Living Standards In The 19th Century
OVER the past century or so, and especially in the past 50 years, the western industrial democracies have experienced what can only be described as an economic miracle. Living standards and the quality of life have risen at a pace, and to a level, that would have been impossible to imagine in earlier times.
This improvement in people's lives, staggering by any historical standard, is not measured solely in terms of material consumption—important though it is, for instance, to have enough to eat, to keep warm in winter, to be entertained and educated and to be able to travel. In addition to material gains such as these, and to all the other blessings of western “consumer society”, broader measures of well-being have raced upward as well: infant
This improvement in people's lives, staggering by any historical standard, is not measured solely in terms of material consumption—important though it is, for instance, to have enough to eat, to keep warm in winter, to be entertained and educated and to be able to travel. In addition to material gains such as these, and to all the other blessings of western “consumer society”, broader measures of well-being have raced upward as well: infant