In 1900 you would not just have been fired for different sexuality or skin color. The consequences would have been worse.<p>Racism in any period in time other than today was far, far worse. Not just, of course, for non-whites in Europe. What were the survival chances of a lone white man in Moorish Spain ? Not good. In India ? You would have been attacked and killed because you were probably trading goods they could steal. Africa ? Same. Japan ? It was illegal for foreigners to be in Japan, punishable by death, before the Meji restauration.<p>Especially for minorities today&#x27;s living conditions are amongst the best that have ever existed. Even today&#x27;s Saudi Arabia is more tolerant of women and homosexuals, and especially much more tolerant of black&#x2F;otherwise different ethnical people, than the Ottoman empire was 100 years ago. Yes, they kill them, however they don&#x27;t publicly torture them first anymore.<p>Racism is not something that&#x27;s new or unique to our portion of history. It is a constant throughout the entire history of the world that not being part of the majority ethnicity was very, very bad for you, with few exceptions, like the Roman Empire.<p>I think you&#x27;re on the right track with the second part of your argument though. Working conditions for the middle class today have, imho, clearly deteriorated compared to 10-20 years ago (depending on whether you&#x27;re talking Europe&#x2F;America&#x2F;Asia and which &quot;class&quot;). This is a constant across most (all ?) of the world, and certainly seems to be getting worse. And there is an exception : China, although that&#x27;s begun to deteriorate as well. India still seems to be moving forward. But today&#x27;s level in the west is still at 1980-1990 level conditions, no worse. Compared to before that, we&#x27;ve still advanced. But a hell of a lot of middle class people were better off in 2000 than today.