It’s not a fair comparison cause you’re not going back far enough. There is not much debate comparing being poor today to being poor during the Middle Ages.

Unfortunately there are a great many people who will argue just that, including many leftists.

If you compare modern life to pre agricultural times, then it gets tricky, they worked a lot less and weren’t constantly starving. They were athletes by today’s standards, with their own challenges and hardships. Life was harder but it matched the human needs/desires better than modern life. Hopefully we can reach a society that is better than all of history, not just cherry picked bad parts.

The ‘original affluent society’ argument is a relict of the 70s that desperately needs to die.