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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. |