History Memes

It depends on how far back you go. In the Roman Empire they had a GINI wealth index of almost 1. Meaning only around 1000 people in the whole empire had 99% of the wealth.

You had the slaves which didn't have any rights and made up a large portion of the early empire, freemen which got grain subsidies and basic assistance which was still not enough to feed the family, plebs that had a job which didn't qualify them for basic assistance but still barely surviving, the top 10% that were just a tad more than surviving, the 1% which could afford a "middle class" lifestyle and rich senators. On the top if it was the emperor that owned something like 90% of everything.

Middle ages until early modern had serfs be around 90%, not too shabby since they got some land to do with as they please but they were overworked and taxed whether or not they made money.

2025 is pretty nice in Europe since the median wage affords you a middle class life with luxuries, shelter and food security but 1950s US after WW2 looked pretty good IMO. Work as a waiter, buy a house in 5 years and feed the family? That's something almost nobody can do today right out of high school.

So financially in history it's been shit, it wasn't good for the top 10% either way back before modern times and lavish lifestyle was never the norm at any point. I still think that with better wealth redistribution, taxation and building a crap ton of housing could make 2025 people way better off than almost all periods in history.