Like I said, I’d agree that most live a subsistence lifestyle. Its hard to break out of a cycle of poverty, and life isn’t easy for most.

But our lives hardly come with the same restrictions that serfs did. I think we think of our times as worse because they come after a period that (we’re told) was great and prosperous for all, while for serfs, they (probably) had no such cultural mythology. I could hear an argument that there lives were better due to community and simplicity of life or something like that (I don’t know if I’d agree, but I’d probably think there was something to it).

But I also think we’re both looking at a wall and you’re saying its fuchsia while I think its magenta. When its all said and done, the wall is some shade of purple; it seems like we agree that things are bad, that they could be a lot better, and that they should be better.