It was also due to colonialism, slavery, and unjust wars, among many other things. Doesn't mean we should continue with the old ways.
Some kinds of growth are beneficial in a phase but not sustainable over time. Like the baby hamster.
Some kinds of growth are beneficial in a phase but not sustainable over time. Like the baby hamster.
The GP was claiming that it is "20th century myopic" to not notice that in the past the products of most human toil went mostly to a small elite. My very point was that that old way of doing things didn't generate much wealth, not that the way things have changed is all good. I'm not advocating for any of the old ways, I'm saying that having an economic system that brings benefits to all is an important component of growing the overall wealth of a society (and of humanity overall).
The entire point of capitalism (at least until the very recent past) was to harness the production capacity of labor to create profit. Since elites generally do not engage in labor, there is no sense in which capitalism has ever involved "elites producing for elites".
Of course, expanded automation may tweak this a bit, since elites may no longer rely on human labor to facilitate production. That would change things ... substantially, which was really the original point.
If we arrived at a scenario in which elites used highly automated production to simply produce for themselves, what does that economy look like compared to today? Is it wealthier or poorer overall? Is it self-sustaining?