Was wealth that brought us this far. The wealthy say that it was them, but it wasn’t. It was wealth. Those first surpluses after the climate stabilized were the genesis of civilization, of the modern world. Gave mankind more time to think, to make better tools. Gave us democracy and the digital age in a mere ten thousand years. From that first stored grain came written languages, philosophy, and machines. Machines that built better machines. Philosophy that led to better philosophy. Science that led to better science. Machines and science that produced more food.
All a positive feedback continuum. There would be no smartphone but for the first plow. Wealthy societies get wealthier (if they make halfway proper use of their wealth), wealthy enough to feed poorer societies. Now, thanks to the digital age, we are able to free ourselves from manual labor, from being beasts of burden; are on the cusp of being able to expand our minds through Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Alas and alack, like many other elixirs, wealth has harmful side effects. Sometime soon after its origin, a few greedy souls figured out how to get their grubby hands on most or all of it. This control allowed them to demand labor in exchange for enough to survive. Made them wealthy; left everyone else with just enough to survive as long as they could labor. Ever since, except in communal societies, one's labor in exchange for survival (economic servitude) has been the predominant economic model. Generation after generation of workers were condemned to reliving the hard life of the generation before.
Slavery, that most evil, baneful form of servitude, has been around for more than five thousand years.
Begging: Where would we be if there had been better wealth distribution, if the masses had been given access to education, better food, and healthcare? If every child, if every person, had been accorded the opportunity to develop their full potential? Where will we be if there isn’t a better distribution going forward? If there is? The maldistribution of wealth (in the name of greed) over millennia has been a waste of human resources.
The pursuit of wealth has other pernicious side effects. For most of the aforementioned ten thousand years, natural resources were treated as if they were infinite. They weren’t. The Industrial Age’s great demand for raw materials exacerbated the exploitation and waste, and pollution of the environment with little or no regard until the mid-20th century. Climate Change, itself, is much a consequence of the Industrial Age and associated pursuit of wealth. Wars have been fought in the pursuit.
Wealth funded the development of nuclear weapons. In the event of full-scale nuclear war, or if Climate Change isn’t soon arrested, it won’t be any small reset for mankind. More likely; starting over from a time years ago.
These government and economic models, where a very few held most of the wealth and power, and most others knew servitude, persisted for thousands of years. For the most of which, the average wealth was dismally low. Yet, some say, “That’s just the way it is.” Or, even “That’s how it should be.” Too few ask, “How should it be?” “How should it be in order to better deal with Climate Change; for transitioning to the Digital Age?” “How should it be given that world population is 8.5 billion, headed to 9.5 billion?”
How about, “A well-constructed economic model that produces and equitably distributes the requisite goods and services; does so in a sustainable manner with minimal damage to the environment.”
The Magna Carta (1215) was a first small crack in the wall of wealth and power. Then, in the 16th century, England (motivated by a labor shortage due to the Black death) ended serfdom. To be followed by France in the 18th; then Russia in the 19th, …. The 1775 American Revolution brought, “ · · · government of the people by the people for the people · · ·”. The 19th century saw the end of slavery in the Western World; the beginning of the end of colonialism and monarchies. The mid-20th century saw the handing down of Brown vs Board, then the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the United States. All addressed distribution — the distribution of wealth and/or power. All were progress.
There was a period, from around 1935 until around 1972, in the United States of America when significantly more than ever before of the wealth from production was shared with workers. As a consequence, they consumed more goods and services, accumulated more wealth. These less than forty years spanned the alpha and omega of the United States’ halcyon years; were the high noon for its fabled ‘middle class’; would not have been but for a timely concurrent high demand for labor and broad unionization of the workforce. ‘Twas unions and a concurrent high demand for labor, not tax cuts for the wealthy, that gave America her fabled ‘middle class’; her best wealth distribution ever.
In 1959, taxes on income above the equivalent of today’s $1 million were taxed at ~80%.
The higher wages, better and greater distribution, along with an abundance of planned obsolescence fueled increased consumption of (demand for) goods and services, which fueled increased production, which increased wealth, which fueled increased consumption, …, …. This in an economy premised on an economic model dependent on ever increasing consumption and ‘economic growth’, thus the positive feedback loop. Working-class people could buy a home, and have stay-at-home moms; even afford to send their kids to college.
It should be said that, though most welcome due to labor's desperate past, most of the well-paying ‘halcyon years’ production jobs were still hard, tedious, and somewhat dangerous; were something few parents would wish upon their children.
During the ‘halcyon years’: The effects of Climate Change became evident; the US population rose from 127 million to 210 million; world population rose from 2.2 billion to 3.8 billion. It was still very much the Industrial Age. Today: the US population is 330 million and the world’s 8.5 billion; the world is under threat of cataclysmic, catastrophic Climate Change caused by the increased emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels as part of the never ending pursuit of ever increasing consumption and economic growth. All this while transitioning from the Industrial to the Digital Age.
The ‘halcyon years’ are irreproducible because history cannot repeat itself because the past is irreproducible. Besides, they were unsustainable. ‘'Tis folly to even think about going back.