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> even widen the gap between the haves and haves not
America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
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Medieval poor likely had a higher standard of living than ancient kings, should they have complained?
Oh, great, then there is nothing to fix. We just apply medieval standards and everything is hunky dory.
Is that the bar? Who looks at medieval kings and goes "their standard of living should be our baseline"? Living in a cold stone building with no medical care questionable food, etc?
But also, no they don't. Standard of living includes one's agency over their environment. An medieval king could say things and the kingdom would bend to their will. No one making $18,000 is having hundreds or thousands of people bending over to serve them.
Utter nonsense.
They also work longer hours than medieval serfs, are more precarious in housing and food security and more separated from their family. Also slaves work the farms. Read tomatoland or the lives and deaths of the American workers.
Is there a definition of standard of living? A king would be entertaining, socialising, and strategising most of the time (along with a lot more pursuits of hunting, etc for leisure). While I understand they had less access to healthcare and variety of food, travel, etc...id still argue they had a better standard of living than someone that works 8-10h/day and then comes home to cook and clean?