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Scott_Sanderson | 4 years ago

True but couldn't some good be compared like the cost of housing, food, clothes, etc.?

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aeternum|4 years ago

Even with those items, they have changed significantly. For example, how do you compare the value of a house that has indoor plumbing, electricity, central hvac to an old house without those things?

If the price of the modern house is 2x the old house, should it be attributed to inflation or a higher intrinsic value?

vel0city|4 years ago

Right? These days it's so much more expensive to pay a doctor to bleed you to cure the evils in your blood, and trying to find an available apothecary to sell you medicinal mercury at a good price is darn near impossible these days.

sib|4 years ago

Yes - although what would be completely acceptable for a well-off person to live in in 17th-century North America wouldn't come close to meeting building codes today. It wouldn't even have plumbing, electric power, indoor toilet, true insulation, etc. And it would be tiny. So can you really compare it as though they are both "housing"?