&gt; Even in the late 80&#x27;s, middle class people could barely afford a tv<p>This is not true. Color TV ownership, I&#x27;m pretty sure, was nearly universal in the late 1980s and I expect most households had more than one.<p>&gt; Free market has been so efficient that people now have better lives than they used to for cheaper, which explains why incomes haven&#x27;t gone up that much as it hasn&#x27;t been needed.<p>I&#x27;d be interested in some basis for this. Not everything is cheaper, for example health care and gasoline. I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve seen anything suggesting purchasing power overall has increased, but I suppose it&#x27;s possible.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s a proven fact that the world has never been as peaceful, wealthy, well off and advanced ...<p>That seems like something that would be very hard to prove or to establish factually. Also, while economies have grown in aggregate, that hasn&#x27;t made individuals better off. My income could grow from $100 million to $1 billion while 99 people could stay stuck at $10; our aggregate gain would be $900 million or a wonderful $9 million per capita, but that&#x27;s no help to the other 99 who can&#x27;t make ends meet.<p>EDIT: I should add that the world overall certainly is wealthier and many fewer are in extreme poverty. To attribute that to the &#x27;free market&#x27; (as in purist free-market capitalism, not its usual forms which include elements of many approaches) is erroneous, I think; most was achieved by developing countries following not the market but government-directed industrial policies.