Living standards are skyrocketing exponentially. The only real correlation is capitalism. I'm fine with not calling it scientific fact, but we should call it socioeconomic consensus among experts. The only holes to be poked are in statism. Nobody has any clue about anything that can come remotely close to touching the progress created by capitalism. There are no competing theories, hardly competing conjectures.
Market proponents sound wacky to everybody else because the standard belief held by everybody else is basically insanity. We live in a world where capital markets are turning the impossible into the commonplace in merely years, yet the popular perception is that we're at a standstill or backtracking. Ten years ago we were buying CDs at stores we had to drive to. Today we download all music instantly for a fraction of the cost. But nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about how in capitalist societies, the poor today are richer than the richest person a hundred years ago. Nobody talks about how the poor fifty years from now will be a million times richer than we are today, plugged into their VR hookups, experiencing virtually anything on demand, even types of experiences the richest today can't even fathom
Humans are conditioned animals. It makes all the sense in the world why markets aren't the answer. But that sense is wrong. We've already beaten down these conditioned "common sense" barriers with experimental sciences, probably because they're easier to do so with. Perhaps social scientists are beginning to come around and explain how we live in the goldenest of golden age. But it doesn't matter if they aren't, because social reality is rapidly progressing even if social commentary is not. There is irony, however, in that it's possible a necessary facet of social progress is the belief that society is stagnant. I believe this may be an integral sensibility in pushing progress forward
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