Has the quality of life for the poor and working class gotten better or worse over the last century?
The last century? You had to reach back that far to try to cherry pick some data-points where this idiotic argument might coincidentally work?
Ah... So instead of actually looking at data over a relevant period of time, we should just guess. That makes so much more sense!
I mean, yes the working class are better off now, indoor plumbing!
Yup. A great example of something that benefits the working class while earning big bucks for those who were in the business of providing it. Did you set out to prove my point?
And during that same time, has not the "gap between rich and poor" grown? The rich getting richer clearly is not a cause of worsening economic outcomes for the working class. All evidence points to a correlation going in the opposite direction.
No, all evidence correlates with the rise of ORGANIZED LABOR greatly improving the lives of the working class.
Why? Because it happened during the same time period? Why assume one factor is causative while the other is not? At the very least, we can argue that the rich getting richer didn't hurt the working class, right?
By that, of course, I mean actual fucking evidence like median real wages, available leisure time, healthcare, etc. It's not really a complicated argument. Societies with strong labor have high standards of living for the middle class.
That doesn't tell us *why* though. It just tells us what. Your conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence. Strong labor (by which I assume you mean "strong unions") wont produce high standards unless you also have strong businesses earning sufficient profits to afford to pay their workers better. Also, strong unions doesn't result in advances in technology which result in higher standards of living (like indoor plumbing,among many others). Capitalists do that.
If the only factor was relative wages you *might* have a point. Except that non-union workplaces pay high wages too, of course. But that still misses the biggest factor. What good is it to earn more money if the things you can buy with it don't improve? You can unionize the labor of a tribe of hunter gathers all you want, and it's not going to magically create air conditioned homes for them to live in. You're clearly missing a big part of the picture.
I'll also point out that where whole economic systems have changed to adopt the model you're so pleased with, the predictable outcome has been reduced quality of life for the workers, slower technological growth, increased real poverty, etc. It's not organized labor that raises people out of poverty, but a healthy and wealthy capitalistic economy. Private individuals pursuing wealth produces far far better economic outcomes, not just for themselves, but for everyone else in the society than any other method we've tried.
The issue is that we have a whole socio-economic agenda on the left that is based on the assumption that as the rich get richer the poor suffer. But that assumption is clearly wrong, so the agenda is at best unnecessary, and at worst actually harmful.
Nope. Not even vaguely based on that. See, while uneducated simpletons stumble through the world assuming things, there are in fact statistical techniques that can establish strong correlations and control for randomness.
Where is the evidence then? Show me that as the rich have gotten richer in the US, the poor have suffered. You can't, can you?
ps: Feel free to reply, but I'm not going to read it. I will quote in and post "false" beneath it. Just letting you know.
I'll just interpret that as you knowing you're wrong, but being unwilling to admit it.