Face it, we aren't living in tents in the snow outside the dangerous factory. It isn't the degree of income disparity as much as the floor that is experienced by the working men that matters. White collar workers, blue collar workers, they are getting by - unlike back then. The gaslight era made the cost of lighting and heating a home several times more than it is today, at the cost of much more pollution in residential neighborhoods.

The ultra-rich back then were perceived quite differently, and actually, the fact that they made their money more slowly (it seems) made workers less hopeful of aspirations to wealth, short stories aside.

Times have changed at least in the US. What happens in China, on the other hand...

This is exactly correct. Many socialists, like the author of this article, seem to believe that there are no constants in the equations of misery, and if today's poor are much poorer than today's rich, that must mean they are suffering as did the poor of a century ago.

That, of course, is nonsense. The pain of poverty at the turn of the 20th century involved starvation, freezing to death, and 14-hour shifts of hard labor. This was the pain that drove millions to radicalism, and who can blame them? But it's just not in the human condition to get equally upset when you've got plenty of food, heat, air conditioning, and workplace safety laws. It is true that people will become upset, angry, and politically motivated when they see the ultra-ultra-uber-rich making such obscene amounts; but the idea that there's going to be a new socialist revolution as a result is a pipe dream that ignores the real progress that capitalism brought to America's poor.

....that ignores the real progress that capitalism brought to America's poor.

Wealth doesn't appear from nowhere. If America's poor is living high on the hog, it means other poor people of the world are living that much more desperate a life.

"The pain of poverty at the turn of the 20th century involved starvation, freezing to death, and 14-hour shifts of hard labor."

Maybe you are fortunate enough that you don't know real people living in poverty. Starvation, yes real hunger still exists. Oil prices will be VERY high this winter, yet there are even fewer subsidies to help w/ heating. I know of elderly ppl who may be close to freezing to death this winter. 14 hrs Hard labor? yes we've got that, too. Although, thanks to labor laws that is less prevalent. But, if you're illegal don't expect too much protection from any of those laws.

The real progress wasn't brought to America's poor through capitalism, it happened through struggles between unions and management.

But thankfully, the uber-rich can get around all that now. Soon amnesty will be here, and they can have a whole new class of slave labor and indentured servants to make their huge profits off.

it really helps when the poor people the modern ultra-rich exploit don't speak English and are on the opposite side of the world. Cuts down on those pesky protest marches.

Actually, that is completely incorrect. It proposes that everything is a zero-sum game. However, we know that information technology, crop yield improvements, transportation technology improvements, and health care improvements have all created a situation in which the poorest of the poor on average are still better off than they were, in terms of survivalship and the reasons they die. Fewer starve and freeze and die of diarrhea.

We can improve further, particularly in certain regions, but we don't need to improve them at the cost of some other areas, no, not even at a cost to the very rich. Simply coordinating the flow of food, whose blockages profit nobody particularly, can reduce starvation in areas where it hurts everyone.

When I look at the homeless, even many of them are living a better lifestyle than many blue collar workers of the 1800s; certainly there are still some people who suffer, but on the whole, class contrast isn't governed by the ratio between the uber rich and the blue collar - it is governed by the degree of pain experienced by the average worker.

Oh, and the unions may have started well, but lately they are merely a locus of great corruption and wealth accumulation themselves.

Here's a little something about the degree of pain being experienced right now by the average worker.

<link>

Oh, but hey who cares right? they're just SOooo much better off than the poor were in the 1800s.

And class contrast has a little more to do with the difference in incomes than just 'the degree of pain experienced by the average worker"

bsharporflat:

....that ignores the real progress that capitalism brought to America's poor.

Wealth doesn't appear from nowhere. If America's poor is living high on the hog, it means other poor people of the world are living that much more desperate a life.

Wow just wow.

Don't get me wrong. I don't feel a responsiblity to uplift the poor, starving masses of the world. Mostly because it is impossible. I'm just recognizing the truth the world.

Neither do I hide behind fantasy science like BenK who seems to think the world will just keep getting wealthier and wealthier, ignoring the fact that 99% of all arable land is already being farmed. Perhaps he is staking his bet on new wheat and rice strains where every grain is as big as a loaf of bread and cold nuclear fusion power is just around the corner. Good luck on the future where each of 400 billion humans on earth are all filthy rich movie stars.

As I see it, 75% of humanity has lived in poverty since the dawn of civilization and that will probably continue to be the case. Unfortunately it may be starvation that keeps the number from rising to 90%. But the fact is that most human families raise the exact number of children who can live and survive within the style of living to which they are accustomed.

um, I think you missed the guy's point. Your idea that there are a fixed number of dollars in the world, and if our poor get some more they must have come from someone else's poor, is so stupid it's shocking. But you thought that this guy was criticizing you for prioritizing foreign poor - no, he was pointing out that there are huge numbers of 10-year-olds with a better grasp on the most trivial basic economics than you do.

right hyperion red. Is not a fixed number of dollars in the world. There is an infinite number, right? Hell, they don't just grow on trees, they are like molecules of air. Wait, no, there are actually a finite number of molecules of air, a finite number of grains of sand on the earth but dollar bills...woo hoo! Infinite! Endless supply, just like petroleum, woo hooo!

Thanks for sharing your wisdom Hyperion. You must be SO smart to have figured out the truth about money. Gosh, how stupid how BLIND I was to think there was a limit to the amount of wealth in the world. Is that why your credit card debt is so high? I am so stupid I thought I had a limited amount of money to spend. But you..you are so smart! You realize there is no need to pay off loans because...money is more plentiful than air! Your creditors can just go outside and take a few deep breaths and..voila! Hyperion is debt free. Please give me my next lesson, perhaps about how the US has unlimited amounts of young men to be sent to Iraq?

Ben:

Relate life then to today. How do you associate the 1800s to today?

When you speak of unions, why not speak of World.com and Enron also or the stupidity of the automotive world.

infineede:

why do you take exception to this? There are spheres of economic influence that may or may not impact one another. Perhaps technological invention improved the lot of one over the other with no negative impact? One may not influence the other.

Why do you think the US people in poverty are living better? Perhaps the better question is:

"Should poverty exist in the US?"

Think about it.

bsharporflat:

We do it all the time by printing up some more buckos and sell them to the Arabs, Chinese, and Japanese. Funny, they just keep sucking them up. There is an infinite amount as long as there is demand.