged group, a lot of the advantages like "not being provided with inferior safety equipment because of your race" or "living in constant fear of your career being destroyed because of your sexuality" don't seem very important. What seems "toxic" to the most privileged group can seem like "acceptable tradeoffs" to other groups, and this also speaks to the attitudes of many immigrants and H1-B employees.

[iofj]

In 1900 you would not just have been fired for different sexuality or skin color. The consequences would have been worse.

Racism in any period in time other than today was far, far worse. Not just, of course, for non-whites in Europe. What were the survival chances of a lone white man in Moorish Spain ? Not good. In India ? You would have been attacked and killed because you were probably trading goods they could steal. Africa ? Same. Japan ? It was illegal for foreigners to be in Japan, punishable by death, before the Meji restauration.

Especially for minorities today's living conditions are amongst the best that have ever existed. Even today's Saudi Arabia is more tolerant of women and homosexuals, and especially much more tolerant of black/otherwise different ethnical people, than the Ottoman empire was 100 years ago. Yes, they kill them, however they don't publicly torture them first anymore.

Racism is not something that's new or unique to our portion of history. It is a constant throughout the entire history of the world that not being part of the majority ethnicity was very, very bad for you, with few exceptions, like the Roman Empire.

I think you're on the right track with the second part of your argument though. Working conditions for the middle class today have, imho, clearly deteriorated compared to 10-20 years ago (depending on whether you're talking Europe/America/Asia and which "class"). This is a constant across most (all ?) of the world, and certainly seems to be getting worse. And there is an exception : China, although that's begun to deteriorate as well. India still seems to be moving forward. But today's level in the west is still at 1980-1990 level conditions, no worse. Compared to before that, we've still advanced. But a hell of a lot of middle class people were better off in 2000 than today.

[slgeorge]

> [... ]but there are vast cultural and technological improvements that often get diminished, and I think the comment above is a pushback against that, which does advance their argument.

The comment at top of thread was that relative to the ultra-rich (top 1%), things had got worse for the rest (the other 99%). The commentator expressly accepted that s/he was in a traditionally privileged position - yet it was still difficult.

There are many improvements required to help groups within the other 95%, whether that be by country, ethnic group, gender or anything else. But, you're simply having a different argument, when point of consideration is the much biggest gains that the top 1% is making relative to ALL other groups. This both includes the group you define as privileged and underprivileged.

Even to engage with your argument - the "trade-offs" you're citing that have led to 'cultural and technological improvements' for disadvantaged groups are social movement that weren't created or aided by the ultra-wealthy or large corporates. Quite the reverse. Using the principle of charity, the only 'improvement' I think you could put in this category would be globalisation - and honestly it's too big a change for us to know the outcome on that one.