[danaris]

Two things can be true at the same time: both

"Normal people in the western world are better off than they were at any/nearly any given time in the past."

and

"There is a staggering amount of wealth inequality in the western world right now, and there are very concerning signs about what it is doing to our politics, economy, and culture."

[eru]

Global inequality has been going down at a tremendous rate over the last few decades. (Mostly by China and to a lesser extent India going from dirt poor to middle income.)

Not sure what you mean 'what it is doing to our politics, economy, and culture.'? All those are doing ok as far as I can tell. At least not worse than in the past.

[danaris]

Global inequality, yes.

I'm talking about inequality within the developed nations—specifically, the US (I believe it also affects the UK; I don't feel qualified to talk about such effects beyond that, due to lack of information).

As for what's happening with our politics...if you can't see that the current situation is wildly different than it was 40, 20, or even 10 years ago, then I'm sorry, but you have not been paying close attention. We have people proclaiming themselves as actual literal neo-Nazis storming the Capitol building in an attempted coup, in open collaboration with certain members of Congress and the wife of a sitting Supreme Court judge. And while some of the people involved in the Jan 6 coup attempt are, indeed, being convicted as they should be, to my knowledge, none of the politicians who are complicit have been publicly investigated. This is not normal, it is not healthy, and while it is not entirely due to the increasing wealth inequality, to claim that that has no part in the level of polarization today and the rise of extremism...well, it would be an extraordinary claim, and thus require extraordinary evidence to support it.

[eru]

People always like to complain that times are getting worse.

[danaris]

I mean, yes, this is true, but it doesn't follow that times never actually get worse.

This is a case where, at least in certain respects, times are provably getting worse than they were before.

If politics are too fuzzy and nebulous for you, look at generational economics: I don't recall the precise figures off the top of my head, but the baby boomers are still holding wealth vastly disproportionate to their share of the demographics, and younger generations have vastly less income and wealth than they did at the same time in their lives, while over the same period, prices of many important things—like homes, health care, and higher education—have all risen much faster than the rate of inflation. The kind of house that someone working minimum wage could have afforded in 1960, they'd now need a white-collar job (probably requiring a college degree) and several years of savings to buy.

You can't just handwave all of that away as "eh, people have complained about times getting worse since the Ancient Greeks".

[bsenftner]

"Being a scientist, I had to check the math. Turns out it's even worse. You could have made $53,000 (£44,000) a day or $20 million per year since Jesus was born and still not make the profits Shell did in 2022." - Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist, Chief Scientist @nature_org , Prof @TexasTech