ABSTRACT
Industrial Revolutions enormously increase living standards. In the long term, the benefits of economic growth filter throughout society, producing higher per capita incomes and a vastly increased range of consumer choices on the way. Some of those entering the living-standards debate have interpreted their brief narrowly, concentrating–sometimes exclusively–on trends in real wages and per capita income over specific periods. Attempts to chart improvements in living standards by constructing models of consumption based on what working people might be expected to buy at different times have had only limited success. Protagonists in the standard of living debate might give more attention to a counter-factual question. The 'pessimists' give more emphasis to arguments about the deteriorating quality of life, some of which can be quantified but which is predominantly impressionistic. The pessimists have also pointed to the extent of social tension at a time, most 'optimists' would assert, of rising living standards.
