Quality of life has massively degraded in absolute terms. It has degraded because a huge fraction of productivity that used to be dedicated to improving the lives of average people is now dedicated to improving the lives of the extremely wealthy.
by what metric?
>It has degraded because a huge fraction of productivity that used to be dedicated to improving the lives of average people is now dedicated to improving the lives of the extremely wealthy.
1. define "huge fraction"
2. define "productivity that used to be dedicated to improving the lives of average". I want to see statistics for it. If you're talking about government spending, US government expenditures as percent of GDP is either flat or slowly creeping up[1] in the past few decades. Medicare spending[2] has been creeping up for years and far exceeds GDP growth.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/248073/distribution-of-m...