"What is the point that you are trying to argue? That the world on average is better of today than it was 50 years ago, and still better than 500 years ago."
Yes, actually, that was precisely the point that I was trying to make. I had not thought that it was so contentious.
So I was surprised when Andie Nachborgen disagreed, saying:
"it's just untrue to say we are better off, lots better off, than we were a generation ago, or that the secular tendencies are to make us better and better off. They are in fact in many ways the reverse."
Wojtek continues, explaining
"There is, after all a secular growth in economic output, so arguing that this output is consumed somehow is rather trivial and true by definition."
Which I agree with, even the part that it is rather trivial, and true by definition. I would not have spent my time insisting on things that seemed 'true by definition' is all and sundry had not turned around and said, no, it is not true.
Wojtek continues "A far more interesting discussion, which you seem to evade, is about different rates of that growth for (i) different segments of the population"
But how do I evade such a discussion? I think what I said at the outset was:
"Just to state the obvious: yes, across the board social inequality has been rising in the developed world, or to put it another way, US workers wages, relative to the incomes of other classes, have fallen. And, as Marx and Alex agree, relative wages are important for the way people feel."
On your points about optimum output, if I understand you right, I would agree too, this system is peculiarly wasteful. Myself I would put the stress on the degree of control it denies - no amount of stuff would compensate for the alienation of social power that capitalist growth entails.