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https://theconversation.com/the-certainty-of-ever-growing-living-standards-we-grew-up-with-under-queen-elizabeth-is-at-an-end-190425>
"Much has been written about how, with the passing of the Queen, we have lost
one of our last continuing links to the second world war.
We have, but we have also lost something even more profound – the link she gave
us back to when the kind of world we know began.
On Tuesday last week Queen Elizabeth appointed a new prime minister of Britain,
Liz Truss, who was born in 1975.
Seven decades earlier, Elizabeth II ascended to the role alongside Prime
Minister Winston Churchill, who was born in 1874.
That her first and last prime ministers were born a century apart is remarkable
enough. But it is particularly significant that the thread of her reign
extended all the way back, through Churchill, to the 1870s. That’s when it is
possible to argue the expectations we grew up with began.
As the new UK Prime Minister was sworn in last week, University of California,
Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong published his long-awaited
Slouching
Towards Utopia.
It’s an account of what he calls “the long 20th century”, a century he says
began in 1870.
Why 1870, and not 1901, or even a century earlier at the start of the
industrial revolution?
Because, DeLong says, right up until the 1870s living standards hadn’t changed
much.
More importantly, living standards hadn’t changed much since the dawn of
recorded time."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
