The Uruk Machine – sam[ ]zdat
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Hence, Polanyi observes a paradox: contemporary writers all note that poverty is increasing, that the poverty observed is much worse than anything before, and that it all seemed to coincide with the Industrial Revolution. And yet the best economic estimates all point out that everyone – not merely the rich – was actually richer than before. The paradox vanishes once you realize that “richer” means only in terms of wages, and that the full range of wealth that existed before is not taken into account. Polanyi calls this “the economic prejudice”.
Who's Karl Polanyi? Why do I care about him?