You’re mistaking technological improvements for “increased wealth.” Though we are taught to think this way (by the elite, who control our schools and economic theories — this makes it easier for them to “justify” the further concentration of wealth), that is not how wealth is measured. Wealth is not measured longitudinally through time, but rather synchronically, by taking a cross-sectional look at the percentage of the world’s resources/wealth one controls at a given point in time.
Most people didn’t have color in the 1950s because color TVs didn’t really exist in any numbers. Advances can be made in technology that can make it **cheaper** to produce a superior product than its predecessor. The fact that we’ve made this progess is remarkable and beneficial, but it does not mean that people are “wealthier” than they otherwise would be.
Wealth is measured relative to one’s peers. Therefore, if a family has less wealth than his/her peers vs. what their parents had compared to their peers in the past, one can say that today’s family less wealthy than their parents, even though technological improvements might have made things more convenient or nicer for them.
