[bradleybuda]

This could also be a story of technological progress. A thought experiment - imagine you, an archaeologist, recovered the remains of our civilization, from roughly 1925 to 2025, but the only surviving artifact was televisions. You know that televisions are valuable - initially only wealthy families had them - so you used them as a proxy for riches and plotted the Gini coefficient using just the size, quality, resolution, color depth, etc. You could conclude that our society became less unequal over that period, because you miss that technology dramatically compressed the distribution of this resource and that household wealth was freed up to put to other purposes.

[goodmythical]

If we had supporting documentation supporting "initially only wealthy families had them" why would we not also have supporting documentation supporting "eventually average families had them?"

Seems like the entire "initially" premise kind of indicates the change, no?

[graemep]

Artifacts of any sort, especially technological ones, are subject to such changes over time.

House size/living space is far more constant. It would make a good and proxy for riches in a contemporary society too.