[FredPret]

We have good working conditions mainly because we can now afford them.

Do you think poor people didn't get upset / rebellious in centuries and millennia past?

The difference now is that we have the GDP and tech to support much cushier lives for vast numbers of people.

[biophysboy]

Technology increases the size of the pie, but it is always possible to make the distribution of slices extremely unequal. More gdp and tech does not guarantee a better quality of life, as many countries today demonstrate.

[FredPret]

Name such a country and then also explore that country's economic history over the past 200 years.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find one where life hasn't gotten vastly better.

[biophysboy]

Haiti