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Comment by indubitable | Hacker News Reader

I do not understand why people consider GDP a meaningful indicator of wealth. The United States is a great example of a very real issue with it. Our GDP/capita has been skyrocketing. Since just 2000 it has increased by about 17%. However, since 2000 the real median income has increased by less than 1%.

It seems like our country, and many others, are optimizing for GDP growth. I assume at some point in the past, it presumably did correlate to wealth, so this made sense. But I think our attempt (and success) at maximizing GDP has shown that such a correlation was indeed just a correlation, and not a causal relationship. Nonetheless, we continue to focus on GDP, and this is simply bemusing.

And now to compare GDP optimized modern nations, to an out of left field ballpark estimate for an ancient empire? I think that's clearly not a very reasonable thing to do.

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"I do not understand why people consider GDP a meaningful indicator of wealth"

So what would you measure instead? At least empirically GDP gives a good ballpark estimate of the general level of development in a country. Not that itself alone makes sense, but in a global world it's a pretty good indicator at where a country is economically.

GDP of a pre-modern empire is far more debatable, of course. But, the life of a roman peasant was not that much different from that of a rural worker in, say, india. Except, no cell phones, not even the slightest chance for vaccination, the cultivated species were probably less productive, etc.

I would focus on something much easier - what was life, approximately, like for somebody in the exact 50th percentile of socioeconomic status. It even makes more sense today. How has life changed for somebody in the 50th percentile in 2000 versus today? How has it changed for somebody in the 50th percentile in 1970 vs today?

This focus on the lifestyle approximation also makes much more sense than even factors like inflation. For instance inflation today is ostensibly very low, with the Fed becoming increasingly aggressive with monetary policy to try to sustain it (deflation is not fun). Nonetheless, that doesn't really mesh well with the 50% who have seen many of the necessities of life (housing, education, healthcare, etc) inflate at rates vastly greater than the reported inflation rate.

Quantification makes things seem much more scientific, but the key word there is seem. Without a strong 1:1 mapping of a quantification to what it implicitly represents, it becomes less than useless -- it becomes actively misleading. So for instance I think based on what I said above you might suggest I'm just referring to median personal income. Of course in nations where e.g. women do not work, median personal income would be incredibly misleading. So perhaps I am talking about median household income. Yet in countries where large numbers of poor individuals reside within a single household, again the value becomes meaningless.

I do not think there is any singular consistent and clear way to compare wealth over time and circumstance, other than to compare an average approximation of a lifestyle. I think this thread is a good example of this. Many have mentioned that by many metrics today, the average person today is wealthier than a medieval king. Yet how many people would rather be an average individual today than a king of a medieval era? If people like the things that these metrics represent, the answer to that question should cohere with their measured increase today. In other words most people should prefer to be an average person today. I strongly suspect that is not the case.

"Yet how many people would rather be an average individual today than a king of a medieval era?"

I presume you approach this from the vanity angle? Given the type of person who hungers after such vain glory I presume the persons who would like to be a medieval king, and who would choose to remain in such a role after trying it out is very small. I know, some prefer a challenge of violence and filth for it's own sake. The best thing one can say is that you can be drunk the entire time and no one will complain.

What is wealth?

In my opinion at the most fundamental level it is just a representation of access to raw materials and especially to labor. Everything else is ultimately just a derivative of those. Being a king would provide a practically endless supply of both. That wealth enables you to have the resources to try to make the world a better place, and certainly to be able to enjoy all the world has to offer.

Of course we have become vastly wealthier in some ways. Education in particular is something that has always been a product of wealth, and to this very day still is. Nonetheless, any individual with an internet connection now has access to what is, at least ostensibly, an MIT caliber education - for free. The lack of education is no doubt a part of the reason for why the peasants stayed peasants.

But nonetheless, royalty of past times would of course have had access to the absolute best education available of the time. It's phenomenally interesting reading things like 'The King's Mirror' [1]. Various translations are available at the bottom. It was written in the 13th century intended as a childhood educational tool for a king. It's surreal considering that it was written about 800 years ago.

Ultimately I think things like having a fluffier bed (to reference an anecdote from this thread) or access to electronic gadgetry is hardly a meaningful measurement of wealth. As you mention, if somebody wants to just live their life in pure hedonism now a days there are many ways to do so - much as in the past people could have just drunk themselves to death in the past (or present). But hedonism becomes rapidly unfulfilling. And it leaves us wanting to create, to produce. And wealth is what enables one to fulfill this most fundamental and intrinsic desire that's what brought us from primate to man. And the middle today are vastly far away from the middle of times past, yet simultaneously still vastly far from the elite of times past.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konungs_skuggsj%C3%A1

"Many have mentioned that by many metrics today, the average person today is wealthier than a medieval king. Yet how many people would rather be an average individual today than a king of a medieval era? If people like the things that these metrics represent, the answer to that question should cohere with their measured increase today. In other words most people should prefer to be an average person today. I strongly suspect that is not the case."

I agree, because one thing these comparisons miss is that people judge almost everything relatively - there's research showing more people would choose to earn $20k amongst peers averaging $10k than earn $50k amongst peers earning $100k, even though on an absolute scale the latter would mean earning $30k more.

Being king means being top of the pile, and that's a much bigger draw than shiny gadgets - many of which would be replaced by servants anyway - or modern health care - because nobody thinks they'll need it until they do.

Median income perhaps, or GDP of the bottom 25% of the population? The current theory is that GDP increases trickle down, but it's not totally clear they do in the current system. Those metrics might lead to better overall outcomes on the key happiness metrics.

" Those metrics might lead to better overall outcomes on the key happiness metrics."

I though we were discussing economics and not happiness?

People tend to conflate the two. Just because something is not economically measurable does not mean it's not valuable.

But, when we are discussing attempts to understand the world through measurement it's not really helpful to point out that the measure does not capture every facet of reality as that feature is built in to every measure.

The whole point of the article was the estimated wealth gradient in roman empire - not how happy the average roman was.

There's a long bibliography here, replete with suggestions and some research; but someone else will have to supply it.

Robert Kennedy's 1968 speech on the GDP is relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/may/24/robert...

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