Economic inequality within a developed nation is one of the least important kinds of inequality. I'd trade one standard deviation of income for one standard deviation of pretty much anything else, such as intelligence or attractiveness. The average person in a developed nation lives better than the kings and emperors of the past in material terms. They had a bigger dwelling, but I'd much rather live in a modern apartment than in a medieval castle. A rich person today can buy a $1200 phone, and a poor person has to make do with a $200 phone. That extra $1000 only marginally improves the quality of the phone. The $200 phone today is still better than the $1200 phone of 10 years ago. The medieval king had no phone, heck, he probably didn't even have running water. The food he ate was worse. We can eat bananas every day, the king perhaps only saw a banana on one of his paintings. The healthcare he had access to was way worse. The transportation he had access to was way worse. The entertainment he had access to was worse.
The standard of living in these developed nations is due to exploitation that is outsourced to other nations. For example, regarding that $1200 cell phone? This is on the front page right now: https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/29/iphone-workers-forced-labor/
We have the best medical care, but results are uneven. If you are so poor that you are rationing your medicine to the point it doesn't work, what does it matter how good it is?
Was the food the king ate really worse? Today's poor eat sugar disguised as "food" that leads to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. You can say what you want about medieval diets but at least they didn't have an obesity epidemic. I'm not sure who is better off.
At any rate, even if what you say is 100% true, that doesn't really change the fact that homelessness, hunger, and poverty are solvable problems today. To say that things were worse before and therefore the moral failings of society today are tolerable is just baffling to me.
sexual/romantic partners though. if youre living in a shitty apt with a 200 dollar phone, good luck getting interest from potential partners.
whereas the king was swimming in booty, and at the end of it all, that's what moves most of us mostly.
id argue few ppl really want a lambo for the engineering of it as a machine, they just want to be seen riding in it. 500 years ago a lambo was a fancy horse drawn carriage.
You're right, the king probably had more booty. Remember though that the king's wealth is many standard deviations above average, so we have to compare him to somebody who is many standard deviations more attractive than average.
In the modern world, one standard deviation of physical attractiveness matters way more for attracting sexual/romantic partners than does one standard deviation of wealth, especially so for genuine attraction.
I'm married now, but I had what seemed like roughly an average amount of dating difficulty that wasn't significantly changed when I got a better apartment or better phone.
